“You believe rightly. Nevertheless, the dope was in the Club and someone took it out of the Club.”
“Who did?”
“I did, mon ami,” said Poirot softly.
He replaced the receiver, cutting off Japp’s spluttering noises, as a bell trilled out. He went and opened the front door. The Countess Rossakoff sailed in.
“If it were not that we are, alas, too old, how compromising this would be!” she exclaimed. “You see, I have come as you told me to do in your note. There is, I think, a policeman behind me, but he can stay in the street. And now, my friend, what is it?”
Poirot gallantly relieved her of her fox furs.
“Why did you put those emeralds in Professor Liskeard’s pocket?” he demanded. “Ce n’est pas gentille, ce que vous avez fait là!”
The Countess’s eyes opened wide.
“Naturally, it was in your pocket I meant to put the emeralds!”
“Oh, in my pocket?”
“Certainly. I cross hurriedly to the table where you usually sit—but the lights they are out and I suppose by inadvertence I put them in the Professor’s pocket.”
“And why did you wish to put stolen emeralds in my pocket?”
“It seemed to me—I had to think quickly, you understand—the best thing to do!”
“Really, Vera, you are impayable!”
“But, dear friend, consider! The police arrive, the lights go out (our little private arrangement for the patrons who must not be embarrassed) and a hand takes my bag off the table. I snatch it back, but I feel through the velvet something hard inside. I slip my hand in, I find what I know by touch to be jewels and I comprehend at once who has put them there!”
“Oh you do?”
“Of course I do! It is that salaud! It is that lizard, that monster, that double-faced, double-crossing, squirming adder of a pig’s son, Paul Varesco.”
“The man who is your partner in Hell?”
“Yes, yes, it is he who owns the place, who puts up the money. Until now I do not betray him—I can keep faith, me! But now that he double-crosses me, that he tries to embroil me with the police—ah! now I will spit his name out—yes, spit it out!”
“Calm yourself,” said Poirot, “and come with me into the next room.”
He opened the door. It was a small room and seemed for a moment to be completely filled with DOG. Cerberus had looked outsize even in the spacious premises of Hell. In the tiny dining room of Poirot’s service flat there seemed nothing else but Cerberus in the room. There was also, however, the small and odoriferous man.
“We’ve turned up here according to plan, guv’nor,” said the little man in a husky voice.
“Dou dou!” screamed the Countess. “My angel Dou dou!”
Cerberus beat the floor with his tail—but he did not move.
“Let me introduce you to Mr. William Higgs,” shouted Poirot, above the thunder of Cerberus’s tail. “A master in his profession. During the brouhaha tonight,” went on Poirot, “Mr. Higgs induced Cerberus to follow him up out of Hell.”
“You induced him?” The Countess stared incredulously at the small ratlike figure. “But how? How?”
Mr. Higgs dropped his eyes bashfully.
“ ’Ardly like to say afore a lady. But there’s things no dogs won’t resist. Follow me anywhere a dog will if I want ’im to. Of course you understand it won’t work the same way with bitches—no, that’s different, that is.”
The Countess Rossakoff turned on Poirot.
“But why? Why?”
Poirot said slowly:
“A dog trained for the purpose will carry an article in his mouth until he is commanded to loose it. He will carry it if needs be for hours. Will you now tell your dog to drop what he holds?”
Vera Rossakoff stared, turned, and uttered two crisp words.
The great jaws of Cerberus opened. Then, it was really alarming, Cerberus’s tongue seemed to drop out of his mouth. . . .
Poirot stepped forward. He picked up a small package encased in pink, spongebag rubber. He unwrapped it. Inside it was a packet of white powder.
“What is it?” the Countess demanded sharply.
Poirot said softly:
“Cocaine. Such a small quantity, it would seem—but enough to be worth thousands of pounds to those willing to pay for it . . . Enough to bring ruin and misery to several hundred people. . . .”
She caught her breath. She cried out:
“And you think that I—but it is not so! I swear to you it is not so! In the past I have amused myself with the jewels, the bibelots, the little curiosities—it all helps one to live, you understand. And what I feel is, why not? Why should one person own a thing more than another?”
“Just what I feel about dogs,” Mr. Higgs chimed in.
“You have no sense of right or wrong,” said Poirot sadly to the Countess.
She went on:
“But drugs—that no! For there one causes misery, pain, degeneration! I had no idea—no faintest idea—that my so charming, so innocent, so delightful little Hell was being used for that purpose!”
“I agree with you about dope,” said Mr. Higgs. “Doping of greyhounds—that’s dirty, that is! I wouldn’t never have nothing to do with anything like that, and I never ’ave ’ad!”
“But you say you believe me, my friend,” implored the Countess.
“But of course I believe you! Have I not taken time and trouble to convict the real organizer of the dope racket. Have I not performed the twelfth Labor of Hercules and brought Cerberus up from Hell to prove my case? For I tell you this, I do not like to see my friends framed—yes, framed—for it was you who were intended to take the rap if things went wrong! It was in your handbag the emeralds would have been found and if any one had been clever enough (like me) to suspect a hiding place in the mouth of a savage dog—eh bien, he is your dog, is he not? Even if he has accepted la petite Alice to the point of obeying her orders also! Yes, you may well open your eyes! From the first I did not like that young lady with her scientific jargon and her coat and skirt with the big pockets. Yes, pockets. Unnatural that any woman should be so disdainful of her appearance! And what does she say to me—that it is fundamentals that count! Aha! what is fundamental is pockets. Pockets in which she can carry drugs and take away jewels—a little exchange easily made whilst she is dancing with her accomplice whom she pretends to regard as a psychological case. Ah, but what a cover! No one suspects the earnest, the scientific psychologist with a medical degree and spectacles. She can smuggle in drugs, and induce her rich patients to form the habit, and put up the money for a nightclub and arrange that it shall be run by someone with—shall we say, a little weakness in her past! But she despises Hercule Poirot, she thinks she can deceive him with her talk of nursery governesses and vests! Eh bien, I am ready for her. The lights go off. Quickly I rise from my table and go to stand by Cerberus. In the darkness I hear her come. She opens his mouth and forces in the package, and I—delicately, unfelt by her, I snip with a tiny pair of scissors a little piece from her sleeve.”
Dramatically he produced a sliver of material.
“You observe—the identical checked tweed—and I will give it to Japp to fit it back where it belongs—and make the arrest—and say how clever once more has been Scotland Yard.”
The Countess Rossakoff stared at him in stupefaction. Suddenly she let out a wail like a foghorn.
“But my Niki—my Niki. This will be terrible for him—” She paused. “Or do you think not?”
“There are a lot of other girls in America,” said Hercule Poirot.
“And but for you his mother would be in prison—in prison—with her hair cut off—sitting in a cell—and smelling of disinfectant! Ah, but you are wonderful—wonderful.”
Surging forward she clasped Poirot in her arms and embraced him with Slavonic fervour. Mr. Higgs looked on appreciatively. The dog Cerberus beat his tail upon the floor.
Into the midst of this scene of rejoicing c
ame the trill of a bell.
“Japp!” exclaimed Poirot, disengaging himself from the Countess’s arms.
“It would be better, perhaps, if I went into the other room,” said the Countess.
She slipped through the connecting door. Poirot started towards the door to the hall.
“Guv’nor,” wheezed Mr. Higgs anxiously, “better look at yourself in the glass, ’adn’t you?”
Poirot did so and recoiled. Lipstick and mascara ornamented his face in a fantastic medley.
“If that’s Mr. Japp from Scotland Yard, ’e’d think the worst—sure to,” said Mr. Higgs.
He added, as the bell pealed again, and Poirot strove feverishly to remove crimson grease from the points of his moustache: “What do yer want me to do—’ook it too? What about this ’ere ’Ell ’Ound?”
“If I remember rightly,” said Hercule Poirot, “Cerberus returned to Hell.”
“Just as you like,” said Mr. Higgs. “As a matter of fact I’ve taken a kind of fancy to ’im . . . Still, ’e’s not the kind I’d like to pinch—not permanent—too noticeable, if you know what I mean. And think what he’d cost me in shin of beef or ’orseflesh! Eats as much as a young lion, I expect.”
“From the Nemean Lion to the Capture of Cerberus,” murmured Poirot. “It is complete.”
VII
A week later Miss Lemon brought a bill to her employer.
“Excuse me, M. Poirot. Is it in order for me to pay this? Leonora, Florist. Red Roses. Eleven pounds, eight shillings and sixpence. Sent to Countess Vera Rossakoff, Hell, 13 End St, WC1.”
As the hue of red roses, so were the cheeks of Hercule Poirot. He blushed, blushed to the eyeballs.
“Perfectly in order, Miss Lemon. A little—er, tribute—to—to an occasion. The Countess’s son has just become engaged in America—to the daughter of his employer, a steel magnate. Red roses are—I seem to remember, her favourite flower.”
“Quite,” said Miss Lemon. “They’re very expensive this time of year.”
Hercule Poirot drew himself up.
“There are moments,” he said, “when one does not economize.”
Humming a little tune, he went out of the door. His step was light, almost sprightly. Miss Lemon stared after him. Her filing system was forgotten. All her feminine instincts were aroused.
“Good gracious,” she murmured. “I wonder . . . Really—at his age! . . . Surely not. . . .”
Fifty-one
FOUR AND TWENTY BLACKBIRDS
“Four and Twenty Blackbirds” was first published in the USA in Collier’s Magazine, November 9, 1940, then as “Poirot and the Regular Customer” in The Strand, March 1941.
Hercule Poirot was dining with his friend, Henry Bonnington at the Gallant Endeavour in the King’s Road, Chelsea.
Mr. Bonnington was fond of the Gallant Endeavour. He liked the leisurely atmosphere, he liked the food which was “plain” and “English” and “not a lot of made up messes.” He liked to tell people who dined with him there just exactly where Augustus John had been wont to sit and draw their attention to the famous artists’ names in the visitors’ book. Mr. Bonnington was himself the least artistic of men—but he took a certain pride in the artistic activities of others.
Molly, the sympathetic waitress, greeted Mr. Bonnington as an old friend. She prided herself on remembering her customers’ likes and dislikes in the way of food.
“Good evening, sir,” she said, as the two men took their seats at a corner table. “You’re in luck today—turkey stuffed with chestnuts—that’s your favourite, isn’t it? And ever such a nice Stilton we’ve got! Will you have soup first or fish?”
Mr. Bonnington deliberated the point. He said to Poirot warningly as the latter studied the menu:
“None of your French kickshaws now. Good well-cooked English food.”
“My friend,” Hercule Poirot waved his hand, “I ask no better! I put myself in your hands unreservedly.”
“Ah—hruup—er—hm,” replied Mr. Bonnington and gave careful attention to the matter.
These weighty matters, and the question of wine, settled, Mr. Bonnington leaned back with a sigh and unfolded his napkin as Molly sped away.
“Good girl, that,” he said approvingly. “Was quite a beauty once—artists used to paint her. She knows about food, too—and that’s a great deal more important. Women are very unsound on food as a rule. There’s many a woman if she goes out with a fellow she fancies—won’t even notice what she eats. She’ll just order the first thing she sees.”
Hercule Poirot shook his head.
“C’est terrible.”
“Men aren’t like that, thank God!” said Mr. Bonnington complacently.
“Never?” There was a twinkle in Hercule Poirot’s eye.
“Well, perhaps when they’re very young,” conceded Mr. Bonnington. “Young puppies! Young fellows nowadays are all the same—no guts—no stamina. I’ve no use for the young—and they,” he added with strict impartiality, “have no use for me. Perhaps they’re right! But to hear some of these young fellows talk you’d think no man had a right to be alive after sixty! From the way they go on, you’d wonder more of them didn’t help their elderly relations out of the world.”
“It is possible,” said Hercule Poirot, “that they do.”
“Nice mind you’ve got, Poirot, I must say. All this police work saps your ideals.”
Hercule Poirot smiled.
“Tout de même,” he said. “It would be interesting to make a table of accidental deaths over the age of sixty. I assure you it would raise some curious speculations in your mind.”
“The trouble with you is that you’ve started going to look for crime—instead of waiting for crime to come to you.”
“I apologize,” said Poirot. “I talk what you call ‘the shop.’ Tell me, my friend, of your own affairs. How does the world go with you?”
“Mess!” said Mr. Bonnington. “That’s what’s the matter with the world nowadays. Too much mess. And too much fine language. The fine language helps to conceal the mess. Like a highly-flavoured sauce concealing the fact that the fish underneath it is none of the best! Give me an honest fillet of sole and no messy sauce over it.”
It was given him at that moment by Molly and he grunted approval.
“You know just what I like, my girl,” he said.
“Well, you come here pretty regular, don’t you, sir? I ought to know what you like.”
Hercule Poirot said:
“Do people then always like the same things? Do not they like a change sometimes?”
“Not gentlemen, sir. Ladies like variety—gentlemen always like the same thing.”
“What did I tell you?” grunted Bonnington. “Women are fundamentally unsound where food is concerned!”
He looked round the restaurant.
“The world’s a funny place. See that odd-looking old fellow with a beard in the corner? Molly’ll tell you he’s always here Tuesdays and Thursday nights. He has come here for close on ten years now—he’s a kind of landmark in the place. Yet nobody here knows his name or where he lives or what his business is. It’s odd when you come to think of it.”
When the waitress brought the portions of turkey he said:
“I see you’ve still got Old Father Time over there?”
“That’s right, sir. Tuesdays and Thursdays, his days are. Not but what he came in here on a Monday last week! It quite upset me! I felt I’d got my dates wrong and that it must be Tuesday without my knowing it! But he came in the next night as well—so the Monday was just a kind of extra, so to speak.”
“An interesting deviation from habit,” murmured Poirot. “I wonder what the reason was?”
“Well, sir, if you ask me, I think he’d had some kind of upset or worry.”
“Why did you think that? His manner?”
“No, sir—not his manner exactly. He was very quiet as he always is. Never says much except good evening when he comes and goes. No, it was his
order.”
“His order?”
“I daresay you gentlemen will laugh at me,” Molly flushed up, “but when a gentleman has been here for ten years, you get to know his likes and dislikes. He never could bear suet pudding or blackberries and I’ve never known him take thick soup—but on that Monday night he ordered thick tomato soup, beefsteak and kidney pudding and blackberry tart! Seemed as though he just didn’t notice what he ordered!”
“Do you know,” said Hercule Poirot, “I find that extraordinarily interesting.”
Molly looked gratified and departed.
“Well, Poirot,” said Henry Bonnington with a chuckle. “Let’s have a few deductions from you. All in your best manner.”
“I would prefer to hear yours first.”
“Want me to be Watson, eh? Well, old fellow went to a doctor and the doctor changed his diet.”
“To thick tomato soup, steak and kidney pudding and blackberry tart? I cannot imagine any doctor doing that.”
“Don’t believe it, old boy. Doctors will put you on to anything.”
“That is the only solution that occurs to you?”
Henry Bonnington said:
“Well, seriously, I suppose there’s only one explanation possible. Our unknown friend was in the grip of some powerful mental emotion. He was so perturbed by it that he literally did not notice what he was ordering or eating.”
He paused a minute and then said:
“You’ll be telling me next that you know just what was on his mind. You’ll say perhaps that he was making up his mind to commit a murder.”
He laughed at his own suggestion.
Hercule Poirot did not laugh.
Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories Page 106