Agatha Christie: The Labours of Hercules

"But you have a partner?"

"Who told you that?" asked the Countess sharply.

"Is your partner Paul Varesco?"

"Oh! Paul Varesco! What an idea!"

"He has a bad – a criminal record. Do you realise that you have criminals frequenting this place?"

The Countess burst out laughing.

"There speaks the bon bourgeois! Naturally I realise! Do you not see that that is half the attraction of this place? These young people from Mayfair – they get tired of seeing their own kind round them in the West End. They come here, they see the criminals; the thief, the blackmailer, the confidence trickster – perhaps, even, the murderer – the man who will be in the Sunday papers next week! It is exciting, that – they think they are seeing life! So does the prosperous man who all the week sells the knickers, the stockings, the corsets! What a change from his respectable life and his respectable friends! And then, a further thrill – there at a table, stroking his moustache, is the Inspector from Scotland Yard – an Inspector in tails!"

"So you knew that?" said Poirot softly.

Her eyes met his and he smiled.

"Mon cher ami, I am not so simple as you seem to suppose!"

"Do you also deal in drugs here?"

"Ah, ça no!" The Countess spoke sharply. "That would be an abomination!"

Poirot looked at her for a moment or two, then he sighed.

"I believe you," he said. "But in that case it is all the more necessary that you tell me who really owns this place."

"I own it," she snapped.

"On paper, yes. But there is someone behind you."

"Do you know, mon ami, I find you altogether too curious? Is he not much too curious, Dou-dou?"

Her voice dropped to a coo as she spoke the last words and she threw the duck bone from her plate to the big black hound who caught it with a ferocious snap of the jaws.

"What is it that you call that animal?" asked Poirot, diverted.

"C'est mon petit Dou-dou!"

"But it is ridiculous, a name like that!"

"But he is adorable! He is a police dog! He can do anything – anything – Wait!"

She rose, looked round her, and suddenly snatched up a plate with a large succulent steak which had just been deposited before a diner at a nearby table. She crossed to the marble niche and put the plate down in front of the dog, at the same time uttering a few words in Russian.

Cerberus gazed in front of him. The steak might not have existed.

"You see? And it is not just a matter of minutes! No, he will remain like that for hours if need be!"

Then she murmured a word and like lightning Cerberus bent his long neck and the steak disappeared as though by magic.

Vera Rossakoff flung her arms round the dog's neck and embraced him passionately, rising on tip-toe to do so.

"See how gentle he can be!" she cried. "For me, for Alice, for his friends – they can do what they like! But one has but to give him the word and Presto! I can assure you he would tear a – police inspector, for instance – into little pieces! Yes, into little pieces!"

She burst out laughing.

"I would have but to say the word -"

Poirot interrupted hastily. He mistrusted the Countess's sense of humour. Inspector Stevens might be in real danger.

"Professor Liskeard wants to speak to you."

The Professor was standing reproachfully at her elbow.

"You took my steak," he complained. "Why did you take my steak? It was a good steak!"

"Thursday night, old man," said Japp. "That's when the balloon goes up. It's Andrews' pigeon, of course – Narcotic Squad – but he'll be delighted to have you horn in. No, thanks, I won't have any of your fancy sirops. I have to take care of my stomach. Is that whisky I see over there? That's more the ticket!"

Setting his glass down, he went on: "We've solved the problem, I think. There's another way out at that Club – and we've found it!"

"Where?"

"Behind the grill. Part of it swings round."

"But surely you would see -"

"No, old boy. When the raid started, the lights went out – switched off at the main – and it took us a minute or two to get them turned on again. Nobody got out the front way because it was being watched, but it's clear now that somebody could have nipped out by the secret way with the doings. We've been examining the house behind the Club – and that's how we tumbled to the trick."

"And you propose to do – what?"

Japp winked. "Let it go according to plan – the police appear, the lights go out – and somebody's waiting on the other side of that secret door to see who comes through. This time we've got 'em!"

"Why Thursday?"

Again Japp winked. "We've got the Golconda pretty well taped now. There will be stuff going out of there on Thursday. Lady Carrington's emeralds."

"You permit," said Poirot, "that I too make one or two little arrangements?"

Sitting at his usual small table near the entrance on Thursday night Poirot studied his surroundings. As usual Hell was going with a swing!

The Countess was even more flamboyantly made up than usual if that was possible. She was being very Russian tonight, clapping her hands and screaming with laughter. Paul Varesco had arrived. Sometimes he wore faultless evening dress, sometimes, as tonight, he chose to present himself in a kind of apache get-up, tightly-buttoned coat, scarf round the neck. He looked vicious and attractive. Detaching himself from a stout, middle-aged woman plastered with diamonds, he leaned over Alice Cunningham who was sitting at a table writing busily in a little notebook and asked her to dance. The stout woman scowled at Alice and looked at Varesco with adoring eyes.

There was no adoration in Miss Cunningham's eyes. They gleamed with pure scientific interest, and Poirot caught fragments of their conversation as they danced past him. She had progressed beyond the nursery governess and was now seeking information about the matron at Paul's preparatory school.

When the music stopped, she sat down by Poirot looking happy and excited.

"Most interesting," she said. "Varesco will be one of the most important cases in my book. The symbolism is unmistakable. Trouble about the vests for instance – for vest read hair shirt with all its associations – and the whole thing becomes quite plain. You may say that he's a definitely criminal type but a cure can be effected -"

"That she can reform a rake,-" said Poirot, "has always been one of woman's dearest illusions!"

Alice Cunningham looked at him coldly.

"There is nothing personal about this, M. Poirot."

"There never is," said Poirot. "It is always pure disinterested altruism – but the object of it is usually an attractive member of the opposite sex. Are you interested, for instance, in where I went to school, or what was the attitude of the matron to me?"

"You are not a criminal type," said Miss Cunningham.

"Do you know a criminal type when you see one?"

"Certainly I do."

Professor Liskeard joined them. He sat down by Poirot.

"Are you talking about criminals? You should study the criminal code of Hammurabi, M. Poirot.1800 BC. Most interesting. The man who is caught stealing during a fire shall be thrown into the fire."

He stared pleasurably ahead of him towards the electric grill.

"And there are older, Sumerian laws. If a wife hateth her husband and saith unto him, 'Thou art not my husband' they shall throw her into the river. Cheaper and easier than the divorce court. But if a husband says that to his wife he only has to pay her a certain measure of silver. Nobody throws him in the river."

"The same old story," said Alice Cunningham. "One law for the man and one for the woman."

"Women, of course, have a greater appreciation of monetary value," said the Professor thoughtfully. "You know," he added, "I like this place. I come here most evenings. I don't have to pay. The Countess arranged that – very nice of her – in consideration of my having advised her about the decorations, she says. Not that they're anything to do with me really – I'd no idea what she was asking me questions for – and naturally she and the artist have got everything quite wrong. I hope nobody will ever know I had the remotest connection with the dreadful things. I should never live it down. But she's a wonderful woman – rather like a Babylonian, I always think. The Babylonians were good women of business, you know -"