The Daily Newsmonger enabled us to become conversant with succeeding events.
Signor Ascanio was arrested and charged with the murder of Count Foscatini. When arrested, he denied knowing the Count, and declared he had never been near Regent’s Court either on the evening of the crime or on the previous morning. The younger man had disappeared entirely. Signor Ascanio had arrived alone at the Grosvenor Hotel from the Continent two days before the murder. All efforts to trace the second man failed.
Ascanio, however, was not sent for trial. No less a personage than the Italian Ambassador himself came forward and testified at the police-court proceedings that Ascanio had been with him at the Embassy from eight till nine that evening. The prisoner was discharged. Naturally, a lot of people thought that the crime was a political one, and was being deliberately hushed up.
Poirot had taken a keen interest in all these points. Nevertheless, I was somewhat surprised when he suddenly informed me one morning that he was expecting a visitor at eleven o’clock, and that the visitor was none other than Ascanio himself.
‘He wishes to consult you?’
‘Du tout, Hastings, I wish to consult him.’
‘What about?’
‘The Regent’s Court murder.’
‘You are going to prove that he did it?’
‘A man cannot be tried twice for murder, Hastings. Endeavour to have the common sense. Ah, that is our friend’s ring.’
A few minutes later Signor Ascanio was ushered in—a small, thin man with a secretive and furtive glance in his eyes. He remained standing, darting suspicious glances from one to the other of us.
‘Monsieur Poirot?’
My little friend tapped himself gently on the chest.
‘Be seated, signor. You received my note. I am determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. In some small measure you can aid me. Let us commence. You—in company with a friend—visited the late Count Foscatini on the morning of Tuesday the 9th—’
The Italian made an angry gesture.
‘I did nothing of the sort. I have sworn in court—’
‘Précisément—and I have a little idea that you have sworn falsely.’
‘You threaten me? Bah! I have nothing to fear from you. I have been acquitted.’
‘Exactly; and as I am not an imbecile, it is not with the gallows I threaten you—but with publicity. Publicity! I see that you do not like the word. I had an idea that you would not. My little ideas, you know, they are very valuable to me. Come, signor, your only chance is to be frank with me. I do not ask to know whose indiscretions brought you to England. I know this much, you came for the special purpose of seeing Count Foscatini.’
‘He was not a count,’ growled the Italian.
‘I have already noted the fact that his name does not appear in the Almanach de Gotha. Never mind, the title of count is often useful in the profession of blackmailing.’
‘I suppose I might as well be frank. You seem to know a good deal.’
‘I have employed my grey cells to some advantage. Come, Signor Ascanio, you visited the dead man on the Tuesday morning—that is so, is it not?’
‘Yes; but I never went there on the following evening. There was no need. I will tell you all. Certain information concerning a man of great position in Italy had come into this scoundrel’s possession. He demanded a big sum of money in return for the papers. I came over to England to arrange the matter. I called upon him by appointment that morning. One of the young secretaries of the Embassy was with me. The Count was more reasonable than I had hoped, although even then the sum of money I paid him was a huge one.’
‘Pardon, how was it paid?’
‘In Italian notes of comparatively small denomination. I paid over the money then and there. He handed me the incriminating papers. I never saw him again.’
‘Why did you not say all this when you were arrested?’
‘In my delicate position I was forced to deny any association with the man.’
‘And how do you account for the events of the evening then?’
‘I can only think that someone must have deliberately impersonated me. I understand that no money was found in the flat.’
Poirot looked at him and shook his head.
‘Strange,’ he murmured. ‘We all have the little grey cells. And so few of us know how to use them. Good morning, Signor Ascanio. I believe your story. It is very much as I had imagined. But I had to make sure.’
After bowing his guest out, Poirot returned to his armchair and smiled at me.
‘Let us hear M. le Capitaine Hastings on the case.’
‘Well, I suppose Ascanio is right—somebody impersonated him.’
‘Never, never will you use the brains the good God has given you. Recall to yourself some words I uttered after leaving the flat that night. I referred to the window-curtains not being drawn. We are in the month of June. It is still light at eight o’clock. The light is failing by half-past. Ça vous dit quelque chose? I perceive a struggling impression that you will arrive some day. Now let us continue. The coffee was, as I said, very black. Count Foscatini’s teeth were magnificently white. Coffee stains the teeth. We reason from that that Count Foscatini did not drink any coffee. Yet there was coffee in all three cups. Why should anyone pretend Count Foscatini had drunk coffee when he had not done so?’
I shook my head, utterly bewildered.
‘Come, I will help you. What evidence have we that Ascanio and his friend, or two men posing as them, ever came to the flat that night? Nobody saw them go in; nobody saw them go out. We have the evidence of one man and of a host of inanimate objects.’
‘You mean?’
‘I mean knives and forks and plates and empty dishes. Ah, but it was a clever idea! Graves is a thief and a scoundrel, but what a man of method! He overhears a portion of the conversation in the morning, enough to realize that Ascanio will be in an awkward position to defend himself. The following evening, about eight o’clock, he tells his master he is wanted at the telephone. Foscatini sits down, stretches out his hand to the telephone, and from behind Graves strikes him down with the marble figure. Then quickly to the service telephone—dinner for three! It comes, he lays the table, dirties the plates, knives, and forks, etc. But he has to get rid of the food too. Not only is he a man of brain; he has a resolute and capacious stomach! But after eating three tournedos, the rice soufflé is too much for him! He even smokes a cigar and two cigarettes to carry out the illusion. Ah, but it was magnificently thorough! Then, having moved on the hands of the clock to 8.47, he smashes it and stops it. The one thing he does not do is to draw the curtains. But if there had been a real dinner party the curtains would have been drawn as soon as the light began to fail. Then he hurries out, mentioning the guests to the lift man in passing. He hurries to a telephone box, and as near as possible to 8.47 rings up the doctor with his master’s dying cry. So successful is his idea that no one ever inquires if a call was put through from Flat 11 at that time.’
‘Except Hercule Poirot, I suppose?’ I said sarcastically.
‘Not even Hercule Poirot,’ said my friend, with a smile. ‘I am about to inquire now. I had to prove my point to you first. But you will see, I shall be right; and then Japp, to whom I have already given a hint, will be able to arrest the respectable Graves. I wonder how much of the money he has spent.’
Poirot was right. He always is, confound him!
Jane in Search of a Job
Jane Cleveland rustled the pages of the Daily Leader and sighed. A deep sigh that came from the innermost recesses of her being. She looked with distaste at the marble-topped table, the poached egg on toast which reposed on it, and the small pot of tea. Not because she was not hungry. That was far from being the case. Jane was extremely hungry. At that moment she felt like consuming a pound and a half of well-cooked beefsteak, with chip potatoes, and possibly French beans. The whole washed down with some more exciting vintage than tea.
But young women whose ex
chequers are in a parlous condition cannot be choosers. Jane was lucky to be able to order a poached egg and a pot of tea. It seemed unlikely that she would be able to do so tomorrow. That is unless—
She turned once more to the advertisement columns of the Daily Leader. To put it plainly, Jane was out of a job, and the position was becoming acute. Already the genteel lady who presided over the shabby boarding-house was looking askance at this particular young woman.
‘And yet,’ said Jane to herself, throwing up her chin indignantly, which was a habit of hers, ‘and yet I’m intelligent and good-looking and well educated. What more does anyone want?’
According to the Daily Leader, they seemed to want shorthand typists of vast experience, managers for business houses with a little capital to invest, ladies to share in the profits of poultry farming (here again a little capital was required), and innumerable cooks, housemaids and parlourmaids—particularly parlourmaids.
‘I wouldn’t mind being a parlourmaid,’ said Jane to herself. ‘But there again, no one would take me without experience. I could go somewhere, I dare say, as a Willing Young Girl—but they don’t pay willing young girls anything to speak of.’
She sighed again, propped the paper up in front of her, and attacked the poached egg with all the vigour of healthy youth.
When the last mouthful had been despatched, she turned the paper, and studied the Agony and Personal column whilst she drank her tea. The Agony column was always the last hope.
Had she but possessed a couple of thousand pounds, the thing would have been easy enough. There were at least seven unique opportunities—all yielding not less than three thousand a year. Jane’s lip curled a little. ‘If I had two thousand pounds,’ she murmured, ‘it wouldn’t be easy to separate me from it.’
She cast her eyes rapidly down to the bottom of the column and ascended with the ease born of long practice.
There was the lady who gave such wonderful prices for cast-off clothing. ‘Ladies’ wardrobes inspected at their own dwellings.’ There were gentlemen who bought anything—but principally teeth. There were ladies of title going abroad who would dispose of their furs at a ridiculous figure. There was the distressed clergyman and the hard-working widow, and the disabled officer, all needing sums varying from fifty pounds to two thousand. And then suddenly Jane came to an abrupt halt. She put down her teacup and read the advertisement through again.
‘There’s a catch in it, of course,’ she murmured. ‘There always is a catch in these sort of things. I shall have to be careful. But still—’
The advertisement which so intrigued Jane Cleveland ran as follows:
If a young lady of twenty-five to thirty years of age, eyes dark blue, very fair hair, black lashes and brows, straight nose, slim figure, height five feet seven inches, good mimic and able to speak French, will call at 7 Endersleigh Street, between 5 and 6 p.m., she will hear of something to her advantage.
‘Guileless Gwendolen, or why girls go wrong,’ murmured Jane. ‘I shall certainly have to be careful. But there are too many specifications, really, for that sort of thing. I wonder now … Let us overhaul the catalogue.’
She proceeded to do so.
‘Twenty-five to thirty—I’m twenty-six. Eyes dark blue, that’s right. Hair very fair—black lashes and brows—all OK. Straight nose? Ye-es—straight enough, anyway. It doesn’t hook or turn up. And I’ve got a slim figure—slim even for nowadays. I’m only five feet six inches—but I could wear high heels. I am a good mimic—nothing wonderful, but I can copy people’s voices, and I speak French like an angel or a Frenchwoman. In fact, I’m absolutely the goods. They ought to tumble over themselves with delight when I turn up. Jane Cleveland, go in and win.’
Resolutely Jane tore out the advertisement and placed it in her handbag. Then she demanded her bill, with a new briskness in her voice.
At ten minutes to five Jane was reconnoitring in the neighbourhood of Endersleigh Street. Endersleigh Street itself is a small street sandwiched between two larger streets in the neighbourhood of Oxford Circus. It is drab, but respectable.
No. 7 seemed in no way different from the neighbouring houses. It was composed like they were of offices. But looking up at it, it dawned upon Jane for the first time that she was not the only blue-eyed, fair-haired, straight-nosed, slim-figured girl of between twenty-five and thirty years of age. London was evidently full of such girls, and forty or fifty of them at least were grouped outside No. 7 Endersleigh Street.
‘Competition,’ said Jane. ‘I’d better join the queue quickly.’
She did so, just as three more girls turned the corner of the street. Others followed them. Jane amused herself by taking stock of her immediate neighbours. In each case she managed to find something wrong—fair eyelashes instead of dark, eyes more grey than blue, fair hair that owed its fairness to art and not to Nature, interesting variations in noses, and figures that only an all-embracing charity could have described as slim. Jane’s spirits rose.
‘I believe I’ve got as good an all-round chance as anyone,’ she murmured to herself. ‘I wonder what it’s all about? A beauty chorus, I hope.’
The queue was moving slowly but steadily forward. Presently a second stream of girls began, issuing from inside the house. Some of them tossed their heads, some of them smirked.
‘Rejected,’ said Jane, with glee. ‘I hope to goodness they won’t be full up before I get in.’
And still the queue of girls moved forwards. There were anxious glances in tiny mirrors, and a frenzied powdering of noses. Lipsticks were brandished freely.
‘I wish I had a smarter hat,’ said Jane to herself sadly.
At last it was her turn. Inside the door of the house was a glass door at one side, with the legend, Messrs. Cuthbertsons, inscribed on it. It was through this glass door that the applicants were passing one by one. Jane’s turn came. She drew a deep breath and entered.
Inside was an outer office, obviously intended for clerks. At the end was another glass door. Jane was directed to pass through this, and did so. She found herself in a smaller room. There was a big desk in it, and behind the desk was a keen-eyed man of middle age with a thick rather foreign-looking moustache. His glance swept over Jane, then he pointed to a door on the left.
‘Wait in there, please,’ he said crisply.
Jane obeyed. The apartment she entered was already occupied. Five girls sat there, all very upright and all glaring at each other. It was clear to Jane that she had been included amongst the likely candidates, and her spirits rose. Nevertheless, she was forced to admit that these five girls were equally eligible with herself as far as the terms of the advertisement went.
The time passed. Streams of girls were evidently passing through the inner office. Most of them were dismissed through another door giving on the corridor, but every now and then a recruit arrived to swell the select assembly. At half-past six there were fourteen girls assembled there.
Jane heard a murmur of voices from the inner office, and then the foreign-looking gentleman, whom she had nicknamed in her mind ‘the Colonel’ owing to the military character of his moustache, appeared in the doorway.
‘I will see you ladies one at a time, if you please,’ he announced. ‘In the order in which you arrived, please.’
Jane was, of course, the sixth on the list. Twenty minutes elapsed before she was called in. ‘The Colonel’ was standing with his hands behind his back. He put her through a rapid catechism, tested her knowledge of French, and measured her height.
‘It is possible, mademoiselle,’ he said in French, ‘that you may suit. I do not know. But it is possible.’
‘What is this post, if I may ask?’ said Jane bluntly.
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘That I cannot tell you as yet. If you are chosen—then you shall know.’
‘This seems very mysterious,’ objected Jane. ‘I couldn’t possibly take up anything without knowing all about it. Is it connected with the stage, may I ask?�
�
‘The stage? Indeed, no.’
‘Oh!’ said Jane, rather taken aback.
He was looking at her keenly.
‘You have intelligence, yes? And discretion?’
‘I’ve quantities of intelligence and discretion,’ said Jane calmly. ‘What about the pay?’
‘The pay will amount to two thousand pounds—for a fortnight’s work.’
‘Oh!’ said Jane faintly.
She was too taken aback by the munificence of the sum named to recover all at once.
The Colonel resumed speaking.
‘One other young lady I have already selected. You and she are equally suitable. There may be others I have not yet seen. I will give you instruction as to your further proceedings. You know Harridge’s Hotel?’
Jane gasped. Who in England did not know Harridge’s Hotel? That famous hostelry situated modestly in a bystreet of Mayfair, where notabilities and royalties arrived and departed as a matter of course. Only this morning Jane had read of the arrival of the Grand Duchess Pauline of Ostrova. She had come over to open a big bazaar in aid of Russian refugees, and was, of course, staying at Harridge’s.
‘Yes,’ said Jane, in answer to the Colonel’s question.
‘Very good. Go there. Ask for Count Streptitch. Send up your card—you have a card?’
Jane produced one. The Colonel took it from her and inscribed in the corner a minute P. He handed the card back to her.
‘That ensures that the count will see you. He will understand that you come from me. The final decision lies with him—and another. If he considers you suitable, he will explain matters to you, and you can accept or decline his proposal. Is that satisfactory?’
‘Perfectly satisfactory,’ said Jane.
‘So far,’ she murmured to herself as she emerged into the street, ‘I can’t see the catch. And yet, there must be one. There’s no such thing as money for nothing. It must be crime! There’s nothing else left.’
Her spirits rose. In moderation Jane did not object to crime. The papers had been full lately of the exploits of various girl bandits. Jane had seriously thought of becoming one if all else failed.
Midsummer Mysteries Page 8