The Labours of Hercules hp-26

by Agatha Christie

  "That she can reform a rake,-" said Poirot, "has always been one of woman's dearest illusions!"

  Alice Cunningham looked at him coldly.

  "There is nothing personal about this, M. Poirot."

  "There never is," said Poirot. "It is always pure disinterested altruism – but the object of it is usually an attractive member of the opposite sex. Are you interested, for instance, in where I went to school, or what was the attitude of the matron to me?"

  "You are not a criminal type," said Miss Cunningham.

  "Do you know a criminal type when you see one?"

  "Certainly I do."

  Professor Liskeard joined them. He sat down by Poirot.

  "Are you talking about criminals? You should study the criminal code of Hammurabi, M. Poirot.1800 BC. Most interesting. The man who is caught stealing during a fire shall be thrown into the fire."

  He stared pleasurably ahead of him towards the electric grill.

  "And there are older, Sumerian laws. If a wife hateth her husband and saith unto him, 'Thou art not my husband' they shall throw her into the river. Cheaper and easier than the divorce court. But if a husband says that to his wife he only has to pay her a certain measure of silver. Nobody throws him in the river."

  "The same old story," said Alice Cunningham. "One law for the man and one for the woman."

  "Women, of course, have a greater appreciation of monetary value," said the Professor thoughtfully. "You know," he added, "I like this place. I come here most evenings. I don't have to pay. The Countess arranged that – very nice of her – in consideration of my having advised her about the decorations, she says. Not that they're anything to do with me really – I'd no idea what she was asking me questions for – and naturally she and the artist have got everything quite wrong. I hope nobody will ever know I had the remotest connection with the dreadful things. I should never live it down. But she's a wonderful woman – rather like a Babylonian, I always think. The Babylonians were good women of business, you know -"

  The Professor's words were drowned in a sudden chorus. The word 'Police' was heard – women rose to their feet, there was a babel of sound. The lights went out and so did the electric grill.

  As an undertone to the turmoil the Professor's voice went on tranquilly reciting various excerpts from the laws of Hammurabi.

  When the lights went on again Hercule Poirot was halfway up the wide, shallow steps. The police officers by the door saluted him, and he passed out into the street and strolled to the corner. Just round the corner, pressed against the wall was a small and odoriferous man with a red nose. He spoke in an anxious, husky whisper.

  "I'm 'ere guv'nor. Time for me to do my stuff?"

  "Yes. Go on."

  "There's an awful lot of coppers about!"

  "That is all right. They've been told about you."

  "I 'ope they won't interfere, that's all?"

  "They will not interfere. You're sure you can accomplish what you have set out to do? The animal in question is both large and fierce."

  "'E won't be fierce to me," said the little man confidently. "Not with what I've got 'ere! Any dog'll follow me to Hell for it!"

  "In this case," murmured Hercule Poirot, "he has to follow you out of Hell!"

  V

  In the small hours of the morning the telephone rang. Poirot picked up the receiver.

  Japp's voice said: "You asked me to ring you."

  "Yes, indeed. Eh bien?"

  "No dope – we got the emeralds."

  "Where?"

  "In Professor Liskeard's pocket."

  "Professor Liskeard?"

  "Surprises you, too? Frankly I don't know what to think! He looked as astonished as a baby, stared at them, said he hadn't the faintest idea how they got in his pocket, and dammit I believe he was speaking the truth! Varesco could have slipped them into his pocket easily enough in the blackout. I can't see a man like old Liskeard being mixed up in this sort of business. He belongs to all these highfalutin' societies, why he's even connected with the British Museum! The only thing he ever spends money on is books, and musty old second-hand books at that. No, he doesn't fit. I'm beginning to think we're wrong about the whole thing – there never has been any dope in that Club."

  "Oh, yes there has, my friend, it was there tonight. Tell me, did no one come out through your secret way?"

  "Yes, Prince Henry of Scandenberg and his equerry – he only arrived in England yesterday. Vitamian Evans, the Cabinet Minister (devil of a job being a Labour Minister, you have to be so careful! Nobody minds a Tory politician spending money on riotous living because the taxpayers think it's his own money – but when it's a Labour man the public feel it's their money he's spending! And so it is in a manner of speaking.) Lady Beatrice Viner was the last – she's getting married the day after tomorrow to the priggish young Duke of Leominster. I don't believe any of that lot were mixed up in this."

  "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 rat-like 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 need 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 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 organiser of the dope racket. Have I not performed the twelfth Labour 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 night club 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 came 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."

  VI

  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, W.C.1."

  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 Countesses 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 economise."

  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…"

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