Agatha Christie: The Labours of Hercules

Hercule Poirot looked down at the tips of his patent-leather shoes and sighed. He felt forlorn and very much alone. The standards by which he lived were here not appreciated.

His eyes swept slowly up and down the desolate coast line, then once more out to sea. Somewhere out there, so tradition had it, were the Isles of the Blest, the Land of Youth…

He murmured to himself: "The Apple Tree, the Singing and the Gold…"

And suddenly, Hercule Poirot was himself again – the spell was broken, he was once more in harmony with his patent-leather shoes and natty, dark grey gent's suiting.

Not very far away he had heard the toll of a bell. He understood that bell. It was a sound he had been familiar with from early youth.

He set off briskly along the cliff. In about ten minutes he came in sight of the building on the cliff. A high wall surrounded it and a great wooden door studded with nails was set in the wall. Hercule Poirot came to this door and knocked. There was a vast iron knocker. Then he cautiously pulled at a rusty chain and a shrill little bell tinkled briskly inside the door.

A small panel in the door was pushed aside and showed a face. It was a suspicious face, framed in starched white. There was a distinct moustache on the upper lip, but the voice was the voice of a woman, it was the voice of what Hercule Poirot called a femme formidable.

It demanded his business.

"Is this the Convent of St Mary and All Angels?"

The formidable woman said with asperity: "And what else would it be?"

Hercule Poirot did not attempt to answer that. He said to the dragon: "I would like to see the Mother Superior."

The dragon was unwilling, but in the end she yielded. Bars were drawn back, the door opened and Hercule Poirot was conducted to a small bare room where visitors to the Convent were received.

Presently a nun glided in, her rosary swinging at her waist.

Hercule Poirot was a Catholic by birth. He understood the atmosphere in which he found himself.

"I apologise for troubling you, ma mère," he said, "but you have here, I think, a religieuse who was, in the world, Kate Casey."

The Mother Superior bowed her head.

She said: "That is so. Sister Mary Ursula in religion."

Hercule Poirot said: "There is a certain wrong that needs righting. I believe that Sister Mary Ursula could help me. She has information that might be invaluable."

The Mother Superior shook her head. Her face was placid, her voice calm and remote. She said: "Sister Mary Ursula cannot help you."

"But I assure you -"

He broke off. The Mother Superior said: "Sister Mary Ursula died two months ago."

In the saloon bar of Jimmy Donovan's Hotel, Hercule Poirot sat uncomfortably against the wall. The hotel did not come up to his ideas of what a hotel should be. His bed was broken – so were two of the window panes in his room – thereby admitting that night air which Hercule Poirot distrusted so much. The hot water brought him had been tepid and the meal he had eaten was producing curious and painful sensations in his inside.

There were five men in the bar and they were all talking politics. For the most part Hercule Poirot could not understand what they said. In any case, he did not much care.

Presently he found one of the men sitting beside him. This was a man of slightly different class to the others. He had the stamp of the seedy townsman upon him.

He said with immense dignity: "I tell you, sir. I tell you – Pegeen's Pride hasn't got a chance, not a chance… bound to finish right down the course – right down the course. You take my tip… everybody ought to take my tip. Know who I am, sir, do you know, I shay? Atlas, thatsh who I am – Atlas of the Dublin Sun… been tipping winnersh all the season… Didn't I give Larry's Girl? Twenty-five to one – twenty-five to one. Follow Atlas and you can't go wrong."

Hercule Poirot regarded him with a strange reverence. He said, and his voice trembled: "Mon Dieu, it is an omen!"

It was some hours later. The moon showed from time to time, peeping out coquettishly from behind the clouds. Poirot and his new friend had walked some miles. The former was limping. The idea crossed his mind that there were, after all, other shoes – more suitable to country walking than patent-leather. Actually George had respectfully conveyed as much. "A nice pair of brogues," was what George had said.

Hercule Poirot had not cared for the idea. He liked his feet to look neat and well-shod. But now, tramping along this stony path, he realised that there were other shoes…

His companion said suddenly: "Is it the way the Priest would be after me for this? I'll not have a mortal sin upon my conscience."

Hercule Poirot said: "You are only restoring to Caesar the things which are Caesar's."

They had come to the wall of the Convent. Atlas prepared to do his part.

A groan burst from him and he exclaimed in low, poignant tones that he was destroyed entirely!

Hercule Poirot spoke with authority.

"Be quiet. It is not the weight of the world that you have to support – only the weight of Hercule Poirot."

Atlas was turning over two new five pound notes.

He said hopefully: "Maybe I'll not remember in the morning the way I earned this. I'm after worrying that Father O'Reilly will be after me."

"Forget everything, my friend. Tomorrow the world is yours."

Atlas murmured: "And what'll I put it on? There's Working Lad, he's a grand horse, a lovely horse he is! And there's Sheila Boyne.7 to 1 I'd get on her."

He paused.

"Was it my fancy now or did I hear you mention the name of a heathen god? Hercules, you said, and glory be to God, there's a Hercules running in the three-thirty tomorrow."

"My friend," said Hercule Poirot, "put your money on that horse. I tell you this, Hercules cannot fail."

And it is certainly true that on the following day Mr Rosslyn's Hercules very unexpectedly won the Boynan Stakes, starting price 60 to 1.

Deftly Hercule Poirot unwrapped the neatly done-up parcel. First the brown paper, then the wadding, lastly the tissue paper.

On the desk in front of Emery Power he placed a gleaming golden cup. Chased on it was a tree bearing apples of green emeralds.

The financier drew a deep breath. He said: "I congratulate you, M. Poirot."

Hercule Poirot bowed.

Emery Power stretched out a hand. He touched the rim of the goblet, drawing his finger round it.

He said in a deep voice: "Mine!"

Hercule Poirot agreed. "Yours!"

The other gave a sigh. He leaned back in his chair.

He said in a businesslike voice: "Where did you find it?"

Hercule Poirot said: "I found it on an altar."

Emery Power stared.

Poirot went on: "Casey's daughter was a nun. She was about to take her final vows at the time of her father's death. She was an ignorant but a devout girl. The cup was hidden in her father's house in Liverpool. She took it to the Convent wanting, I think, to atone for her father's sins. She gave it to be used to the glory of God. I do not think that the nuns themselves ever realised its value. They took it, probably, for a family heirloom. In their eyes it was a chalice and they used it as such."

Emery Power said: "An extraordinary story!" He added: "What made you think of going there?"

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

"Perhaps – a process of elimination. And then there was the extraordinary fact that no one had ever tried to dispose of the cup. That looked, you see, as though it were in a place where ordinary material values did not apply. I remembered that Patrick Casey's daughter was a nun."

Power said heartily: "Well, as I said before, I congratulate you. Let me know your fee and I'll write you a cheque."