Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot's Casebook

'You know of nobody who is - jealous of you?'

'Absurd!'

'At any rate you will admit that my questions about your personal relationships with the members of this house-part are not totally irrelevant.'

'Oh, perhaps - perhaps. You asked me about Julia Cartington.

There's really not very much to say. I've never taken to he very much, and I don't think she cares for me. She's one of these restless, nervy women, recklessly extravagant and mad about cards. She's old-fashioned enough, I think, to despise me as being a self-made man.'

Poirot said:

'I looked you up in Who's Who before I came down. You were the head of a famous engineering firm and you are yourself a first-class engineer.'

'There's certainly nothing I don't know about the practical side. I've worked my way up from the bottom.'

Lord Mayfield spoke rather grimly.

'Oh la la!' cried Poirot. 'I have been a fool - but a fool!'

The other stared at him.

'I beg your pardon, M. Poirot' . .

‘It is that a portion of the puzzle has become clear to me. Something I did not see before… But it all fits in. Yes—it fits in with beautiful precision.’

Lord Mayfield looked at him in somewhat astonished inquiry.

But with a slight smile Poirot shook his head.

‘No, no, not now. I must arrange my ideas a little more clearly.’

He rose.

‘Goodnight, Lord Mayfield. I think I know where those plans are.’

Lord Mayfield cried out:

'You know? Then let us gel hold of them at once!'

Poirot shook his head.

'No, no, that would not do. Precipitancy would be fatal. But leave it all to Hercule Poirot'

He went out of the room. :ord Mayfield raised his shoulders in contempt.

‘Man’s a mountebank,’ he muttered. Then, putting away his papers and turning out the lights, he, too, made his way up to bed.

‘If there’s been a burglary, why the devil doesn’t old Mayfield send for the police?’ demanded Reggie Carrington.

He pushed his chair slightly back from the breakfast table.

He was the last down. His host, Mrs Macatta and Sir George had finished their breakfasts some time before. His mother and Mrs Vanderlyn were breakfasting in bed.

Sir George, repeating his statement on the lines agreed upon between Lord Mayfield and Hercule Poirot, had a feeling that he was not managing it as well as he might have done.

'To send for a queer foreigner like this seems very odd tl me,' said Reggie. 'What has been taken, Father?'

'I don't know exactly, my boy.'

Reggie got up. He looked rather nervy and on edge this morlling.

'Nothing - important? No - papers or anything like that?'

'To tell you the truth, Reggie, I can't tell you exactly.'

'Very hush-hush, is it? I see.'

Reggie ran up the stairs, paused for a moment haft-way with a frown on his face, and then continued his ascent ami tapped on his mother's door. Her voice bade him enter.

Lady Julia was sitting up in bed, scribbling figures on the back of an envelope.

'Good morning, darling.' She looked up, then said sharply:

'Reggie, is anything the matter?'

'Nothing much, but it seems there was a burglary last night.'

'A burglary? What was taken?'

'Oh, I don't know. It's all very hush hush. There's some odd kind of private-inquiry agent downstairs asking everybody questions.'

'How extraordinary?

'It's rather unpleasant,' said Reggie slowly, 'staying in a house when that kind of thing happens.'

'What did happen exactly?'

'Don't know. It was some time after we all went to bed. Look out, Mother, you'll have that tray off.'

He rescued the breakfast-tray and carried it to a table by the window.

'Was money taken?'

'I tell you I don't know.'

Lady Julia said slowly:

'I suppose this inquiry man is asking everybody questions?'

'I suppose so.'

'Where they were last night? All that kind of thing?'

'Probably. Well, I can't tell him much. I went straight up to bed and was asleep in next to no time.'

Lady Julia did not answer.

'I say, Mother, I suppose you couldn't let me have a spot of cash. I'm absolutely broke.'

'No, I couldn't,' his mother replied decisively. 'I've got the most frightful overdraft myself. I don't know what your father will say when he hears about it.'

There was a tap at the door and Sir George entered.

'Ah, there you are, Reggie. Will you go down to the library?

M. Hercule Poirot wants to see you.'

Poirot had just concluded an interview with the redoubtable Mrs Macatta.

A few brief questions had elicited the information that Mm Macatta had gone up to bed just before eleven, and had heard or seen nothing helpful.

Poirot slid gently from the topic of the burglary to more personal matters. He himself had a great admiration for Lord Mayfield. As a member of the general public he felt that Lord Mayfield was a truly great man. Of course, Mrs Macatta, being in the know, would have a far better means of estimating that than himself.

'Lord Mayfield has brains,' allowed Mrs Macatta. 'And he has carved his career out entirely for himself. He owes nothing to hereditary influence. He has a certain lack of vision, perhaps.

In that I find all men sadly alike. They lack the breadth of a woman's imagination. Woman, M. Poirot, is going to be the great force in government in ten years' time.'

Poirot said that he was sure of it.

He slid to the topic of Mrs Vanderlyn. Was it true, as he had heard hinted, that she and Lord Mayfield were very dose friends?

'Not in the least. To tell you the truth I was very surprised to meet her here. Very surprised indeed.'

Poirot invited Mrs Macatta's opinion of Mrs Vanderlyn and got it.

'One of those absolutely useless women, M. Poirot. Women that make one despair of one's own sex! A parasite, first and last a parasite.'

'Men admired her?'

'Men? Mrs Macatta spoke the word with contempt. Then are always taken in by those very Obvious good looks. That boy, now, young Reggie Carrington, flushing up every time she spoke to him, absurdly flattered by being taken notice of by her. And the silly way she flattered him too. Praising his bridge - which actually was far from brilliant.'

'He is not a good player?'

'He made all sorts of mistakes last night.'

'Lady Julia is a good player, is she not?'

'Much too good in my opinion,' said Mrs Macatta. 'It's almost a profession with her. She plays morning, noon, and night.'

'For high stakes?'

'Yes, indeed, much higher than I would care to play. Indeed I shouldn't consider it right.'

'She makes a good deal of money at the game?'

Mrs.Macatta gave a loud and virtuous snort.

'She reckons on paying her debts that way. But she's been having a run of bad luck lately, so I've heard. She looked last night as though she had something on her mind. The evils of gambling, M. Poirot, are only slightly less than the evils caused by drink. If I had my way this country should be purified -'

Poirot was forced to listen to a somewhat lengthy discussion on the purification of England's morals. Then he closed the conversation adroitly and sent for Reggie Carrington.

He summed the young man up carefully as he entered the room, the weak mouth camouflaged by the rather charming smile, the indecisive chin, the eyes set far apart, the rather narrow head. He thought that he knew Reggie Carrington's type fairly well.

'Mr Reggie Carrington?'

'Yes. Anything I can do?'

'Just tell me what you can about last night?'

'Well, let me see, we played bridge - in the drawing-room.

After that I went up to bed.'

'That was at what time?'

'Just before eleven. I suppose the robbery took place after that?'

'Yes, after that. You did not hear or see anything?'