Short Stories

by Agatha Christie

  "And now we come to the difficult part," said Mr Pyne helpfully. "Go on, Mrs St. John."

  "You won't ever tell, will you?" demanded the girl pleadingly.

  "My clients' confidences are sacred. And anyway, Mrs St. John, you have told me so much already that I could probably finish the story for myself."

  "That's true. All right. But I hate saying it - it sounds so awful. I went to Bond Street. There's another shop there - Viro's. They - copy jewelry. Suddenly I lost my head. I t ook the ring in and said I wanted an exact copy; I said I was going abroad and didn't want to take real jewelry with me. They seemed to think it quite natural.

  "Well, I got the paste replica - it was so good you couldn't have told it from the original - and I sent it off by registered post to Lady Dortheimer. I had a box with the jeweler's name on it, so that was all right, and I made a professional-looking parcel. And then I - I pawned the real one." She hid her face in her hands. "How could I?

  How could I? I was just a low, mean, common thief."

  Mr Parker Pyne coughed. "I do not think you have quite finished," he said.

  "No, I haven't. This, you understand, was about six weeks ago. I paid off all my debts and got square again, but of course I was miserable all the time. And then an old cousin of mine died and I came into some money. The first thing I did was to redeem the wretched ring. Well, that's all right; here it is. But something terribly difficult has happened."

  "Yes?"

  "We've had a quarrel with the Dortheimers. It's over some shares that Sir Reuben persuaded Gerald to buy. He was terribly let in over them and he told Sir Reuben what he thought of him - and oh, it's all dreadful! And now, you see, I can't get the ring back."

  "Couldn't you send it to Lady Dortheimer anonymously?"

  "That gives the whole thing away. She'll examine her own ring, find it's a fake and guess at once what I've done."

  "You say she is a friend of yours. What about telling her the whole truth - throwing yourself on her mercy?"

  Mrs St. John shook her head. "We're not such friends as that.

  Where money or jewelry is concerned, Naomi's as hard as nails.

  Perhaps she couldn't prosecute me if I gave the ring back, but she could tell everyone what I've done and I'd be ruined. Gerald would know and he would never forgive me. Oh, how awful everything is!"

  She began to cry again. "I've thought and I've thought, and I can't see what to do! Oh, Mr Pyne, can't you do anything?"

  "Several things," said Mr Parker Pyne.

  "You can? Really?"

  "Certainly. I suggested the simplest way because in my long experience I have always found it the best. It avoids unlooked-for complications. Still, I see the force of your objections. At present no one knows of this unfortunate occurrence but yourself?"

  "And you," said Mrs St. John.

  "Oh, I do not count. Well, then, your secret is safe a present. All that is needed is to exchange the rings in some unsuspicious manner."

  "That's it," the girl said eagerly.

  "That should not be difficult. We must take a little time to consider the best method -"

  She interrupted him. "But there is no time! That's what's driving me nearly crazy. She's going to have the ring reset."

  "How do you know?"

  "Just by chance. I was lunching with a woman the other day and I admired a ring she had on - a bit emerald. She said it was the newest thing - and that Naomi Dortheimer was going to have her diamond reset that way."

  "Which means that we shall have to act quickly," said Mr Pyne thoughtfully.

  "Yes, yes."

  "It means gaining admission to the house - and possible not in a menial capacity. Servants have little chance of handling valuable rings. Have you any idea yourself, Mrs St. John?"

  "Well, Naomi is giving a big party on Wednesday. And this friend of mine mentioned that she had been looking for some exhibition dancers. I don't know if anything has been settled -"

  "I think that can be managed," said Mr Parker Pyne. "If the matter is already settled it will be more pensive, that is all. One thing more, do you happen to know where the main light switch is situated?"

  "As it happens I do know that, because a fuse blew out late one night when the servants had all gone to bed. It's a box at the back of the hall - inside a little cupboard."

  At Mr Parker Pyne's request she drew him a sketch.

  "And now," said Mr Parker Pyne, "everything is going to be all right, so don't worry, Mrs St. John. What about the ring? Shall I take it now, or would you rather keep it till Wednesday?"

  "Well, perhaps I'd better keep it."

  "Now, no more worry, mind you," Mr Parker Pyne admonished her.

  "And your - fee?" she asked timidly.

  "That can stand over for the moment. I will let you know on Wednesday what expenses have been necessary. The fee will be nominal, I assure you."

  He conducted her to the door, then rang the buzzer on his desk.

  "Send Claude and Madeleine here."

  Claude Luttrell was one of the handsomest specimens of lounge lizard to be found in England. Madeleine de Sara was the most seductive of vamps.

  Mr Parker Pyne surveyed them with approval. "My children," he said, "I have a job for you. You are going to be internationally famous exhibition dancers. Now, attend to this carefully, Claude, and mind you get it right..."

  Lady Dortheimer was fully satisfied with the arrangements for her ball. She surveyed the floral decorations and approved, gave a few last orders to the butler, and remarked to her husband that so far nothing had gone wrong!

  It was a slight disappointment that Michael and Juanita, the dancers from the Red Admiral, had been unable to fulfill their contract at the last moment, owing to Juanita's spraining her ankle, but instead, two new dancers were being sent (so ran the story over the telephone) who had created a furor in Paris.

  The dancers duly arrived and Lady Dortheimer approved. The evening went splendidly. Jules and Sanchia did their turn, and most sensational it was. A wild Spanish Revolution dance. Then a dance called the Degenerate's Dream. Then an exquisite exhibition of modern dancing.

  The "cabaret" over, normal dancing was resumed.

  The handsome Jules requested a dance with Lady Dortheimer.

  They floated away. Never had Lady Dortheimer had such a perfect partner.

  Sir Reuben was searching for the seductive Sanchia - in vain. She was not in the ballroom.

  She was, as a matter of fact, out in the deserted hall near a small box, with her eyes fixed on the jeweled watch which she wore round her wrist.

  "You are not English - you cannot be English - to dance as you do," murmured Jules into Lady Dortheimer's ear. "You are the sprite, the spirit of the wind. Droushcka petrovka navarouchi."

  "What is that language?"

  "Russian," said Jules mendaciously. "I say something to you in Russian that I dare not say in English."

  Lady Dortheimer closed her eyes. Jules pressed her closer to him.

  Suddenly the lights went out. In the darkness Jules bent and kissed the hand that lay on his shoulder. As she made to draw it away, he caught it, raised it to his lips again. Somehow, a ring slipped from her finger into his hand.

  To Lady Dortheimer it seemed only a second before the lights went on again. Jules was smiling at her.

  "Your ring," he said. "It slipped off. You permit?"

  He replaced it on her finger. His eyes said a number of things while he was doing it.

  Sir Reuben was talking about the main switch. "Some idiot.

  Practical joke, I suppose."

  Lady Dortheimer was not interested. Those few minutes of darkness had been very pleasant.

  Mr Parker Pyne arrived at his office on Thursday morning to find Mrs St. John already awaiting him.

  "Show her in," said Mr Pyne.

  "Well?" She was all eagerness.

  "You look pale," he said accusingly.

  She shook her head. "I couldn't sleep last night.
I was wondering -"

  "Now, here is the little bill for expenses. Train fares, costumes, and fifty pounds to Michael and Juanita. Sixty-five pounds, seventeen shillings."

  "Yes, yes! But about last night - was it all right? Did it happen?"

  Mr Parker Pyne looked at her in surprise. "My dear young lady, naturally it is all right. I took it for granted that you understood that."

  "What a relief! I was afraid -"

  Mr Parker Pyne shook his head reproachfully.

  "Failure is a word not tolerated in this establishment. If I do not think I can succeed I refuse to undertake a case. If I do take a case, its success is practically a foregone conclusion."

  "She's really got her ring back and suspects nothing?"

  "Nothing whatever. The operation was most delicately conducted."

  Daphne St. John sighed. "You don't know the load off my mind.

  What were you saying about expenses?"

  "Sixty-five pounds, seventeen shillings."

  Mrs St. John opened her bag and counted out the money. Mr Parker Pyne thanked her and wrote out a receipt.

  "But your fee?" murmured Daphne. "This is only for expenses."

  "In this case there is no fee."

  "Oh, Mr Pyne! I couldn't, really!"

  "My dear young lady, I insist. I will not touch a penny. It would be against my principles. Here is your receipt. And now -"

  With the smile of a happy conjurer bringing off a successful trick, he drew a small box from his pocket and pushed it across the table.

  Daphne opened it. Inside, to all appearances, lay the identical diamond ring.

  "Brute!" said Mrs St. John, making a face at it. "How I hate you! I've a good mind to throw you out of the window."

  "I shouldn't do that," said Mr Pyne. "It might surprise people."

  "You're quite sure it isn't the real one?" said Daphne.

  "No, no! The one you showed me the other day is safely on Lady Dortheimer's finger."

  "Then that's all right." Daphne rose with a happy laugh.

  "Curious your asking me that," said Mr Parker Pyne. "Of course Claude, poor fellow, hasn't many brains. He might easily have got muddled. So, to make sure, I had an expert look at this thing this morning."

  Mrs St. John sat down again rather suddenly. "Oh! And he said?"

  "That it was an extraordinarily good imitation," said Mr Parker Pyne, beaming. "First-class work. So that sets your mind at rest, doesn't it?"

  Mrs St. John started to say something, then stopped.

  She was staring at Mr Parker Pyne.

  The latter resumed his seat behind the desk and looked at her benevolently. "The cat who pulled the chestnuts out of the fire," he said dreamily. "Not a pleasant ræle. Not a ræle I should care to have any of my staff undertake. Excuse me. Did you say anything?"

  "I - no, nothing."

  "Good. I want to tell you a little story, Mrs St. John. It concerns a young lady. A fair-haired young lady, I think. She is not married. Her name is not St. John. Her Christian name is not Daphne. On the contrary, her name is Ernestine Richards, and until recently she was secretary to Lady Dortheimer.

  "Well, one day the setting of Lady Dortheimer's diamond ring became loose and Miss Richards brought it up to town to have it fixed. Quite like your story here, is it not? The same idea occurred to Miss Richards that occurred to you. She had the ring copied. But she was a far-sighted young lady. She saw a day coming when Lady Dortheimer would discover the substitution. When that happened, she would remember who had taken the ring to town and Miss Richards would be instantly suspected.

  "So what happened? First, I fancy, Miss Richards invested in a La Merveilleuse transformation - Number Seven side parting, I think -" his eyes rested innocently on his client's wavy locks - "shade dark brown. Then she called on me. She showed me the ring, allowed me to satisfy myself that it was genuine, thereby disarming suspicion on my part. That done and a plan of substitution arranged, the young lady took the ring to the jeweler who in due course returned it to Lady Dortheimer.

  "Yesterday evening the other ring, the false ring, was hurriedly handed over at the last minute at Waterloo Station. Quite rightly, Miss Richards did not consider that Mr Luttrell was likely to be an authority on diamonds. But just to satisfy myself that everything was aboveboard I arranged for a friend of mine, a diamond merchant, to be on the train. He looked at the ring and pronounced at once, 'This is not a real diamond; it is an excellent paste replica.'

  "You see the point, of course, Mrs St John? When Lady Dortheimer discovered her loss, what would she remember? The charming young dancer who slipped the ring off her finger when the lights went out! She would make inquiries and find that the dancers originally engaged were bribed not to come. If matters were traced back to my office, my story of a Mrs St. John would seem feeble in the extreme. Lady Dortheimer never knew a Mrs St. John. The story would sound a flimsy fabrication.

  "Now you see, don't you, that I could not allow that. And so my friend Claude replaced on Lady Dortheimer's finger the same ring that he took off." Mr Parker Pyne's smile was less benevolent now.

  "You see why I could not take a fee? I guarantee to give happiness.

  Clearly I have not made you happy. I will say just one thing more.

  You are young; possibly this is your first attempt at anything of the kind. Now I, on the contrary, am comparatively advanced in years, and I have had a long experience in the compilation of statistics.

  From that experience I can assure you that in eighty-seven percent of cases dishonesty does not pay. Eighty-seven percent. Think of it!"

  With a brusque movement the pseudo Mrs St. John rose.

  "You oily old brute!" she said. "Leading me on!" Making me pay expenses! And all the time -" She choked, and rushed toward the door.

  "Your ring," said Mr Parker Pyne, holding it out to her.

  She snatched it from him, looked at it and flung it out of the open window.

  A door banged and she was gone.

  Mr Parker Pyne was looking out of the window with some interest.

  "As I thought," he said. "Considerable surprise has been created.

  The gentleman selling Dismal Desmonds does not know what to make of it."

  THE CASE OF THE DISCONTENTED HUSBAND

  Undoubtedly one of Mr Parker Pyne's greatest assets was his sympathetic manner. It was a manner that invited confidence. He was well acquainted with the kind of paralysis that descended on clients as soon as they got inside his office. It was Mr Pyne's task to pave the way for the necessary disclosures.

  On this particular morning he sat facing a new client, a Mr Reginald Wade. Mr Wade, he deduced at once, was the inarticulate type. The type that finds it hard to put into words anything connected with the emotions.

  He was a tall, broadly built man with mild, pleasant blue eyes and a well-tanned complexion. He sat pulling absent-mindedly at a little mustache while he looked at Mr Parker Pyne with all the pathos of a dumb animal.

  "Saw your advertisement, you know," he jerked. "Thought I might as well come along. Rum sort of show, but you never know, what?"

  Mr Parker Pyne interpreted these cryptic remarks correctly. "When things go badly, one is willing to take a chance," he suggested.

  "A chance - any chance. Things are in a bad way with me, Mr Pyne.

  I don't know what to do about it. Difficult, you know; damned difficult."

  "That," said Mr Pyne, "is where I come in. I do know what to do! I am a specialist in every kind of human trouble."

  "Oh, I say - bit of a tall order, that!"

  "Not really. Human troubles are easily classified into a few main heads. There is ill health. There is boredom. There are wives who are in trouble over their husbands. There are husbands -" he paused - "who are in trouble over their wives."

  "Matter of fact, you've hit it. You've hit it absolutely."

  "Tell me about it," said Mr Pyne.

  "There's nothing much to tell. My wife wants me to give her
a divorce so that she can marry another chap."

  "Very common indeed in these days. Now you, I gather, don't see eye to eye with her in this business?"

  "I'm fond of her," said Mr Wade simply. "You see - well, I'm fond of her."

  A simple and somewhat tame statement, but if Mr Wade had said, "I adore her. I worship the ground she walks on. I would cut myself into little pieces for her," he could not have been more explicit to Mr Parker Pyne.

  "All the same, you know," went on Mr Wade, "what can I do? I mean, a fellow's so helpless. If she prefers this other fellow - well, one's got to play the game; stand aside and all that."

  "The proposal is that she should divorce you?"

  "Of course. I couldn't let her be dragged through the divorce court."

  Mr Pyne looked at him thoughtfully. "But you come to me? Why?"

  The other laughed in a shamefaced manner. "I don't know. You see, I'm not a clever chap. I can't think of things. I thought you might well, suggest something. I've got six months, you see. She agreed to that. If at the end of six months she is still of the same mind - well, then, I get out. I thought you might give me a hint or two. At present everything I do annoys her.

  "You see, Mr Pyne, what it comes to is this: I'm not a clever chap! I like knocking balls about. I like a round of golf and a good set of tennis. I'm no good at music and art and such things. My wife's clever. She likes pictures and the opera and concerts, and naturally she gets bored with me. This other fellow - nasty longhaired chap he knows all about these things. He can talk about them. I can't. In a way, I can understand a clever, beautiful woman getting fed up with an ass like me."

  Mr Parker Pyne groaned. "You have been married - how long?...

  Nine years? And I suppose you have adopted that attitude from the start. Wrong, my dear sir; disastrously wrong! Never adopt an apologetic attitude with a woman. She will take you at your own valuation - and you deserve it. You should have gloried in your athletic prowess. You should have spoken of art and music as 'all that nonsense my wife likes.' You should have condoled with her on not being able to play games better. The humble spirit, my dear sir, is a washout in matrimony! No woman can be expected to stand up against it. No wonder your wife has been unable to last the course."