Title: Getting A Lift
Fandom: Hercule Poirot
Rating: G
Length: 798 words
Summary: Poirot solves a case by travelling in a lift

Hercule Poirot looked round the hotel room.  The body of the dead financier Sir Jasper Rowland had been removed and, so far as he could see, there were no clues within the room.  It appeared that Sir Jasper had collapsed shortly after entering the room.

“Well, Poirot,” Inspector Japp said.  “We know that Sir Jasper collected his key from the reception desk at 4.15 and requested some tea be brought to his room at 4.30.  Several witnesses say he was quite well as he entered the lift, and yet, when the maid brought the tea at 4.30, he was dead on the floor.”

“The door to this room was not locked?” Poirot said.

“No, it was quite usual for Sir Jasper to leave the door unlocked so that he could remain at his desk while the tea was delivered.  The maid knocked as usual and came in.”

“And we can assume the fresh tea stains are where she spilled some tea in her fright.”

“Quite understandable in the circumstances.”

“Mais oui.  It is quite the puzzle, no?”

“Presumably someone else came into the room between Sir Jasper arriving and the maid bringing the tea.”

“And yet you say they were not seen.  It would be quite a risk to act then.  Why not wait until after the tea has been brought?”

“That I can’t answer for you, Poirot.”

“I have a little idea.  Come, Japp, I wish to conduct an experiment.”

Poirot and Japp took the lift back down to the ground floor, where Poirot spoke to the hall porter, who confirmed no-one had entered the lift with Sir Jasper and therefore he had been alone until he had reached his room.

“And which floor did Sir Jasper select when he entered the lift?” Poirot asked.

“It would have been the fifth floor, sir, that’s where his room was,” the hall porter replied.

“Of course.  Now, Japp, I will reverse our trip and return to the room.  Will you please stay down here and watch the front door for five minutes before you rejoin me.”

“Very well, Poirot, although I fail to see what you’re driving at.”

“All will become clear very soon.”

Japp did as Poirot had asked him before he returned to the fifth floor and the room Sir Jasper had been occupying.

“A simple question, Japp, to which floor did the lift bring me?” Poirot asked on his arrival.

“The fifth, of course.”

“Ah, but no, my friend.  I took the lift to the fourth floor.  I got out there and walked up the stairs.”

“And you think that was what Sir Jasper did?”

“I think it highly possible.  He gets off at the fourth floor, calls on someone who is expecting him in the room next to the lift.  There he is given an injection, he walks up the stairs, enters his room and collapses, for the substance injected is not what he expects but instead something of a fatal nature.”

“Then we must act quickly to detain whoever it is.”  Japp went to the door, ready to summon help.

“I do not think that will be necessary.  After all, we may assume that whoever did the deed has booked a room for the night, and it would raise suspicions were he to suddenly check out.  I imagine he feels quite safe, and will leave tomorrow morning, perhaps even having one or two more visitors before then.”

“Surely we must warn them?”

“I do not think our perpetrator will be murdering all his, how shall we say, clients.  That would be killing the swan which laid the silver egg.”

“Goose and golden egg.”

“What?  Ah, yes.  No, Sir Jasper, I believe, has recently suffered a reverse in his fortunes.  He has become a less than reliable client and must be got rid of before he causes a problem.  It might prove interesting if we can observe the room.”

“I’ll get onto the manager and arrange it.”

Japp departed and returned a few minutes later to confirm that suitable arrangements had been made.  Poirot and he waited and were rewarded by seeing two highly respectable, and extremely rich, ladies visit the room where Poirot suspected the perpetrator to be.  After which Japp himself knocked on the door, accompanied by two police constables, and, on entering, arrested the eminent physician inside.

Later, Japp called in on Poirot at his apartment in Whitehaven Mansions.

“I presume the doctor has denied all the charges,” Poirot said.

“No, quite the reverse.  He seems to believe that being a close personal friend of the Commissioner means he is above answering us,” Japp said.

“But that is not so?”

“Certainly not.  And the Commissioner was at some pains to confirm he only had a slight connection with the gentleman in question.”