Cards on the Table Read Online Free PDF Page B

Battle began.
    “You must do your duty, of course,” said Mrs. Lorrimer quietly. “It is, I agree, an unpleasant position in which to be placed, but there is no good shirking it. I quite realize that one of the four people in that room must be guilty. Naturally I can't expect you to take my word that I am not the person.”
    She accepted the chair that Colonel Race offered her and sat down opposite the superintendent. Her intelligent gray eyes met his. She waited attentively.
    “You knew Mr. Shaitana well?” began the superintendent.
    “Not very well. I have known him over a period of some years, but never intimately.”
    “Where did you meet him?”
    “At a hotel in Egypt - the Winter Palace at Luxor, I think.”
    “What did you think of him?”
    Mrs. Lorrimer shrugged her shoulders slightly.
    “I thought him - I may as well say so - rather a charlatan.”
    “You had - excuse me for asking - no motive for wishing him out of the way?”
    Mrs. Lorrimer looked slightly amused.
    “Really, Superintendent Battle, do you think I should admit it if I had?”
    “You might,” said Battle. “A really intelligent person might know that a thing was bound to come out.”
    Mrs. Lorrimer inclined her head thoughtfully.
    “There is that, of course. No, Superintendent Battle, I had no motive for wishing Mr. Shaitana out of the way. It is really a matter of indifference to me whether he is alive or dead. I thought him a poser and rather theatrical, and sometimes he irritated me. That is - or rather was - my attitude toward him.”
    “That is that, then. Now, Mrs. Lorrimer, can you tell me anything about your three companions?”
    “I'm afraid not. Major Despard and Miss Meredith I met for the first time tonight. Both of them seem charming people. Doctor Roberts I know slightly. He's a very popular doctor, I believe.”
    “He is not your own doctor?”
    “Oh, no.”
    “Now, Mrs. Lorrimer, can you tell me how often you got up from your seat tonight, and will you also describe the movements of the other three?”
    Mrs. Lorrimer did not take any time to think.
    “I thought you would probably ask me that. I have been trying to think it out. I got up once myself when I was dummy. I went over to the fire. Mr. Shaitana was alive then. I mentioned to him how nice it was to see a wood fire.”
    “And he answered?”
    “That he hated radiators.”
    “Did anyone overhear your conversation?”
    “I don't think so. I lowered my voice not to interrupt the players.” She added dryly, “In fact you have only my word for it that Mr. Shaitana was alive and spoke to me.”
    Superintendent Battle made no protest. He went on with his quiet methodical questioning.
    “What time was that?”
    “I should think we had been playing a little over an hour.”
    “What about the others?”
    “Doctor Roberts got me a drink. He also got himself one - that was later. Major Despard also went to get a drink - at about eleven-fifteen, I should say.”
    “Only once?”
    “No - twice, I think. The men moved about a fair amount, but I didn't notice what they did. Miss Meredith left her seat once only I think. She went round to look at her partner's hand.”
    “But she remained near the bridge table?”
    “I couldn't say at all. She may have moved away.”
    Battle nodded. “It's all very vague,” he grumbled.
    “I am sorry.”
    Once again Battle did his conjuring trick and produced the long, delicate stiletto.
    “Will you look at this, Mrs. Lorrimer?”
    Mrs. Lorrimer took it without emotion.
    “Have you ever seen that before?”
    “Never.”
    “Yet it was lying on a table in the drawing-room.”
    “I didn't notice it.”
    “You realize, perhaps, Mrs. Lorrimer, that with a weapon like that a woman could do the trick just as easily as a man.”
    “I suppose she could,” said Mrs. Lorrimer quietly.
    She leaned forward and handed the dainty little thing back to him.
    “But all the same,” said Superintendent Battle, “the woman would have