CARDS ON THE TABLE
Agatha Christie
Chapter 1
MR. SHAITANA
"My dear Monsieur Poirot!"
It was a soft purring voice - a voice used deliberately as an instrument
- nothing impulsive or unpremeditated about it. Hercule Poirot swung
round.
He bowed. He shook hands ceremoniously.
There was something in his eye that was unusual. One would have said
that this chance encounter awakened in him an emotion that he
seldom had occasion to feel.
"My dear Mr. Shaitana," he said.
They both paused. They were like duelists en garde.
Around them a well-dressed languid London crowd eddied mildly.
Voices drawled or murmured.
"Darling - exquisite!"
"Simply divine, aren't they, my dear?"
It was the Exhibition of Snuffboxes at Wessex House. Admission one
guinea in aid of the London hospitals.
"My dear man," said Mr. Shaitana, "how nice to see you! Not hanging
or guillotining much just at present? Slack season in the criminal
world? Or is there to be a robbery here this afternoon? That would be
too delicious."
"Alas, monsieur," said Poirot, "I am here in a purely private capacity."
Mr. Shaitana was diverted for a moment by a Lovely Young Thing with
tight poodle curls up one side of her head and three cornucopias in
black straw on the other. He said, "My dear - why didn't you come to
my party? It really was a marvelous party! Quite a lot of people actually
spoke to me! One woman even said 'How do you do' and 'Good-by' and
'Thank you so much' - but of course she came from a Garden City, poor
dear!"
While the Lovely Young Thing made a suitable reply, Poirot allowed
himself a good study of the hirsute adornment on Mr. Shaitana's upper
lip.
A fine mustache - a very fine mustache - the only mustache in London,
perhaps, that could compete with that of Monsieur Hercule Poirot.
"But it is not so luxuriant," he murmured to himself. "No, decidedly it is
inferior in every respect. Tout de m.me, it catches the eye."
The whole of Mr. Shaitana's person caught the eye - it was designed to
do so. He deliberately attempted a Mephistophelean effect. He was tall
and thin; his face was long and melancholy; his eyebrows were heavily
accented and jet black; he wore a mustache with stiff waxed ends and
a tiny black imperial. His clothes were works of art - of exquisite cut -
but with a suggestion of the bizarre.
Every healthy Englishman who saw him longed earnestly and fervently
to kick him! They said, with a singular lack of originality, "There's that
damned Shaitana!" Their wives, daughters, sisters, aunts, mothers,
and even grandmothers said, varying the idiom according to their
generation, words to this effect - "I know, my dear. Of course he is too
terrible. But so rich! And such marvelous parties! And he's always got
something amusing and spiteful to tell you about people."
Whether Mr. Shaitana was an Argentine or a Portuguese or a Greek, or
some other nationality, nobody knew.
But three facts were quite certain.
He existed richly and beautifully in a super flat in Park Lane. He gave
wonderful parties - large parties, small parties, macabre parties,
respectable parties, and definitely "queer" parties. He was a man of
whom nearly everybody was a little afraid.
Why this last was so can hardly be stated in definite words. There was
a feeling, perhaps, that he knew a little too much about everybody.
And there was a feeling, too, that his sense of humor was a curious
one.
People nearly always felt that it would be better not to risk offending
Mr, Shaitana.
It was his humor this afternoon to bait that ridiculous looking little man,
Hercule Poirot.
"So even a policeman needs recreation?" he said. "You study the arts
in your old age, Monsieur Poirot."
Poirot smiled good-humoredly.
"I see," he said, "that you yourself have lent three snuff-boxes to the
exhibition."
Mr. Shaitana waved a deprecating hand. "One picks up trifles here and
there. You must come to my flat one day. I have some interesting
pieces. I do not confine myself to any particular period or class of
object."
"Your tastes are catholic," said Poirot, smiling.
"As you say."
Suddenly Mr. Shaitana's eyes danced, the corners of his lips curled up,
his eyebrows assumed a fantastic tilt.
"I could even show you objects in your own line, Monsieur Poirot!"
"You have then a private 'Black Museum'?"
"Bah!" Mr. Shaitana snapped disdainful fingers. "The cup used by the
Brighton murderer, the jimmy of a celebrated burglar - absurd
childishness! I should never burden myself with rubbish like that. I