"Can't join you, I'm afraid, Mr Poirot." The General eyed the tantalus sadly. "My doctor wallah says it's poison to me to touch the stuff. Don't suppose he knows for a minute. Ignorant chaps doctors. Spoil-sports.
Enjoy knocking a man off his food and drink and putting him on some pap like steamed fish. Steamed fish - pah!"
In his indignation the General incautiously moved his bad foot and uttered a yelp of agony at the twinge that ensued.
He apologised for his language.
"Like a bear with a sore head, that's what I am. My girls give me a wide berth when I've got an attack of gout. Don't know that I blame them.
You've met one of 'em, I hear."
"I have had that pleasure, yes. You have several daughters, have you not?"
"Four," said the General gloomily. "Not a boy amongst 'em. Four blinking girls. Bit of a thought, these days."
"They are all four very charming, I hear?"
"Not too bad - not too bad. Mind you, I never know what they're up to.
You can't control girls nowadays. Lax times - too much laxity everywhere. What can a man do? Can't lock 'em up, can I?"
"They are popular in the neighbourhood, I gather."
"Some of the old cats don't like 'em," said General Grant. "A good deal of mutton dressed as lamb round here. A man's got to be careful. One of these blue-eyed widows nearly caught me - used to come round here purring like a kitten. 'Poor General Grant - you must have had such an interesting life.'" The General winked and placed one finger against his nose. "A little bit too obvious, Mr Poirot. Oh well, take it all round, I suppose it's not a bad part of the world. A bit go ahead and noisy for my taste. I liked the country when it was the country - not all this motoring and jazz and that blasted, eternal radio. I won't have one here and the girls know it. A man's got a right to a little peace in his own home."
Gently Poirot led the conversation round to Anthony Hawker.
"Hawker? Hawker? Don't know him. Yes, I do, though. Nasty looking fellow with his eyes too close together. Never trust a man who can't look you in the face."
"He is a friend, is he not, of your daughter Sheila's?"
"Sheila? Wasn't aware of it. Girls never tell me anything." The bushy eyebrows came down over the nose - the piercing, blue eyes looked out of the red face straight into Hercule Poirot's. "Look here, Mr Poirot, what's all this about? Mind telling me what you've come to see me about?"
Poirot said slowly: "That would be difficult - perhaps I hardly know myself. I would say only this: your daughter Sheila - perhaps all your daughters - have made some undesirable friends."
"Got into a bad set, have they? I was a bit afraid of that. One hears a word dropped here and there." He looked pathetically at Poirot. "But what am I to do, Mr Poirot? What am I to do?"
Poirot shook his head perplexedly.
General Grant went on: "What's wrong with the bunch they're running with?" he asked.
Poirot replied by another question.
"Have you noticed. General Grant, that any of your daughters have been moody, excited - then depressed - nervy - uncertain in their tempers?"
"Damme, sir, you're talking like a patent medicine. No, I haven't noticed anything of the kind."
"That is fortunate," said Poirot gravely.
"What the devil is the meaning of all this, sir?"
"Drugs!"
"What!"
The word came in a roar.
Poirot said: "An attempt is being made to induce your daughter Sheila to become a drug addict. The cocaine habit is very quickly formed. A week or two will suffice. Once the habit is formed, an addict will pay anything, do anything, to get a further supply of the drug. You can realise what a rich haul the person who peddles that drug can make."
He listened in silence to the spluttering, wrathful blasphemies that poured from the old man's lips. Then, as the fires died down, with a final choice description of exactly what he, the General, would do to the blinkety-blinkety son of a blank when he got hold of him, Hercule Poirot said:
"We have first, as your so admirable Mrs Beeton says, to catch the hare. Once we have caught our drug pedlar, I will turn him over to you with the greatest pleasure, General."
He got up, tripped over a heavily-carved, small table, regained his balance with a clutch at the General, murmured:
"A thousand pardons, and may I beg of you, General - you understand, beg of you - to say nothing whatever about all this to your daughters."
"What? I'll have the truth out of them, that's what I'll have!"
"That is exactly what you will not have. All you will get is a lie."
"But damme, sir -"
"I assure you. General Grant, you must hold your tongue. That is vital you understand? Vital!"
"Oh well, have it your own way," growled the old soldier.
He was mastered but not convinced.
Hercule Poirot picked his way carefully through the Benares brass and went out.
V
Mrs Larkin's room was full of people.
Mrs Larkin herself was mixing cocktails at a side table. She was a tall woman with pale auburn hair rolled into the back of her neck. Her eyes were greenish-grey with big, black pupils. She moved easily, with a kind of sinister grace. She looked as though she were in the early thirties. Only a close scrutiny revealed the lines at the corners of the eyes and hinted that she was ten years older than her looks.
Hercule Poirot had been brought here by a brisk, middle-aged woman, a friend of Lady Carmichael's. He found himself given a cocktail and further directed to take one to a girl sitting in the window. The girl was small and fair - her face was pink and white and suspiciously angelic.
Her eyes, Hercule Poirot noticed at once, were alert and suspicious.
He said: "To your continued good health. Mademoiselle."
She nodded and drank. Then she said abruptly: "You know my sister."
"Your sister? Ah, you are then one of the Miss Grants?"
"I'm Pam Grant."
"And where is your sister today?"
"She's out hunting. Ought to be back soon."
"I met your sister in London."
"I know."
"She told you?"
Pam Grant nodded. She said abruptly: "Was Sheila in a jam?"
"So she did not tell you everything?"
The girl shook her head. She asked: "Was Tony Hawker there?"
Before Poirot could answer, the door opened and Hawker and Sheila Grant came in. They were in hunting kit and Sheila had a streak of mud on her cheek.
"Hullo, people, we've come in for a drink. Tony's flask is dry."
Poirot murmured: "Talk of the angels -"
Pam Grant snapped: "Devils, you mean."
Poirot said sharply: "Is it like that?"
Beryl Larkin had come forward.
She said: "Here you are, Tony. Tell me about the run? Did you draw Gelert's Copse?"
She drew him away skilfully to a sofa near the fireplace. Poirot saw him turn his head and glance at Sheila before he went.
Sheila had seen Poirot. She hesitated a minute, then came over to the two in the window.
She said abruptly: "So it was you who came to the house yesterday?"
"Did your father tell you?"
She shook her head. "Abdul described you. I - guessed."
Pam exclaimed: "You went to see Father?"
Poirot said: "Ah - yes. We have - some mutual friends."
Pam said sharply: "I don't believe it."
"What do you not believe? That your father and I could have a mutual friend?"
The girl flushed. "Don't be stupid. I meant - that wasn't really your reason -"
She turned on her sister.
"Why don't you say something, Sheila?"
Sheila started. She said: "It wasn't - it wasn't anything to do with Tony Hawker?"
"Why should it be?" asked Poirot.
Sheila flushed and went back across the room to the others.
Pam said with sud
den vehemence but in a lowered voice: "I don't like Tony Hawker. There - there's something sinister about him - and about her - Mrs Larkin, I mean. Look at them now."
Poirot followed hex glance.
Hawker's head was close to that of his hostess. He appeared to be soothing her. Her voice rose for a minute.
"- but I can't wait. I want it now!"
Poirot said with a little smile: "Les femmes - whatever it is - they always want it now, do they not?"
But Pam Grant did not respond. Her face was cast down. She was nervously pleating and repleating her tweed skirt.
Poirot murmured conversationally: "You are quite a different type from your sister. Mademoiselle."
She flung her head up, impatient of banalities.
She said: "M. Poirot. What's the stuff Tony's been giving Sheila? What is it that's been making her - different?"
He looked straight at her. He asked: "Have you ever taken cocaine, Miss Grant?"
She shook her head. "Oh no! So that's it? Cocaine? But isn't that very dangerous?"
Sheila Grant had come over to them, a fresh drink in her hand.
She said: "What's dangerous?"
Poirot said: "We are talking of the effects of drug-taking. Of the slow death of the mind and spirit - the destroying of all that is true and good in a human being."
Sheila Grant caught her breath. The drink in her hand swayed and spilled on the floor.
Poirot went on: "Dr Stoddart has, I think, made clear to you just what that death in life entails. It is so easily done - so hard to undo. The person who deliberately profits from the degradation and misery of other people is a vampire preying on flesh and blood."
He turned away. Behind him he heard Pam Grant's voice say: "Sheila!" and caught a whisper - a faint whisper - from Sheila Grant. It was so low he hardly heard it.
"The flask..."
Hercule Poirot said good-bye to Mrs Larkin and went out into the hall.
On the hall table was a hunting flask lying with a crop and a hat. Poirot picked it up. There were initials on it: A.H.
Poirot murmured to himself: "Tony's flask is empty?"
He shook it gently. There was no sound of liquor. He unscrewed the top.
Tony Hawker's flask was not empty. It was full - of white powder...
VI
Hercule Poirot stood on the terrace of Lady Carmichael's house and pleaded with a girl.
He said: "You are very young. Mademoiselle. It is my belief that you have not known, not really known, what it is you and your sisters have been doing. You have been feeding, like the mares of Diomedes, on human flesh."
Sheila shuddered and gave a sob. She said: "It sounds horrible, put like that. And yet it's true! I never realised it until that evening in London when Dr Stoddart talked to me. He was so grave - so sincere. I saw then what an awful thing it was I had been doing... Before that I thought it was - Oh! rather like drink after hours - something people would pay to get, but not something that really mattered very much!"
Poirot said: "And now?"
Sheila Grant said: "I'll do anything you say. I - I'll talk to the others," she added... "I don't suppose Dr Stoddart will ever speak to me again..."
"On the contrary," said Poirot. "Both Dr Stoddart and I are prepared to help you in every way in our power to start afresh. You can trust us.
But one thing must be done. There is one person who must be destroyed - destroyed utterly, and only you and your sisters can destroy him. It is your evidence and your evidence alone that will convict him."
"You mean - my father?"
"Not your father, Mademoiselle. Did I not tell you that Hercule Poirot knows everything? Your photograph was easily recognised in official quarters. You are Sheila Kelly - a persistent young shop-lifter who was sent to a reformatory some years ago. When you came out of that reformatory, you were approached by the man who calls himself General Grant and offered this post - the post of a 'daughter'. There would be plenty of money, plenty of fun, a good time. All you had to do was to introduce the 'snuff' to your friends, always pretending that someone else had given it to you. Your 'sisters' were in the same case as yourself."
He paused and said: "Come now. Mademoiselle - this man must be exposed and sentenced. After that -"
"Yes, afterwards?"
Poirot coughed. He said with a smile: "You shall be dedicated to the service of the Gods..."
VII
Michael Stoddart stared at Poirot in amazement.
He said: "General Grant? General Grant?"
"Precisely, mon cher. The whole mise en scene, you know, was what you would call 'very bogus'. The Buddhas, the Benares brass, the Indian servant! And the gout, too! It is out of date, the gout. It is old, old gentlemen who have the gout - not the fathers of young ladies of nineteen.
"Moreover I made quite certain. As I go out, I stumble, I clutch at the gouty foot. So perturbed is the gentleman by what I have been saying that he did not even notice. Oh yes, he is very, very bogus, that General! Tout de même, it is a smart idea. The retired Anglo-Indian General, the well-known comic figure with a liver and a choleric temper, he settles down - not amongst other retired Anglo-Indian Army officers - oh no, he goes to a milieu far too expensive for the usual retired Army man. There are rich people there, people from London, an excellent field to market the goods. And who would suspect four lively, attractive, young girls? If anything comes out, they will be considered as victims - that for a certainty!"
"What was your idea exactly when you went to see the old devil? Did you want to put the wind up him?"
"Yes. I wanted to see what would happen. I had not long to wait. The girls had their orders. Anthony Hawker, actually one of their victims, was to be the scapegoat. Sheila was to tell me about the flask in the hall. She nearly could not bring herself to do so - but the other girl rapped out an angry 'Sheila' at her and she just faltered it out."
Michael Stoddart got up and paced up and down.
He said: "You know, I'm not going to lose sight of that girl. I've got a pretty sound theory about those adolescent criminal tendencies. If you look into the home life, you nearly always find -"
Poirot interrupted him.
He said: "Mon cher, I have the deepest respect for your science. I have no doubt that your theories will work admirably where Miss Sheila Kelly is concerned."
"The others, too."
"The others, perhaps. It may be. The only one I am sure about is the little Sheila. You will tame her, not a doubt of it! In truth, she eats out of your hand already..."
Flushing, Michael Stoddart said: "What nonsense you talk, Poirot."
Chapter 9
THE GIRDLE OF HYPPOLITA
II
Hercule Poirot was just going down to his taxi when the telephone rang. He took off the receiver.
"Yes?"
Japp's voice spoke.
"Glad I've just caught you. It's all off, old man. Found a message at the Yard when I got back. The girl's turned up. At the side of the main road fifteen miles from Amiens. She's dazed and they can't get any coherent story from her, doctor says she's been doped - However, she's all right. Nothing wrong with her."
Poirot said slowly: "So you have, then, no need of my services?"
"Afraid not! In fact - sorrrry you have been trrrroubled."
Japp laughed at his witticism and rang off.
Hercule Poirot did not laugh. He put back the receiver slowly. His face was worried.
III
Detective Inspector Hearn looked at Poirot curiously.
He said: "I'd no idea you'd be so interested, sir."
Poirot said: "You had word from Chief Inspector Japp that I might consult with you over this matter?"
Hearn nodded. "He said you were coming over on some other business, and that you'd give us a hand with this puzzle. But I didn't expect you now it's all cleared up. I thought you'd be busy on your own job."
Hercule Poirot said: "My own business can wait. It is this affair here that inte
rests me. You called it a puzzle, and you say it is now ended.
But the puzzle is still there, it seems."
"Well, sir, we've got the child back. And she's not hurt. That's the main thing."
"But it does not solve the problem of how you got her back, does it?
What does she herself say? A doctor saw her, did he not? What did he say?"
"Said she'd been doped. She was still hazy with it. Apparently, she can't remember anything much after starting off from Cranchester. All later events seem to have been wiped out. Doctor thinks she might possibly have had slight concussion. There's a bruise on the back of her head. Says that would account for a complete blackout of memory."
Poirot said: "Which is very convenient for - someone!"
Inspector Hearn said in a doubtful voice: "You don't think she is shamming, sir?"
"Do you?"
"No, I'm sure she isn't. She's a nice kid - a bit young for her age."
"No, she is not shamming." Poirot shook his head. "But I would like to know how she got off that train. I want to know who is responsible and why?"
"As to why, I should say it was an attempt at kidnapping, sir. They meant to hold her to ransom."
"But they didn't!"
"Lost their nerve with the hue and cry - and planted her by the road quick."
Poirot inquired sceptically: "And what ransom were they likely to get from a Canon of Cranchester Cathedral? English Church dignitaries are not millionaires."
Detective Inspector Hearn said cheerfully: "Made a botch of the whole thing, sir, in my opinion."
"Ah, that's your opinion."
Hearn said, his face flushing slightly: "What's yours, sir?"
"I want to know how she was spirited off that train."
The policeman's face clouded over.
"That's a real mystery, that is. One minute she was there, sitting in the dining-car, chatting to the other girls. Five minutes later she's vanished - hey presto - like a conjuring trick."
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