'How did you know this window would be open?' I whispered, for really it seemed uncanny.
'Because I sawed through the catch this morning.'
'What?'
'But yes, it was the most simple. I called, presented a fictitious card and one of Inspector Japp's official ones. I said I had been sent, recommended by Scotland Yard, to attend to some burglarproof fastenings that Mr Lavington wanted fixed while he was away. The housekeeper welcomed me with enthusiasm. It seems they have had two attempted burglaries here lately - evidently our little idea has occurred to other clients of Mr Lavington's - with nothing of value taken. I examined all the windows, made my little arrangement, forbade the servants to touch the windows until tomorrow, as they were electrically connected up, and withdrew gracefully.'
'Really, Poirot, you are wonderful.'
'Mon ami, it was of the simplest. Now, to work! The servants sleep at the top of the house, so we will run little risk of disturbing them.'
'I presume the safe is built into the wall somewhere?'
'Safe? Fiddlesticks! There is no safe. Mr Lavington is an intelligent man. You will see, he will have devised a hiding-place much more intelligent than a safe. A safe is the first thing everyone looks for.'
Whereupon we began a systematic search of the entire place. But after several hours' ransacking of the house, our search had been unavailing. I saw symptoms of anger gathering on Poirot's face.
'Ah, sapristi, is Hercule Poirot to be beaten? Never! Let us be calm.
Let us reflect. Let us reason. Let us - enfin! - employ our little grey cells!'
He paused for some moments, bending his brows in concentration; then the green light I knew so well stole into his eyes.
'I have been an imbecile! The kitchen!'
'The kitchen,' I cried. 'But that's impossible. The servants!'
'Exactly. Just what ninety-nine people out of a hundred would say!
And for that very reason the kitchen is the ideal place to choose. It is full of various homely objects. En avant, to the kitchen!'
I followed him, completely sceptical, and watched whilst he dived into bread-bins, tapped saucepans, and put his head into the gasoven. In the end, tired of watching him, I strolled back to the study. I was convinced that there, and there only, would we find the cache.
I made a further minute search, noted that it was now a quarter past four and that therefore it would soon be growing light, and then went back to the kitchen regions.
To my utter amazement, Poirot was now standing right inside the coal-bin, to the utter ruin of his neat light suit. He made a grimace.
'But yes, my friend, it is against all my instincts so to ruin my appearance, but what will you?'
'But Lavington can't have buried it under the coal?'
'If you would use your eyes, you would see that it is not the coal that I examine.'
I then saw that on a shelf behind the coal-bunker some logs of wood were piled. Poirot was dexterously taking them down one by one.
Suddenly he uttered a low exclamation.
'Your knife, Hastings!'
I handed it to him. He appeared to insert it in the wood, and suddenly the log split in two. It had been neatly sawn in half and a cavity hollowed out in the centre. From this cavity Poirot took a little wooden box of Chinese make.
'Well done!' I cried, carried out of myself.
'Gently, Hastings! Do not raise your voice too much. Come, let us be off, before the daylight is upon us.'
Slipping the box into his pocket, he leaped lightly out of the coalbunker, brushed himself down as well as he could, and leaving the house by the same way as we had come, we walked rapidly in the direction of London.
'But what an extraordinary place!' I expostulated. 'Anyone might have used the log.'
'In July, Hastings? And it was at the bottom of the pile - a very ingenious hiding-place. Ah, here is a taxi! Now for home, a wash, and a refreshing sleep.'
After the excitement of the night, I slept late. When I finally strolled into our sitting-room just before one o'clock, I was surprised to see Poirot, leaning back in an armchair, the Chinese box open beside him, calmly reading the letter he had taken from it.
He smiled at me affectionately, and tapped the sheet he held.
'She was right, the Lady Millicent; never would the Duke have pardoned this letter! It contains some of the most extravagant terms of affection I have ever come across.'
'Really, Poirot,' I said, rather disgustedly, 'I don't think you should really have read the letter. That's the sort of thing that isn't done.'
'It is done by Hercule Poirot,' replied my friend imperturbably.
'And another thing,' I said. 'I don't think using Japp's official card yesterday was quite playing the game.'
'But I was not playing a game, Hastings. I was conducting a case.'
I shrugged my shoulders. One can't argue with a point of view.
'A step on the stairs,' said Poirot. 'That will be Lady Millicent.'
Our fair client came in with an anxious expression on her face which changed to one of delight on seeing the letter and box which Poirot held up.
'Oh, M. Poirot. How wonderful of you! How did you do it?'
'By rather reprehensible methods, milady. But Mr Lavington will not prosecute. This is your letter, is it not?'
She glanced through it.
'Yes. Oh, how can I ever thank you! You are a wonderful, wonderful man. Where was it hidden?'
Poirot told her.
'How very clever of you!' She took up the small box from the table. 'I shall keep this as a souvenir.'
'I had hoped, milady, that you would permit me to keep it - also as a souvenir.'
'I hope to send you a better souvenir than that - on my wedding day.
You shall not find me ungrateful, M. Poirot.'
'The pleasure of doing you a service will be more to me than a cheque - so you permit that I retain the box.'
'Oh no, M. Poirot, I simply must have that,' she cried laughingly.
She stretched out her hand, but Poirot was before her. His hand closed over it.
'I think not.' His voice had changed.
'What do you mean?' Her voice seemed to have grown sharper.
'At any rate, permit me to abstract its further contents. You observe that the original cavity has been reduced by half. In the top half, the compromising letter; in the bottom -'
He made a nimble gesture, then held out his hand. On the palm were four large glittering stones, and two big milky white pearls.
'The jewels stolen in Bond Street the other day, I rather fancy,' murmured Poirot. 'Japp will tell us.'
To my utter amazement, Japp himself stepped out from Poirot's bedroom.
'An old friend of yours, I believe,' said Poirot politely to Lady Millicent.
'Nabbed, by the Lord!' said Lady Millicent, with a complete change of manner. 'You nippy old devil!' She looked at Poirot with almost affectionate awe.
'Well, Gertie, my dear,' said Japp, 'the game's up this time, I fancy.
Fancy seeing you again so soon! We've got your pal, too, the gentleman who called here the other day calling himself Lavington.
As for Lavington himself, alias Croker, alias Reed, I wonder which of the gang it was who stuck a knife into him the other day in Holland? Thought he'd got the goods with him, didn't you? And he hadn't. He double-crossed you properly - hid 'em in his own house.
You had two fellows looking for them, and then you tackled M.
Poirot here, and by a piece of amazing luck he found them.'
'You do like talking, don't you?' said the late Lady Millicent. 'Easy there, now. I'll go quietly. You can't say that I'm not the perfect lady.
Ta-ta, all!'
'The shoes were wrong,' said Poirot dreamily, while I was still too stupefied to speak. 'I have made my little observations of your English nation, and a lady, a born lady, is always particular about her shoes. She may have shabby clothes, but she will be well shod.
Now, this Lady Millicent had smart, expensive clothes, and cheap shoes. It was not likely that either you or I should have seen the real Lady Millicent; she has been very little in London, and this girl had a certain superficial resemblance which would pass well enough. As I say, the shoes first awakened my suspicions, and then her story and her veil - were a little melodramatic, eh? The Chinese box with a bogus compromising letter in the top must have been known to all the gang, but the log of wood was the late Mr Lavington's own idea.
Eh, par exemple, Hastings, I hope you will not again wound my feelings as you did yesterday by saying that I am unknown to the criminal classes. Ma foi, they even employ me when they themselves fail!'
PROBLEM AT SEA
'Colonel Clapperton!' said General Forbes. He said it with an effect midway between a snort and a sniff.
Miss Ellie Henderson leaned forward, a strand of her soft grey hair blowing across her face. Her eyes, dark and snapping, gleamed with a wicked pleasure.
'Such a soldierly-looking man,' she said with malicious intent, and smoothed back the lock of hair to await the result.
'Soldierly!' exploded General Forbes. He tugged at his military moustache and his face became bright red.
'In the Guards, wasn't he?' murmured Miss Henderson, completing her work.
'Guards? Guards? Pack of nonsense. Fellow was on the music hall stage! Fact! Joined up and was out in France counting tins of plum and apple. Huns dropped a stray bomb and he went home with a flesh wound in the arm. Somehow or other got into Lady Carrington's hospital.'
'So that's how they met.'
'Fact! Fellow played the wounded hero. Lady Carrington had no sense and oceans of money. Old Carrington had been in munitions.
She'd been a widow only six months. This fellow snaps her up in no time. She wangled him a job at the War Office. Colonel Clapperton!
Pah!' he snorted.
'And before the war he was on the music hall stage,' mused Miss Henderson, trying to reconcile the distinguished grey-haired Colonel Clapperton with a red-nosed comedian singing mirthprovoking songs.
'Fact!' said General Forbes. 'Heard it from old Bassington-ffrench.
And he heard it from old Badger Cotterill who'd got it from Snooks Parker.'
Miss Henderson nodded brightly. 'That does seem to settle it!' she said.
A fleeting smile showed for a minute on the face of a small man sitting near them. Miss Henderson noticed the smile. She was observant. It had shown appreciation of the irony underlying her last remark - irony which the General never for a moment suspected.
The General himself did not notice the smiles. He glanced at his watch, rose and remarked: 'Exercise. Got to keep oneself fit on a boat,' and passed out through the open door on to the deck.
Miss Henderson glanced at the man who had smiled. It was a wellbred glance indicating that she was ready to enter into conversation with a fellow traveller.
'He is energetic - yes?' said the little man.
'He goes round the deck forty-eight times exactly,' said Miss Henderson. 'What an old gossip! And they say we are the scandalloving sex.'
'What an impoliteness!'
'Frenchmen are always polite,' said Miss Henderson - there was the nuance of a question in her voice.
The little man responded promptly. 'Belgian, mademoiselle.'
'Oh! Belgian.'
'Hercule Poirot. At your service.'
The name aroused some memory. Surely she had heard it before -?
'Are you enjoying this trip, M. Poirot?'
'Frankly, no. It was an imbecility to allow myself to be persuaded to come. I detest la mer. Never does it remain tranquil no, not for a little minute.'
'Well, you admit it's quite calm now.'
M. Poirot admitted this grudgingly. 'At the moment, yes. That is why I revive. I once more interest myself in what passes around me your very adept handling of the General Forbes, for instance.'
'You mean -' Miss Henderson paused.
Hercule Poirot bowed. 'Your methods of extracting the scandalous matter. Admirable!'
Miss Henderson laughed in an unashamed manner. 'That touch about the Guards? I knew that would bring the old boy up spluttering and gasping.' She leaned forward confidentially. 'I admit I like scandal - the more ill-natured, the better!'
Poirot looked thoughtfully at her - her slim well-preserved figure, her keen dark eyes, her grey hair; a woman of forty-five who was content to look her age.
Ellie said abruptly: 'I have it! Aren't you the great detective?'
Poirot bowed. 'You are too amiable, mademoiselle.' But he made no disclaimer.
'How thrilling,' said Miss Henderson. 'Are you "hot on the trail" as they say in books? Have we a criminal secretly in our midst? Or am I being indiscreet?'
'Not at all. Not at all. It pains me to disappoint your expectations, but I am simply here, like everyone else, to amuse myself.'
He said it in such a gloomy voice that Miss Henderson laughed.
'Oh! Well, you will be able to get ashore tomorrow at Alexandria.
You have been to Egypt before?'
'Never, mademoiselle.'
Miss Henderson rose somewhat abruptly.
'I think I shall join the General on his constitutional,' she announced.
Poirot sprang politely to his feet.
She gave him a little nod and passed out on to the deck.
A faint puzzled look showed for a moment in Poirot's eyes, then, a little smile creasing his lips, he rose, put his head through the door and glanced down the deck. Miss Henderson was leaning against the rail talking to a tall, soldierly-looking man.
Poirot's smile deepened. He drew himself back into the smokingroom with the same exaggerated care with which a tortoise withdraws itself into its shell. For the moment he had the smokingroom to himself, though he rightly conjectured that that would not last long.
It did not. Mrs Clapperton, her carefully waved platinum head protected with a net, her massaged and dieted form dressed in a smart sports suit, came through the door from the bar with the purposeful air of a woman who has always been able to pay top price for anything she needed.
She said: 'John -? Oh! Good morning, M. Poirot - have you seen John?'
'He's on the starboard deck, madame. Shall I -?'
She arrested him with a gesture. 'I'll sit here a minute.' She sat down in a regal fashion in the chair opposite him. From the distance she had looked a possible twenty-eight. Now, in spite of her exquisitely made-up face, her delicately plucked eyebrows, she looked not her actual forty-nine years, but a possible fifty-five. Her eyes were a hard pale blue with tiny pupils.
'I was sorry not to have seen you at dinner last night,' she said. 'It was just a shade choppy, of course -'
'Pré cisé ment,' said Poirot with feeling.
'Luckily, I am an excellent sailor,' said Mrs Clapperton. 'I say luckily, because, with my weak heart, seasickness would probably be the death of me.'
'You have the weak heart, madame?'
'Yes, I have to be most careful. I must not overtire myself. All the specialists say so!' Mrs Clapperton had embarked on the - to her ever-fascinating topic of her health. 'John, poor darling, wears himself out trying to prevent me from doing too much. I live so intensely, if you know what I mean, M. Poirot?'
'Yes, yes.'
'He always says to me: "Try to be more of a vegetable, Adeline." But I can't. Life was meant to be lived, I feel. As a matter of fact I wore myself out as a girl in the war. My hospital - you've heard of my hospital? Of course I had nurses and matrons and all that but I actually ran it.' She sighed.
'Your vitality is marvellous, dear lady,' said Poirot, with the slightly mechanical air of one responding to his cue.
Mrs Clapperton gave a girlish laugh.
'Everyone tells me how young I am! It's absurd. I never try to pretend I'm a day less than forty-three,' she continued with lightly mendacious candour, 'but a lot of people find it hard to believe.
> "You're so alive, Adeline," they say to me. But really, M. Poirot, what would one be if one wasn't alive?'
'Dead,' said Poirot.
Mrs Clapperton frowned. The reply was not to her liking. The man, she decided, was trying to be funny. She got up and said coldly: 'I must find John.'
As she stepped through the door she dropped her handbag. It opened and the contents flew far and wide. Poirot rushed gallantly to the rescue. It was some few minutes before the lipsticks, vanity boxes, cigarette case and lighter and other odds and ends were collected. Mrs Clapperton thanked him politely, then she swept down the deck and said, 'John!'
Colonel Clapperton was still deep in conversation with Miss Henderson. He swung round and came quickly to meet his wife. He bent over her protectively. Her deck chair - was it in the right place? Wouldn't it be better -? His manner was courteous - full of gentle consideration. Clearly an adored wife spoilt by an adoring husband.
Miss Ellie Henderson looked out at the horizon as though something about it rather disgusted her.
Standing in the smoking-room door, Poirot looked on.
A hoarse quavering voice behind him said: 'I'd take a hatchet to that woman if I were her husband.' The old gentleman known disrespectfully among the younger set on board as the Grandfather of All the Tea Planters, had just shuffled in. 'Boy!' he called. 'Get me a whisky peg.'
Poirot stooped to retrieve a torn scrap of notepaper, an overlooked item from the contents of Mrs Clapperton's bag. Part of a prescription, he noted, containing digitalin. He put it in his pocket, meaning to restore it to Mrs Clapperton later.
'Yes,' went on the aged passenger. 'Poisonous woman. I remember a woman like that in Poona. In '87 that was.'
'Did anyone take a hatchet to her?' inquired Poirot.
The old gentleman shook his head sadly.
'Worried her husband into his grave within the year. Clapperton ought to assert himself. Gives his wife her head too much.'
'She holds the purse strings,' said Poirot gravely.
'Ha, ha!' chuckled the old gentleman. 'You've put the matter in a nutshell. Holds the purse strings. Ha, ha!'
Short Stories Page 217
