“You’d wash Mrs. Vanderlyn out of it altogether?”
“It was not Mrs. Vanderlyn in the drawing room. It may have been an ally of Mrs. Vanderlyn’s who committed the theft, but it is just possible that it was committed by another person altogether. If so, we have to consider the question of motive.”
“Isn’t this rather far-fetched, M. Poirot?”
“I do not think so. Now what motives could there be? There is the motive of money. The papers may have been stolen with the object of turning them into cash. That is the simplest motive to consider. But the motive might possibly be something quite different.”
“Such as—”
Poirot said slowly:
“It might have been done definitely with the idea of damaging someone.”
“Who?”
“Possibly Mr. Carlile. He would be the obvious suspect. But there might be more to it than that. The men who control the destiny of a country, Lord Mayfield, are particularly vulnerable to displays of popular feeling.”
“Meaning that the theft was aimed at damaging me?”
Poirot nodded.
“I think I am correct in saying, Lord Mayfield, that about five years ago you passed through a somewhat trying time. You were suspected of friendship with a European Power at that time bitterly unpopular with the electorate of this country.”
“Quite true, M. Poirot.”
“A statesman in these days has a difficult task. He has to pursue the policy he deems advantageous to his country, but he has at the same time to recognize the force of popular feeling. Popular feeling is very often sentimental, muddleheaded, and eminently unsound, but it cannot be disregarded for all that.”
“How well you express it! That is exactly the curse of a politician’s life. He has to bow to the country’s feeling, however dangerous and foolhardy he knows it to be.”
“That was your dilemma, I think. There were rumours that you had concluded an agreement with the country in question. This country and the newspapers were up in arms about it. Fortunately the Prime Minister was able categorically to deny the story, and you repudiated it, though still making no secret of the way your sympathies lay.”
“All this is quite true, M. Poirot, but why rake up past history?”
“Because I consider it possible that an enemy, disappointed in the way you surmounted that crisis, might endeavour to stage a further dilemma. You soon regained public confidence. Those particular circumstances have passed away, you are now, deservedly, one of the most popular figures in political life. You are spoken of freely as the next Prime Minister when Mr. Hunberly retires.”
“You think this is an attempt to discredit me? Nonsense!”
“Tout de même, Lord Mayfield, it would not look well if it were known that the plans of Britain’s new bomber had been stolen during a weekend when a certain very charming lady had been your guest. Little hints in the newspapers as to your relationship with that lady would create a feeling of distrust in you.”
“Such a thing could not really be taken seriously.”
“My dear Lord Mayfield, you know perfectly well it could! It takes so little to undermine public confidence in a man.”
“Yes, that’s true,” said Lord Mayfield. He looked suddenly very worried. “God! how desperately complicated this business is becoming. Do you really think—but it’s impossible—impossible.”
“You know of nobody who is—jealous of you?”
“Absurd!”
“At any rate you will admit that my questions about your personal relationships with the members of this house party are not totally irrelevant.”
“Oh, perhaps—perhaps. You asked me about Julia Carrington. There’s really not very much to say. I’ve never taken to her very much, and I don’t think she cares for me. She’s one of these restless, nervy women, recklessly extravagant and mad about cards. She’s old-fashioned enough, I think, to despise me as being a self-made man.”
Poirot said:
“I looked you up in Who’s Who before I came down. You were the head of a famous engineering firm and you are yourself a first-class engineer.”
“There’s certainly nothing I don’t know about the practical side. I’ve worked my way up from the bottom.”
Lord Mayfield spoke rather grimly.
“Oh la la!” cried Poirot. “I have been a fool—but a fool!”
The other stared at him.
“I beg your pardon, M. Poirot?”
“It is that a portion of the puzzle has become clear to me. Something I did not see before . . . But it all fits in. Yes—it fits in with beautiful precision.”
Lord Mayfield looked at him in somewhat astonished inquiry.
But with a slight smile Poirot shook his head.
“No, no, not now. I must arrange my ideas a little more clearly.”
He rose.
“Goodnight, Lord Mayfield. I think I know where those plans are.”
Lord Mayfield cried out:
“You know? Then let us get hold of them at once!”
Poirot shook his head.
“No, no, that would not do. Precipitancy would be fatal. But leave it all to Hercule Poirot.”
He went out of the room. Lord Mayfield raised his shoulders in contempt.
“Man’s a mountebank,” he muttered. Then, putting away his papers and turning out the lights, he, too, made his way up to bed.
VI
“If there’s been a burglary, why the devil doesn’t old Mayfield send for the police?” demanded Reggie Carrington.
He pushed his chair slightly back from the breakfast table.
He was the last down. His host, Mrs. Macatta and Sir George had finished their breakfasts some time before. His mother and Mrs. Vanderlyn were breakfasting in bed.
Sir George, repeating his statement on the lines agreed upon between Lord Mayfield and Hercule Poirot, had a feeling that he was not managing it as well as he might have done.
“To send for a queer foreigner like this seems very odd to me,” said Reggie. “What has been taken, Father?”
“I don’t know exactly, my boy.”
Reggie got up. He looked rather nervy and on edge this morning.
“Nothing—important? No—papers or anything like that?”
“To tell you the truth, Reggie, I can’t tell you exactly.”
“Very hush-hush, is it? I see.”
Reggie ran up the stairs, paused for a moment halfway with a frown on his face, and then continued his ascent and tapped on his mother’s door. Her voice bade him enter.
Lady Julia was sitting up in bed, scribbling figures on the back of an envelope.
“Good morning, darling.” She looked up, then said sharply:
“Reggie, is anything the matter?”
“Nothing much, but it seems there was a burglary last night.”
“A burglary? What was taken?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s all very hush-hush. There’s some odd kind of private inquiry agent downstairs asking everybody questions.”
“How extraordinary!”
“It’s rather unpleasant,” said Reggie slowly, “staying in a house when that kind of thing happens.”
“What did happen exactly?”
“Don’t know. It was some time after we all went to bed. Look out, Mother, you’ll have that tray off.”
He rescued the breakfast tray and carried it to a table by the window.
“Was money taken?”
“I tell you I don’t know.”
Lady Julia said slowly:
“I suppose this inquiry man is asking everybody questions?”
“I suppose so.”
“Where they were last night? All that kind of thing?”
“Probably. Well, I can’t tell him much. I went straight up to bed and was asleep in next to no time.”
Lady Julia did not answer.
“I say, Mother, I suppose you couldn’t let me have a spot of cash. I’m absolutely broke.”
�
��No, I couldn’t,” his mother replied decisively. “I’ve got the most frightful overdraft myself. I don’t know what your father will say when he hears about it.”
There was a tap at the door and Sir George entered.
“Ah, there you are, Reggie. Will you go down to the library? M. Hercule Poirot wants to see you.”
Poirot had just concluded an interview with the redoubtable Mrs. Macatta.
A few brief questions had elicited the information that Mrs. Macatta had gone up to bed just before eleven, and had heard or seen nothing helpful.
Poirot slid gently from the topic of the burglary to more personal matters. He himself had a great admiration for Lord Mayfield. As a member of the general public he felt that Lord Mayfield was a truly great man. Of course, Mrs. Macatta, being in the know, would have a far better means of estimating that than himself.
“Lord Mayfield has brains,” allowed Mrs. Macatta. “And he has carved his career out entirely for himself. He owes nothing to hereditary influence. He has a certain lack of vision, perhaps. In that I find all men sadly alike. They lack the breadth of a woman’s imagination. Woman, M. Poirot, is going to be the great force in government in ten years’ time.”
Poirot said that he was sure of it.
He slid to the topic of Mrs. Vanderlyn. Was it true, as he had heard hinted, that she and Lord Mayfield were very close friends?
“Not in the least. To tell you the truth I was very surprised to meet her here. Very surprised indeed.”
Poirot invited Mrs. Macatta’s opinion of Mrs. Vanderlyn—and got it.
“One of those absolutely useless women, M. Poirot. Women that make one despair of one’s own sex! A parasite, first and last a parasite.”
“Men admired her?”
“Men!” Mrs. Macatta spoke the word with contempt. “Men are always taken in by those very obvious good looks. That boy, now, young Reggie Carrington, flushing up every time she spoke to him, absurdly flattered by being taken notice of by her. And the silly way she flattered him too. Praising his bridge—which actually was far from brilliant.”
“He is not a good player?”
“He made all sorts of mistakes last night.”
“Lady Julia is a good player, is she not?”
“Much too good in my opinion,” said Mrs. Macatta. “It’s almost a profession with her. She plays morning, noon, and night.”
“For high stakes?”
“Yes, indeed, much higher than I would care to play. Indeed I shouldn’t consider it right.”
“She makes a good deal of money at the game?”
Mrs. Macatta gave a loud and virtuous snort.
“She reckons on paying her debts that way. But she’s been having a run of bad luck lately, so I’ve heard. She looked last night as though she had something on her mind. The evils of gambling, M. Poirot, are only slightly less than the evils caused by drink. If I had my way this country should be purified—”
Poirot was forced to listen to a somewhat lengthy discussion on the purification of England’s morals. Then he closed the conversation adroitly and sent for Reggie Carrington.
He summed the young man up carefully as he entered the room, the weak mouth camouflaged by the rather charming smile, the indecisive chin, the eyes set far apart, the rather narrow head. He thought that he knew Reggie Carrington’s type fairly well.
“Mr. Reggie Carrington?”
“Yes. Anything I can do?”
“Just tell me what you can about last night?”
“Well, let me see, we played bridge—in the drawing room. After that I went up to bed.”
“That was at what time?”
“Just before eleven. I suppose the robbery took place after that?”
“Yes, after that. You did not hear or see anything?”
Reggie shook his head regretfully.
“I’m afraid not. I went straight to bed and I sleep pretty soundly.”
“You went straight up from the drawing room to your bedroom and remained there until the morning?”
“That’s right.”
“Curious,” said Poirot.
Reggie said sharply:
“What do you mean, curious?”
“You did not, for instance, hear a scream?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Ah, very curious.”
“Look here, I don’t know what you mean.”
“You are, perhaps, slightly deaf?”
“Certainly not.”
Poirot’s lips moved. It was possible that he was repeating the word curious for the third time. Then he said:
“Well, thank you, Mr. Carrington, that is all.”
Reggie got up and stood rather irresolutely.
“You know,” he said, “now you come to mention it, I believe I did hear something of the kind.”
“Ah, you did hear something?”
“Yes, but you see, I was reading a book—a detective story as a matter of fact—and I—well, I didn’t really quite take it in.”
“Ah,” said Poirot, “a most satisfying explanation.”
His face was quite impassive.
Reggie still hesitated, then he turned and walked slowly to the door. There he paused and asked:
“I say, what was stolen?”
“Something of great value, Mr. Carrington. That is all I am at liberty to say.”
“Oh,” said Reggie rather blankly.
He went out.
Poirot nodded his head.
“It fits,” he murmured. “It fits very nicely.”
He touched a bell and inquired courteously if Mrs. Vanderlyn was up yet.
VII
Mrs. Vanderlyn swept into the room looking very handsome. She was wearing an artfully-cut russet sports suit that showed up the warm lights of her hair. She swept to a chair and smiled in a dazzling fashion at the little man in front of her.
For a moment something showed through the smile. It might have been triumph, it might almost have been mockery. It was gone almost immediately, but it had been there. Poirot found the suggestion of it interesting.
“Burglars? Last night? But how dreadful! Why no, I never heard a thing. What about the police? Can’t they do anything?”
Again, just for a moment, the mockery showed in her eyes.
Hercule Poirot thought:
“It is very clear that you are not afraid of the police, my lady. You know very well that they are not going to be called in.”
And from that followed—what?
He said soberly:
“You comprehend, madame, it is an affair of the most discreet.”
“Why, naturally, M.—Poirot—isn’t it?—I shouldn’t dream of breathing a word. I’m much too great an admirer of dear Lord Mayfield’s to do anything to cause him the least little bit of worry.”
She crossed her knees. A highly-polished slipper of brown leather dangled on the tip of her silk-shod foot.
She smiled, a warm, compelling smile of perfect health and deep satisfaction.
“Do tell me if there’s anything at all I can do?”
“I thank you, madame. You played bridge in the drawing room last night?”
“Yes.”
“I understand that then all the ladies went up to bed?”
“That is right.”
“But someone came back to fetch a book. That was you, was it not, Mrs. Vanderlyn?”
“I was the first one to come back—yes.”
“What do you mean—the first one?” said Poirot sharply.
“I came back right away,” explained Mrs. Vanderlyn. “Then I went up and rang for my maid. She was a long time in coming. I rang again. Then I went out on the landing. I heard her voice and I called her. After she had brushed my hair I sent her away, she was in a nervous, upset state and tangled the brush in my hair once or twice. It was then, just as I sent her away, that I saw Lady Julia coming up the stairs. She told me she had been down again for a book, too. Curious, wasn’t it?”
Mrs. Vander
lyn smiled as she finished, a wide, rather feline smile. Hercule Poirot thought to himself that Mrs. Vanderlyn did not like Lady Julia Carrington.
“As you say, madame. Tell me, did you hear your maid scream?”
“Why, yes, I did hear something of that kind.”
“Did you ask her about it?”
“Yes. She told me she thought she had seen a floating figure in white—such nonsense!”
“What was Lady Julia wearing last night?”
“Oh, you think perhaps—Yes, I see. She was wearing a white evening dress. Of course, that explains it. She must have caught sight of her in the darkness just as a white figure. These girls are so superstitious.”
“Your maid has been with you a long time, madame?”
“Oh, no.” Mrs. Vanderlyn opened her eyes rather wide. “Only about five months.”
“I should like to see her presently, if you do not mind, madame.”
Mrs. Vanderlyn raised her eyebrows.
“Oh, certainly,” she said rather coldly.
“I should like, you understand, to question her.”
“Oh, yes.”
Again a flicker of amusement.
Poirot rose and bowed.
“Madame,” he said. “You have my complete admiration.”
Mrs. Vanderlyn for once seemed a trifle taken aback.
“Oh, M. Poirot, how nice of you, but why?”
“You are, madame, so perfectly armoured, so completely sure of yourself.”
Mrs. Vanderlyn laughed a little uncertainly.
“Now I wonder,” she said, “if I am to take that as a compliment?”
Poirot said:
“It is, perhaps, a warning—not to treat life with arrogance.”
Mrs. Vanderlyn laughed with more assurance. She got up and held out a hand.
“Dear M. Poirot, I do wish you all success. Thank you for all the charming things you have said to me.”
She went out. Poirot murmured to himself:
“You wish me success, do you? Ah, but you are very sure I am not going to meet with success! Yes, you are very sure indeed. That, it annoys me very much.”
Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories Page 31