“Certainly not the police,” she declared. “I am glad.”
“They have not really worried us much,” said Hippolyte. “In fact, but for Monsieur le Comte's warning, I should never have guessed that stranger at the wine-shop to be what he was.”
The hall bell pealed and Hippolyte, in a grave and decorous manner, went to open the door.
“M. le Comte, I regret to say, is not at home.” The little man with the large moustaches beamed placidly.
“I know that,” he replied. “You are Hippolyte Flavelle, are you not?”
“Yes, Monsieur, that is my name.”
“And you have a wife, Marie Flavelle?”
“Yes, Monsieur, but-”
“I desire to see you both,” said the stranger, and he stepped nimbly past Hippolyte into the hall.
“Your wife is doubtless in the kitchen,” he said. “I will go there.”
Before Hippolyte could recover his breath, the other had selected the right door at the back of the hall and passed along the passage and into the kitchen, where Marie paused open-mouthed to stare at him.
“Voilà,” said the stranger, and sank into a wooden arm-chair; “I am Hercule Poirot.”
“Yes, Monsieur?”
“You do not know the name?”
“I have never heard it,” said Hippolyte.
“Permit me to say that you have been badly educated. It is the name of one of the great ones of this world.”
He sighed and folded his hands across his chest.
Hippolyte and Marie were staring at him uneasily. They were at a loss what to make of this unexpected and extremely strange visitor. “Monsieur desires – ?” murmured Hippolyte mechanically.
“I desire to know why you have lied to ie police.”
“Monsieur!” cried Hippolyte; “I – lied to the police? Never have I done such a thing.”
M. Poirot shook his head.
“You are wrong,” he said; “you have done on several occasions. Let me see.” He took small notebook from his pocket and consulted it. “Ah, yes; on seven occasions at least. I will recite them to you.”
In a gentle unemotional voice he proceeded to outline the seven occasions.
Hippolyte was taken aback.
“But it is not of these past lapses that I wish to speak,” continued Poirot, “only, my dear friend, do not get into the habit of thinking yourself too clever. I come now to the particular lie in which I am concerned – your statement that the Comte de la Roche arrived at this villa on the morning of 14th January.”
“But that was no lie. Monsieur; that was the truth. Monsieur le Comte arrived here on the morning of Tuesday, the 14th. That is so, Marie, is it not?”
Marie assented eagerly.
“Ah, yes, that is quite right. I remember it perfectly.”
“Ah,” said Poirot, “and what did you give your good master for déjeuner that day?”
“I-” Marie paused, trying to collect herself.
“Odd,” said Poirot, “how one remembers some things – and forgets others.”
He leant forward and struck the table a blow with his fist; his eyes flashed with anger.
“Yes, yes, it is as I say. You tell your lies and you think nobody knows. But there are two people who know. Yes – two people. One is le bon Dieu-”
He raised a hand to heaven, and then settling himself back in his chair and shutting his eyelids, he murmured comfortably:
“And the other is Hercule Poirot.”
“I assure you. Monsieur, you are completely mistaken. Monsieur le Comte left Paris on Monday night-”
“True,” said Poirot – “by the Rapide. I do not know where he broke his journey. Perhaps you do not know that. What I do know is that he arrived here on Wednesday morning, and not on Tuesday morning.”
“Monsieur is mistaken,” said Marie stolidly.
Poirot rose to his feet.
“Then the law must take its course,” he murmured. “A pity.”
“What do you mean. Monsieur?” asked Marie, with a shade of uneasiness.
“You will be arrested and held as accomplices concerned in the murder of Mrs. Kettering, the English lady who was killed.”
“Murder!”
The man's face had gone chalk white, his knees knocked together. Marie dropped the rolling-pin and began to weep.
“But it is impossible – impossible. I thought-”
“Since you stick to your story, there is nothing to be said. I think you are both foolish.”
He was turning towards the door when an agitated voice arrested him.
“Monsieur, Monsieur, just a little moment. I – I had no idea that it was anything of this kind. I – I thought it was just a matter concerning a lady. There have been little awkwardnesses with the police over ladies before. But murder – that is very different.”
“I have no patience with you,” cried Poirot. He turned round on them and angrily shook his fist in Hippolyte's face. “Am I to stop here all day, arguing with a couple of imbeciles thus? It is the truth I want. If you will not give it to me, that is your look out. For the last time, when did Monsieur le Comte arrive at the Villa Marina – Tuesday morning or Wednesday morning?”
“Wednesday,” gasped the man, and behind him Marie nodded confirmation.
Poirot regarded them for a minute or two, then inclined his head gravely.
“You are wise, my children,” he said quietly.
“Very nearly you were in serious trouble.”
He left the Villa Marina, smiling to himself.
“One guess confirmed,” he murmured to himself. “Shall I take a chance on the other?”
It was six o'clock when the card of Monsieur Hercule Poirot was brought up to Mirelle.
She stared at it for a moment or two, and then nodded. When Poirot entered, he found her walking up and down the room feverishly. She turned on him furiously.
“Well?” she cried. “Well? What is it now? Have you not tortured me enough, all of you? Have you not made me betray my poor Dereek? What more do you want?”
“Just one little question. Mademoiselle. After the train left Lyons, when you entered Mrs. Kettering's compartment-”
“What is that?”
Poirot looked at her with an air of mild reproach and began again.
“I say when you entered Mrs. Kettering's compartment-” “I never did.”
“And found her-”
“I never did.”
“Ah, sacré!”
He turned on her in a rage and shouted at her, so that she cowered back before him.
“Will you lie to me? I tell you I know what happened as well as though I had been there. You went into her compartment and you found her dead. I tell you I know it. To lie to me is dangerous. Be careful. Mademoiselle Mirelle.”
Her eyes wavered beneath his gaze and fell.
“I – I didn't-” she began uncertainly and stopped.
“There is only one thing about which I wonder,” said Poirot – “I wonder, Mademoiselle, if you found what you were looking I for or whether-”
“Whether what?”
“Or whether some one else had been before you.”
“I will answer no more questions,” screamed the dancer. She tore herself away from Poirot's restraining hand, and flinging herself down on the floor in a frenzy, she screamed and sobbed. A frightened maid came rushing in.
Hercule Poirot shrugged his shoulders, raised his eyebrows, and quietly left the room.
But he seemed satisfied.
Chapter 30. Miss Viner Gives Judgment
Katherine looked out of Miss Viner's bedroom window. It was raining, not violently, but with a quiet, well-bred persistence. The window looked out on a strip of front garden with a path down to the gate and neat little flower-beds on either side, where later roses and pinks and blue hyacinths would bloom.
Miss Viner was lying in a large Victorian bedstead. A tray with the remains of breakfast had been pushed to one side and she was busy opening her corre
spondence and making various caustic comments upon it.
Katherine had an open letter in her hand and was reading it through for the second time. It was dated from the Ritz Hotel, Paris.
Chère mademoiselle Katherine (it began), – I trust that you are in good health and that the return to the English winter has not proved too depressing. Me, I prosecute my inquiries with the utmost diligence. Do not think that it is the holiday that I take here. Very shortly I shall be in England, and I hope then to have the pleasure of meeting you once more. It shall be so, shall it not? On arrival in London I shall write to you. You remember that we are the colleagues in this affair? But indeed I think you know that very well. Be assured. Mademoiselle, of my most respectful and devoted sentiments.
Hercule Poirot.
Katherine frowned slightly. It was as though something in the letter puzzled and intrigued her.
“A choirboys' picnic indeed,” came from Miss Viner. “Tommy Saunders and Albert Dykes ought to be left behind, and I shan't subscribe to it unless they are. What those two boys think they are doing in church on Sundays I don't know. Tommy sang, 'O God, make speed to save us,' and never opened his lips again, and if Albert Dykes wasn't sucking a mint humbug, my nose is not what it is and always has been.”
“I know, they are awful,” agreed Katherine.
She opened her second letter, and a sudden flush came to her cheeks. Miss Viner's voice in the room seemed to recede into the far distance.
When she came back to a sense of her surroundings Miss Viner was bringing a long speech to a triumphant termination.
“And I said to her, 'Not at all. As it happens, Miss Grey is Lady Tamplin's own cousin.' What do you think of that?”
“Were you fighting my battles for me? That was very sweet of you.”
“You can put it that way if you like. There is nothing to me in a title. Vicar's wife or no vicar's wife, that woman is a cat. Hinting you had bought your way into Society.”
“Perhaps she was not so very far wrong.”
“And look at you,” continued Miss Viner. “Have you come back a stuck-up fine lady, as well you might have done? No, there you are, as sensible as ever you were, with a pair of good Balbriggan stockings on and sensible shoes. I spoke to Ellen about it only yesterday. 'Ellen,' I said, 'you look at Miss Grey. She has been hobnobbing with some of the greatest in the land, and does she go about as you do with skirts up to her knees and silk stockings that ladder when you look at them, and the most ridiculous shoes that ever I set eyes on?”
Katherine smiled a little to herself; it had apparently been worth while to conform to Miss Viner's prejudices. The old lady went on with increasing gusto.
“It has been a great relief to me that you have not had your head turned. Only the other day I was looking for my cuttings. I have several about Lady Tamplin and her War Hospital and what not, but I cannot lay my hand upon them. I wish you would look, my dear; your eyesight is better than mine. They are all in a box in the bureau drawer.”
Katherine glanced down at the letter in her hand and was about to speak, but checked herself, and going over to the bureau found the box of cuttings and began to look over them. Since her return to St. Mary Mead her heart had gone out to Miss Viner in admiration of the old woman's stoicism and pluck. She felt that there was little she could do for her old friend, but she knew from experience how much those seemingly small trifles meant to old people.
“Here is one,” she said presently. “'Viscountess Tamplin, who is running her villa at Nice as an Officers' Hospital, has just been the victim of a sensational robbery, her jewels having been stolen. Amongst them were some very famous emeralds, heirlooms of the Tamplin family.'”
“Probably paste,” said Miss Viner; “a lot of these Society women's jewels are.”
“Here is another,” said Katherine. “A picture of her, 'A charming camera study of Viscountess Tamplin with her little daughter Lenox.'”
“Let me look,” said Miss Viner. “You can't see much of the child's face, can you? But I dare say that is just as well. Things go by contraries in this world and beautiful mothers have hideous children. I dare say the photographer realized that to take the back of the child's head was the best thing he could do for her.”
Katherine laughed.
“'One of the smartest hostesses on the Riviera this season is Viscountess Tamplin, who has a villa at Cap Martin. Her cousin, Miss Grey, who recently inherited a vast fortune in a most romantic manner, is staying with her there.'”
“That is the one I wanted,” said Miss Viner. “I expect there has been a picture of you in one of the papers that I have missed, you know the kind of thing. Mrs. Somebody or other Jones-Williams, at the something or other Point-to-point, usually carrying a shooting-stick and having one foot lifted up in the air. It must be a trial to some of them to see what they look like.”
Katherine did not answer. She was smoothing out the cutting with her finger, and her face had a puzzled, worried look. Then she drew the second letter out of its envelope and mastered its contents once more. She turned to her friend.
“Miss Viner? I wonder – there is a friend of mine, some one I met on the Riviera, who wants very much to come down and see me here?”
“A man,” said Miss Viner.
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
“He is secretary to Mr. Van Aldin, the American millionaire.”
“What is his name?”
“Knighton. Major Knighton.”
“Hm – secretary to a millionaire. And wants to come down here. Now, Katherine, I am going to say something to you for your own good. You are a nice girl and a sensible girl, and though you have your head screwed on the right way about most things, every woman makes a fool of herself once in her life. Ten to one what this man is after is your money.”
With a gesture she arrested Katherine's reply. “I have been waiting for something of this kind. What is a secretary to a millionaire? Nine times out of ten it is a young man who likes living soft. A young man with nice manners and a taste for luxury and no brains and no enterprise, and if there is anything that is a softer job than being a secretary to a millionaire it is marrying a rich woman for her money. I am not saying that you might not be some man's fancy. But you are not young, and though you have a very good complexion you are not a beauty, and what I say to you is, don't make a fool of yourself; but if you are determined to do so, do see that your money is properly tied up on yourself. There, now I have finished. What have you got to say?”
“Nothing,” said Katherine; “but would you mind if he did come down to see me?”
“I wash my hands of it,” said Miss Viner. “I have done my duty, and whatever happens now is on your own head. Would you like him to lunch or to dinner? I dare say then could manage dinner – that is, if she didn't lose her head.”
“Lunch would be very nice,” said Katherine. “It is awfully kind of you. Miss Viner. He asked me to ring him up, so I will do so and say that we shall be pleased if he will lunch with us. He will motor down from town.”
“Ellen does a steak with grilled tomatoes pretty fairly,” said Miss Viner. “She doesn't do it well, but she does it better than anything else. It is no good having a tart because she is heavy handed with pastry; but her little castle puddings are not bad, and I dare say you could find a nice piece of Stilton at Abbot's. I have always heard that gentlemen like a nice piece of Stilton, and there is a good deal of father's wine left, a bottle of sparkling Moselle, perhaps.”
“Oh no, Miss Viner; that is really not necessary.”
“Nonsense, my child. No gentleman is happy unless he drinks something with his meal. There is some good pre-war whisky if you think he would prefer that. Now do as I say and don't argue. The key of the wine-cellar is in the third drawer down in the dressing-table, in the second pair of stockings on the left-hand side.”
Katherine went obediently to the spot indicated.
“The second pair, now mind,” said Miss Vine
r. “The first pair has my diamond earrings and my filigree brooch in it.”
“Oh,” said Katherine, rather taken aback, “wouldn't you like them put in your jewel-case?”
Miss Viner gave vent to a terrific and prolonged snort.
“No, indeed! I have much too much sense for that sort of thing, thank you. Dear, dear, I well remember how my poor father had a safe built in downstairs. Pleased as Punch he was with it, and he said to my mother, 'Now, Mary, you bring me your jewels in their case every night and I will lock them away for you.' My mother was a very tactful woman, and she knew that gentlemen like having their own way, and she brought him the jewel-case locked up just as he said.
“And one night burglars broke in, and of course – naturally – the first thing they went for was the safe! It would be, with my father talking up and down the village and bragging about it until you might have thought he kept all King Solomon's diamonds there. They made a clean sweep, got the tankards, the silver cups, and the presentation gold late that my father had had presented to him, and the jewel-case.”
She sighed reminiscently. “My father was in a great state over my mother's jewels. There was the Venetian set and some very fine cameos, and some pale pink corals and two diamond rings with quite large stones in them. And then, of course, she had to tell him that, being a sensible woman, she had kept her jewellery rolled up in a pair of corsets, and there it was still as safe as anything.”
“And the jewel-case had been quite empty?”
“Oh no, dear,” said Miss Viner, “it would have been too light a weight then. My mother was a very intelligent woman, she saw to that. She kept her buttons in the jewel-case, and a very handy place it was. Boot buttons in the top tray, trouser buttons in the second tray, and assorted buttons below. Curiously enough, my father was quite annoyed with her. He said he didn't like deceit. But I mustn't go chattering on; you want to go and ring up your friend, and mind you choose a nice piece of steak, and tell Ellen she is not to have holes in her stockings when she waits at lunch.”
“Is her name Ellen or Helen, Miss Viner? I thought-”
Miss Viner closed her eyes.
“I can sound my h's, dear, as well as any one, but Helen is not a suitable name for a servant. I don't know what the mothers in the lower classes are coming to nowadays.”
The Mystery of the Blue Train hp-6 Page 20