[adapted]

by
Agatha Christie

Poirot and I were expecting our old friend Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard for tea. We were sitting round the tea-table waiting for him to arrive. Poirot had just finished carefully putting the cups and saucers in order, which our landlady usually threw, not put, on the table. He had also breathed heavily on the metal teapot, and rubbed it clean with a silk cloth. The kettle was boiling, and a small pan beside it held some thick, sweet chocolate which Poirot liked more than what he called “your English poison.” A sharp “rat-tat” sounded downstairs, and a few minutes later Japp came in quickly.

“Hope I’m not late,” he said as he said hello to us. “To tell the truth, I was chatting with Miller, the man who’s in charge of the Davenheim case.”

I became very interested. For the last three days the newspapers had been full of the strange disappearance of Mr. Davenheim, the main partner of Davenheim and Salmon, the well-known bankers and people who work with money. Last Saturday he walked out of his house, and no one had seen him since then. I looked forward to getting some interesting details from Japp.

“I would have thought,” I said, “that it would be almost impossible for anyone to ‘disappear’ these days.”

Poirot moved a plate of bread and butter a tiny bit, and said quickly:

“Be clear, my friend. What do you mean by ‘disappear’? Which kind of disappearance are you talking about?”

“Are people who disappear put into groups and given names, then?” I laughed.

Japp smiled too. Poirot looked unhappy at us both.

“But of course they are! They fall into three groups: First, and most common, the disappearance by choice. Second, the much misused ‘loss of memory’ case — rare, but sometimes real. Third, murder, and a more or less successful getting rid of the body. Do you call all three impossible to do?”

“Almost so, I think. You might lose your memory, but someone would be sure to recognize you — especially with a well-known man like Davenheim. Then ‘bodies’ can’t be made to disappear into thin air. Sooner or later they are found, hidden in quiet places, or in big boxes. Murder will be found out. In the same way, the runaway clerk, or the servant who has stolen, is sure to be caught in these days of radio. He can be stopped from going to foreign countries; ports and railway stations are watched; and, as for hiding in this country, his face and looks will be known to everyone who reads a daily paper. He’s up against modern life.”

“My friend,” said Poirot, “you make one error. You do not think about the fact that a man who has decided to make another man disappear — or to make himself disappear, so to speak — might be that rare thing, a man of method. He might use intelligence, talent, and careful thinking about details for the task; and then I do not see why he should not be successful in puzzling the police.”

“But not you, I guess?” said Japp in a friendly way, winking at me. “He couldn’t confuse you, right, Monsieur Poirot?”

Poirot tried, with little success, to look not proud. “Me, too! Why not? It is true that I work on such problems in an exact, scientific way, very exact, like in mathematics, which seems, sadly, very rare in the new generation of detectives!”

Japp smiled more widely.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Miller, the man who is working on this case, is a clever man. You can be very sure he won’t miss a footprint, or a cigar ash, or even a crumb. He has eyes that see everything.”

“So, my friend,” said Poirot, “has the London sparrow. But still, I should not ask the little brown bird to solve the problem of Mr. Davenheim.”

“Come now, sir, you’re not going to say that small details are not useful as clues?”

“Not at all. These things are all good in their way. The danger is they may become too important. Most details are not important; one or two are very important. It is the brain, the little grey cells” — he tapped his forehead — “that one must trust. The senses can trick us. One must look for the truth inside — not outside.”

“You don’t really mean, Monsieur Poirot, that you would try to solve a case without moving from your chair, do you?”

“That is exactly what I do mean — if the facts were given to me. I think of myself as a specialist who gives advice.”

Japp slapped his knee. “All right, I will believe you. I bet you five pounds that you can’t find — or rather tell me where to find — Mr. Davenheim, dead or alive, before a week is over.”

Poirot thought. “Well, my friend, I accept. Sport, it is what you English love. Now — the facts.”

“Last Saturday, as he usually did, Mr. Davenheim took the 12:40 train from Victoria to Chingside, where his very large country house, The Cedars, is. After lunch, he walked around the garden, and gave some orders to the gardeners. Everyone agrees that he seemed completely normal and as usual. After tea he looked into his wife’s sitting room, saying that he was going to walk down to the village and post some letters. He added that he was expecting a Mr. Lowen, on business. If he came before he returned, he was to be shown into the study and asked to wait. Mr. Davenheim then left the house by the front door, walked slowly down the drive, and out at the gate, and — was never seen again. From that hour, he disappeared completely.”

“Pretty — very pretty — a very nice little problem,” said Poirot quietly. “Go on, my good friend.”

“About fifteen minutes later a tall, dark man with a thick black moustache rang the front-door bell, and said that he had a meeting with Mr. Davenheim. He gave the name of Lowen, and, as the banker had told them, was shown into the study. Nearly an hour passed. Mr. Davenheim did not return. Finally Mr. Lowen rang the bell, and said that he could not wait any longer, as he had to catch his train back to town. Mrs. Davenheim said sorry for her husband’s absence, which seemed strange, as she knew he had been expecting the visitor. Mr. Lowen said he was sorry again and left.”

“Well, as everyone knows, Mr. Davenheim did not return. Early on Sunday morning the police were told, but they could not understand the matter at all. Mr. Davenheim seemed to have disappeared into thin air. He had not been to the post office; nor had he been seen passing through the village. At the station they were sure he had not left by any train. His own car had not left the garage. If he had hired a car to meet him in some lonely place, it seems almost certain that by now, because of the large reward offered for information, the driver would have come forward to tell what he knew. It is true there was a small race meeting at Entfield, five miles away, and if he had walked to that station he might have passed unnoticed in the crowd. But since then his photograph and a full description of him have been printed in every newspaper, and nobody has been able to give any news of him. We have, of course, received many letters from all over England, but each clue, so far, has ended in disappointment.”

“On Monday morning another surprising discovery was made. Behind a curtain in Mr. Davenheim’s study there is a safe, and that safe had been broken into and robbed. The windows were locked on the inside, which seems to make an ordinary burglary impossible, unless, of course, a helper inside the house locked them again later. On the other hand, since Sunday came in between, and the household was in a mess, it is likely that the burglary was done on the Saturday, and was not noticed until Monday.”

“Exactly,” said Poirot calmly. “Well, is he arrested, that poor Mr. Lowen?”

Japp smiled. “Not yet. But he is being watched very closely.”

Poirot nodded. “What was taken from the safe? Do you have any idea?”

“We have been looking into that with the junior partner of the company and Mrs. Davenheim. It seems there was a large amount in bearer bonds, and a very large amount in banknotes, because a big deal had just been completed. There was also jewellery worth a lot of money. All Mrs. Davenheim’s jewels were kept in the safe. Buying them had become a passion for her husband in the last few years, and hardly a month passed when he did not give her a present of some rare and expensive jewel.”

“Altogether a good result,” said Poirot, thinking. “Now, what about Lowen? Do we know what he wanted with Davenheim that evening?”

“Well, the two men were, it seems, not very friendly with each other. Lowen buys and sells shares in a small way. Even so, he has been able once or twice to beat Davenheim in the market, though it seems they almost never actually met. It was about some South American shares, and this made the banker make an appointment.”

“Did Davenheim have business in South America, then?”

“I believe so. Mrs. Davenheim said that he spent all last autumn in Buenos Ayres.”

“Any trouble in his home life? Did the husband and wife get along well?”

“I would say his home life was quite peaceful and nothing much happened. Mrs. Davenheim is a pleasant, not very smart woman. Quite a person of no importance, I think.”

“Then we must not look for the answer to the mystery there. Did he have any enemies?”

“He had many business rivals, and I am sure there are many people he has beaten who do not like him much. But there was no one likely to kill him — and, if they had, where is the body?”

“Exactly. As Hastings says, dead bodies keep being found.”

“By the way, one of the gardeners says he saw a person going around to the side of the house toward the rose garden. The long glass door of the study room opens onto the rose garden, and Mr. Davenheim often went in and out of the house that way. But the man was a long way off, working on some frames for cucumbers, and cannot even say whether it was his master or not. Also, he cannot say the time exactly. It must have been before six, as the gardeners stop work at that time.”

“And Mr. Davenheim left the house?”

“About half past five or so.”

“What is beyond the rose garden?”

“A lake.”

“With a boathouse?”

“Yes, a couple of small boats are kept there. I suppose you’re thinking of suicide, Monsieur Poirot? Well, I don’t mind telling you that Miller’s going down tomorrow specially to see that bit of water searched with a net. That’s the kind of man he is!”

Poirot smiled a little, and turned to me. “Hastings, please, give me that copy of the Daily Megaphone. If I remember correctly, there is a very clear photo there of the missing man.”

I got up, and found the sheet needed. Poirot looked at the face carefully.

“H’m!” he said quietly. “Wears his hair quite long and wavy, thick moustache and pointed beard, thick eyebrows. Eyes dark?”

“Yes.”

“Hair and beard turning grey?”

The detective nodded. “Well, Mr. Poirot, what do you have to say about it all? Clear as day, right?”

“Actually, very unclear.”

The Scotland Yard man looked happy.