AgathaChristie-ParkerPineDetective
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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 ar-rangements
for her ball. She surveyed the floral decora-tions
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
THE CASE OF THE DISTRESSED LADY
45
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 a-nd 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 Dorthei-ruer
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 Englishmyou cannot be Englishmto
dance as you do," murmured Jules into Lady Dorthei-mer'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?"
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Agatha Christie
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 noth-ing?''
"Nothing whatever. The operation was most deli-cately
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."
THE CASE OF THE DISTRESSED LADY
47
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, reall),!'
"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.
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Agatha Christie
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 r61e. Not a rle I should care to have any of my
staff undertake. Excuse me. Did you say anything?"
"I--no, nothing."
"Good. I want to tellyou 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 dia-mond
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
farsighted 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 in-stantly
suspected.
"So what happened? First, I fancy, Miss Richards in-vested
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 substitu-tion
arranged, the young lady took the ring to the
jeweler who in due course returned it to 'Lady Dorthei-ruer.
"Yesterday evening the other ring, the false ring, was
THE CASE OF THE DISTRESSED LADY 43
hurriedly handed over at the last minute at Waterlo,
Station. Quite rightly, Miss Richards did not conside
that Mr. Luttrell was likely to be an authority o
diamonds. But just to satisfy myself that everything wa
aboveboard I arranged for a friend of mine, a diamon
merchant, to be on the train. He looked at the ring an,
pronounced at once, 'This is not a real diamond; it is a:
excellent paste replica.'
"You see the point, of course, Mrs. St John? Whe
Lady Dortheimer discovered her loss, what would sh
remember? The charming young dancer who slipped th,
ring off her finger when the lights went out! She woul(
make inquiries and find that the dancers originall!
engaged were bribed not to come. If matters were trace
back to my office, my story of a Mrs. St. John woul¢
seem feeble in the extreme. Lady Dortheimer neve
knew a Mrs. St. John. The story would sound a Rims,.
fabrication.
"Now you see, don't you, that I could not allow that'
And so my friend Claude replaced on Lady Dorthei
·
mer'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 t
give happiness. Clearly I have not made you happy.
will say just one thing more. You are young; possibl}
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 oi
statistics. From that experience I can assure you that ir
eighty-seven percent of cases dishonesty does not pay
Eighty-seven percent. Think of it!"
With a brusque movement the pseudo Mrs. St. Johr
I
rose. "You oily old brute!" she said. "Leading me onl
Making me pay expenses! And all the time--" Sh
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Agatha Christie
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.
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Agatha Christie
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 abso-lutely.''
"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 CASE OF THE DISCONTENTED HUSBAND 53
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 a
n ass like me."
Mr. Parker Pyne groaned. "You have been mar-tied--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."
Mr. Wade was looking at him in bewilderment.
"Well," he said, "what do you think I ought to do?"
"That certainly is the question. Whatever you should
have done nine years ago, it is too late now. New tactics
must be adopted. Have you ever had any affairs with
other women?"
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Agatha Christie
"Certainly not."