“Milady, the detective has arrived.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s waiting at the cottage.”
“I told you to show him to the sitting room. Didn’t you understand me, Carswell?”
“Pardon, Milady, but the detective, when I asked to search him, as you asked, flatly refused to let me.”
“Did you explain to him that everybody is searched before being allowed to enter, that it’s the order and that even my mother herself has submitted to it?”
“I told him all that, Milady and I told him about Lady Entwistle.”
“What did he say to that?”
“That he wasn’t your mother. He acted angry.”
“Well, let him come in without being searched.”
“The inspector won’t like it, Milady.”
“Do as I say.”
Carswell bowed and returned to the garden. Lady Francine Hassocks left the patio, where she had come for this conversation with the old servant. She returned to the dining room in the mansion, where a High Court Judge, John Colliver was regaling his friend, her husband, arms manufacturer Stephen Hassocks and his amused friends with his latest exploit in the Kenya Colony. They were a noisy company and certainly the quietest among them wasn’t the arms manufacturer, who nursed on a sofa the leg which still held him captive after the recent attack, which to his automobile had proved fatal. The story of the amiable John Colliver, who was a balding, elderly man took place about three months before. After having wet his whistle with a large glass of French wine, he cried, “You would have laughed, Stephen. We had sung songs at the hotel’s gentlemen’s club and then the musicians left with their music and we went out on the lakeshore to stretch our legs and cool our faces in the freshness of the dawn, when a company of British soldiers of the Scots Guard came along. I knew the young man in command and invited him to come along with us and drink to the King’s health. That young man, Stephen, is a man, who knows vintages and boasts that he has never swallowed a glass of anything so common as South African wine. When I told him the chateau of the wine he cried, “Long live the King!” A true patriot. So we began, happy as schoolchildren. The entire company repeated this. Then all the diners and all the servants followed them as one. I hated to leave the other young men of my friend at the door, so I invited them in, too. They accepted, naturally. But the corporals were thirsty as well. I understand discipline. You know, Stephen, that I’m a stickler for discipline. Just because one is happy to be alive on a spring morning, discipline should not be forgotten. I invited the young men to drink in a private room and sent the corporals into the main hall of the restaurant. Then the soldiers were thirsty too and I had drinks served to them out in the courtyard. Then, my word, now the horses whinnied. The brave horses, Stephen, also wished to drink to the health of the King. I was concerned about discipline. Restaurant, courtyard, all were full. And I couldn’t put the horses in private rooms. Well, I made them carry out wine in buckets. A grand mixture of boots and horse-shoes that was certainly the liveliest thing I have ever seen in my life. But the horses were the most joyous and danced as if drunk and all of them, my word, were ready to throw their riders, because the men were not of the same mind with them as to the route to follow! From our window we laughed fit to murder at such a mixture of sprawling boots and dancing hoofs. But the troopers finally got all their horses to barracks, with patience, for the King’s cavalry are the best riders in the world, Stephen. And we certainly had a great laugh! Your health, Lady Hassocks.”
These last graceful words were addressed to Lady Hassocks, who shrugged her shoulders at the undesired gallantry of the High Court judge. She didn’t join in the conversation. And while the guests laughed over the adventure she whispered to her husband in the advisory voice of the helpful wife,
“Stephen, you must not attach importance to what that old fool John tells you. He’s the most imaginative man in England, when he has had wine.”
“John, you certainly have not had horses served with wine in buckets,” the old boaster Richard Monk protested jealously. He was a Member of Parliament, well-known for his speeches and he regretted not to have invented that tale.
“On my word! And the best brands! I had won four thousand shilling. I left the little feast with fifteen shilling.”
Lady Hassocks shook her head at the men. Carswell, his shoes glistening like ice entered and whispered in her ear. Lady Hassocks rose, after lightly stroking the hair of her stepdaughter Kimberley, whose eyes followed her to the door, indifferent apparently to the tender looks of her fiancé, the lawyer Ian Spencer, who was known to hold communist sympathies.
Carswell conducted his mistress to the drawing room and pointed across to a door that he had left open, which led to the sitting room before Kimberley’s room.
“He’s there,” said Carswell in a low voice.
Carswell need have said nothing, since Lady Hassocks was aware of a stranger’s presence in the sitting room by the extraordinary attitude of an individual in plain clothes. This policeman was on his knees in the drawing room watching what happened in the next room through the narrow space of light in the hinge way of the door. In this manner or some other, all persons, who wished to approach Stephen Hassocks were kept under observation without them knowing it, after having been first searched at the cottage, a measure adopted since the latest attack.
Lady Hassocks touched the policeman’s shoulder. The policeman rose and silently left the room, reached the patio and lounged there on a sofa, pretending to be asleep, but in reality watching the garden paths.
Lady Hassocks took his place at the hinge way. This was her rule. She always took the final glance at everything and everybody. She roved at all hours of the day and night around the house like a watchdog, ready to bite. This had begun after the workers refused to continue working at her husband’s arms factories up North. The government had sent in the police to break the syndicate’s siege on the factories. This resulted in many wounded workers and one dead policeman. The workers and their syndicate had loudly condemned the victorious arms manufacturer. The Communist Committee of Britain, which had joined the protestors, had threatened the life of the arms manufacturer in pamphlets sent to the newspapers in London.
But Lady Hassocks had lost all confidence in the protection of her husband even within the walls of her own home. Things had happened even there that defied her caution. She had not spoken of these things save to Inspector Watkins of Scotland Yard, who had reported them to the Prime Minister. And here now was the man, whom the Prime Minister had sent as the supreme resource, this stranger, Jules Poiret, consulting detective.
“But he’s a Frenchman!” she exclaimed. “How can this round figure with his soft, rounded cheeks and at first view, extraordinarily pretentiously dressed man understand what is at issue?”
True, at the moment Poiret’s expression hardly suggested any superhuman depth of thought, for, left in view of a table spread with hors-d’oeuvres, the fat man appeared solely occupied in digging out with a spoon all the caviar, which had stayed in the jars and putting it on toasted bread. Lady Hassocks noted the extraordinary care he had put in grooming his big moustache, the reason she immediately recognized him as a Frenchman. And that forehead, the forehead was curious, with great overhanging cranial lumps which moved above the deep arcade of the eye sockets while the mouth was busy, well, one would have said that Poiret had not eaten for a week.
He tied a napkin around his neck. He took a knife and a fork in his hands. He walked around the table, sampling the dishes. He was demolishing a great slice of Scottish sturgeon, contemplating at the same time with immense
interest a salad of creamed cucumbers, when Lady Hassocks appeared.
He wished to excuse himself at once. He took the napkin and dabbing at his mouth, spoke with his mouth full.
“Poiret, he begs your pardon, Lady Hassocks, but the Prime Minister, he forgot to invite him to breakfast.”
Lady Hassocks smiled and gave him a hearty handshake as she urged him to be seated.
“You have seen His Excellency?”
“Poiret, he comes from him, Lady Hassocks. It is to Lady Hassocks that Poiret, he has the honor of speaking?”
“Yes. And you are Mister?”
“Jules Poiret, Madame. Poiret, he does not add, “At your service, because Poiret, he does not know whether to accept the commission yet. That is what Poiret, he said just now to His Excellency.”
“Why, sir?” asked Lady Hassocks, rather amused by the tone the conversation had taken and the slightly pompous air of Poiret.
“Because Poiret, he is the consulting detective.” That is what Poiret said at once to His Excellency in London. “Poiret, he is not going to take part in affairs that require the bodyguard,” to which His Excellency replied, “You do not have to use the muscles. You must go to the arms manufacturer to make an inquiry into the present status of his safety.” Poiret, he said, “Poiret, he accepts the challenge.” and he takes the train.”
“And you have spoken to Inspector Watkins?”
“Oui, Madame. That has not been difficult. Poiret, he expected to arrive direct in Folkestone, but at Maidstone the train, it stopped and the inspector, he came to Poiret. Poiret, he understood at once that this was obviously for something out of the ordinary.”
“And what did he say to you?”
“Inspector Watkins is the man of genuine dedication to his duty. He reassured Poiret at once when he explained his scruples to him. He said there was no occasion for him to take part in the work of the bodyguard, as Monsieur Hassocks was on the point of becoming the victim of the family drama.”
Lady Hassocks, white as a sheet, rose to her feet.
“Ah,” she said simply.
But Poiret, whom nothing escaped, saw her hand shake on the back of the chair.
He went on, not appearing to have noticed her emotion,
“The inspector, he added these words, exactly as Poiret, he speaks them, “Do not trust anyone except for Lady Hassocks. She awaits you.”
He stopped and waited for Lady Hassocks to speak. She made up her mind after a moment of thinking.
“Have you seen the Secretary of Armaments?”
“Non, Madame. Who is he?”
“Mister Poiret,” said Lady Hassocks, who visibly strove to regain her composure, “I’m not of Watkins’s opinion and it’s better,” here she lowered her trembling voice, “for me to tell you at once, so that you may not regret intervening in an affair where there are terrible risks to run. No, this is not a family drama. The family is small, very small. There is my husband, his daughter Kimberley, by his former marriage and myself. There couldn’t be a family drama among us three. It’s simply about my husband, Mr. Poiret, who manufactures weapons to defend our country and its sovereignty, whom they mean to assassinate! There is nothing else, no other situation.”
To hide her distress she began to carve a slice of veal and carrot.
“You have not eaten, you are hungry. It’s dreadful, Mr. Poiret. See, you must dine with us and then you will say, “Goodbye.” Yes, you will leave me all alone. I will undertake to save him all alone.”
A tear fell on the slice she was cutting.
“Poiret, he is able to help you a little, Madame,” he said. “Inspector Watkins, he has told to him that there is the deep mystery. It is the vocation of Poiret to solve the mysteries.”
“I know what Watkins thinks,” she said, shaking her head. “But if I could bring myself to think that for a single moment, I would rather be dead.”
The good Lady Hassocks lifted her eyes to Poiret, brimming with the tears she held back.
She added quickly, “But eat now, my dear guest. Eat! You must forget what Watkins has said to you, when you are back in France.”
Poiret frowned invisibly.
“Poiret, he promises to you, Madame...”
“It’s the Prime Minister, who has caused you this long journey. For me, I didn’t wish it. Has he, indeed, so much confidence in you?” she asked naively, gazing at him fixedly through her tears.
“Madame, Poiret, he was just about to tell you. He has been active in some important affairs that have been reported to the Prime Minister and then sometimes the Prime Minister, he is allowed to see the documents of Scotland Yard. He has heard talk, too, for all the newspapers, they talk about the mysteries, which Poiret, he has solved.”
Here Poiret watched Lady Hassocks and was mortified at the undoubted ignorance that showed in her frank face of either him or the mysteries he had solved.
“My friend,” she said, in a voice more and more hesitant, “you must excuse me, but it’s a long time since I have had good eyes for reading.”
Tears, at last, ran down her cheeks.
Poiret couldn’t restrain himself any further. He saw in one flash all the woman had suffered in her combat with death, which hovered over her husband. He took her hands, whose fingers were overloaded with rings into his own.
“Madame, please not to cry. They wish to murder your husband. Well then, we will be two to defend him. Poiret, he swears it to you.”
“Even against those horrible Communists!”
“Oui, Madame, against all the world. Poiret, he is your friend.”
As he said this he was so excited, so sincere and so droll that Lady Hassocks couldn’t help smiling through her tears. She made him sit down beside her.
“The inspector has talked of you a great deal. He came here abruptly after a mysterious happening that I will tell you about later. He said, “Ah, we need Poiret to unravel this!” The next day he came here again. He had gone to London. There, the Prime Minister, it appears, was talking of you.”
“Oui, Oui. And naturellement all the world, it has learned of it too. That is what makes it interesting to Poiret. The Communists, they have warned Poiret in a letter that he would not reach Folkestone alive. That, finally, it was what decided Poiret on coming. He is, how do you say, contrary.”
“And how did you get through the journey?”
“Poiret, he discovered at once in the train the assassin. He was dressed as the French chef.”
Poiret was eating away now at meats, which would have been difficult for anyone but him to name. Lady Hassocks laid her hand on his arm,
“You speak seriously?”
“Very seriously.”
“A small glass of sherry?”
“Merci, Madame.”
Lady Hassocks filled two little glasses and handed him one.
“And how did you discover him?”
“First, he wore the costume of the chef gastronomique, which peaked the interest of Poiret.” Poiret’s girth easily explained his interest in the French cuisine. “And then Poiret, he played the trick on him. A minute before the departure from London, Poiret, he asks to the train conductor to go into the restaurant car. Poiret, he says, “Please to call out suddenly and very loudly, “Hello, here is Poiret.” So he calls, “Hello, here is Poiret,” and all those, who were in the restaurant car, they looked up and all the cooks, who were already in the kitchen, they came out, except for the master chef. Then Poiret, he was sure about him.”
Lady Hassocks looked rather skeptically at Poiret. She was surprised to see he didn’t turn as red as the comb of a rooster and understood he was rather vain.
“That deserves an explanation, Mr. Poiret,” she said.
“Madame, the mere chef, he cannot, not have the curiosity to see, who Poiret, he is. It was not natural. As soon as the train was off Poiret, he sits down near the chef and tells to him, who he thinks the chef, he is. He removes his hat and looking Poiret straight in the eyes, he says
he is fortunate to have the little talk with him, before anything unfortunate, it has happened.” Lady Hassocks again looked rather skeptically at him. “The entente, it was signed. He tells to Poiret to go on tranquilly and he returns to his kitchen.”
“You see you are a marked man, if you stay here.”
“Madame, how do you say, they have not got us yet.”
Lady Hassocks coughed again. The “us” overwhelmed her. With what calmness this exquisitely dressed gentleman, whom she had not known for more than an hour proposed to share the dangers of a situation from which the bravest men kept away either from prudence or fear.
“Ah, Mr. Poiret, a little of this fine smoked beef?”
But the detective was already pouring red wine in his glass.
“Non, Madame, the alcohol, it ruins the taste for the food,” he said.
He proceeded to drink it in one draught.
“Now, Madame, Poiret, he’s listening. Please to tell to him first about the earliest attack.”
“Now?” asked Lady Hassocks hesitantly. “We must go to dinner.”
Poiret looked at her wide-eyed.
“But, Madame, what has Poiret just been doing?”
Lady Hassocks smiled. All these Frenchmen were alike. Because they had eaten some hors-d’oeuvres, some cold meats, they imagined it was enough. They didn’t know how to eat.
“We will go to the dining room. My husband is expecting you. They are at table.”
“Poiret, he understands he must act as if he has met him before?”
“Yes, you have met in Paris. It’s entirely natural that in passing through Folkestone you should visit him. You know him very well indeed, so well that he opens his home to you. Oh, yes, my stepdaughter,” she flushed a little, “Kimberley, she also believes that her father knows you.”
She opened the door of the drawing room, which they had to cross in order to reach the dining room.
From his position Poiret could see all the corners of the drawing room, the patio, the garden and the cottage at the gate. On the patio the policeman in plain clothes seemed still to be asleep on the sofa. In front of a window in the drawing room another individual, silent and motionless as a statue, dressed exactly the same stood with his hands behind his back seemingly struck with paralysis at the sight of a beautiful sunset. And in the garden, in front of the cottage three others dressed in plain clothes moved like souls in pain over the lawn or back and forth at the gate. Poiret motioned to Lady Hassocks, stepped back into the sitting room and closed the door.
English Rose (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 13) Page 1