Third Girl (12 page)

P
oirot seldom used the key to his flat. Instead, in an old-fashioned manner, he pressed the bell and waited for that admirable factotum, George, to open the door. On this occasion, however, after his visit to the hospital, the door was opened to him by Miss Lemon.

“You've got two visitors,” said Miss Lemon, pitching her voice in an admirable tone, not as carrying as a whisper but a good many notes lower than her usual pitch. “One's Mr. Goby and the other is an old gentleman called Sir Roderick Horsefield. I don't know which you want to see first.”

“Sir Roderick Horsefield,” mused Poirot. He considered this with his head on one side, looking rather like a robin while he decided how this latest development was likely to affect the general picture. Mr. Goby, however, materialised with his usual suddenness from the small room which was sacred to Miss Lemon's typewriting and where she had evidently kept him in storage.

Poirot removed his overcoat. Miss Lemon hung it up on the hall stand, and Mr. Goby, as was his fashion, addressed the back of Miss Lemon's head.

“I'll have a cup of tea in the kitchen with George,” said Mr. Goby. “My time is my own. I'll keep.”

He disappeared obligingly into the kitchen. Poirot went into his sitting room where Sir Roderick was pacing up and down full of vitality.

“Run you down, my boy,” he said genially. “Wonderful thing the telephone.”

“You remembered my name? I am gratified.”

“Well, I didn't exactly remember your name,” said Sir Roderick. “Names, you know, have never been my strong point. Never forget a face,” he ended proudly. “No. I rang up Scotland Yard.”

“Oh!” Poirot looked faintly startled, though reflecting that that was the sort of thing that Sir Roderick
would
do.

“Asked me who I wanted to speak to. I said, put me on to the top. That's the thing to do in life, my boy. Never accept second in charge. No good. Go to the top, that's what I say. I said who I was, mind you. Said I wanted to speak to the top brass and I got on to it in the end. Very civil fellow. Told him I wanted the address of a chap in Allied Intelligence who was out with me at a certain place in France at a certain date. The chap seemed a bit at sea, so I said: ‘You know who I mean.' A Frenchman, I said, or a Belgian. Belgian, weren't you? I said: ‘He's got a Christian name something like Achilles. It's not Achilles,' I said, ‘but it's
like
Achilles. Little chap,' I said, ‘big moustaches.' And then he seemed to catch on, and he said you'd be in the telephone book, he thought. I said that's all right, but I said: ‘He won't be listed under Achilles or Hercules (as he said
it was), will he? and I can't remember his second name.' So then he gave it me. Very civil sort of fellow. Very civil, I must say.”

“I am delighted to see you,” said Poirot, sparing a hurried thought for what might be said to him later by Sir Roderick's telephone acquaintance. Fortunately it was not likely to have been quite the top brass. It was presumably someone with whom he was already acquainted, and whose job it was to produce civility on tap for distinguished persons of a bygone day.

“Anyway,” said Sir Roderick, “I got here.”

“I am delighted. Let me offer you some refreshment. Tea, a grenadine, a whisky and soda, some
sirop de cassis
—”

“Good lord, no,” said Sir Roderick, alarmed at the mention of
sirop de cassis.
“I'll take whisky for choice. Not that I'm allowed it,” he added, “but doctors are all fools, as we know. All they care for is stopping you having anything you've a fancy for.”

Poirot rang for George and gave him the proper instructions. The whisky and the siphon were placed at Sir Roderick's elbow and George withdrew.

“Now,” said Poirot, “what can I do for you?”

“Got a job for you, old boy.”

After the lapse of time, he seemed even more convinced of the close liaison between him and Poirot in the past, which was as well, thought Poirot, since it would produce an even greater dependence on his, Poirot's, capabilities by Sir Roderick's nephew.

“Papers,” said Sir Roderick, dropping his voice. “Lost some papers and I've got to find 'em, see? So I thought what with my eyes not being as good as they were, and the memory being a trifle off-key sometimes, I'd better go to someone in the know. See? You
came along in the nick of time the other day, just in time to be useful, because I've got to cough 'em up, you understand.”

“It sounds most interesting,” said Poirot. “What are these papers, if I may ask?”

“Well, I suppose if you're going to find them, you'll have to ask, won't you? Mind you, they're very secret and confidential. Top secret—or they were once. And it seems as though they are going to be again. An interchange of letters, it was. Not of any particular importance at the time—or it was thought they were of no importance; but then of course politics change. You know the way it is. They go round and face the other way. You know how it was when the war broke out. None of us knew whether we were on our head or on our heels. One war we're pals with the Italians, next war we're enemies. I don't know which of them all was the worst. First war the Japanese were our dear allies, and the next war there they are blowing up Pearl Harbor! Never knew where you were! Start one way with the Russians, and finish the opposite way. I tell you, Poirot, nothing's more difficult nowadays than the question of allies. They can change overnight.”

“And you have lost some papers,” said Poirot, recalling the old man to the subject of his visit.

“Yes. I've got a lot of papers, you know, and I've dug 'em out lately. I had 'em put away safely. In a bank, as a matter of fact, but I got 'em all out and I began sorting through them because I thought why not write my memoirs. All the chaps are doing it nowadays. We've had Montgomery and Alanbrooke and Auchinleck all shooting their mouths off in print, mostly saying what they thought of the other generals. We've even had old Moran, a respectable physi
cian, blabbing about his important patient. Don't know what things will come to next! Anyway, there it is, and I thought I'd be quite interested myself in telling a few facts about some people I knew! Why shouldn't I have a go as well as everyone else? I was in it all.”

“I am sure it could be a matter of much interest to people,” said Poirot.

“Ah-ha, yes! One knew a lot of people in the news. Everyone looked at them with awe. They didn't know they were complete fools, but I knew. My goodness, the mistakes some of those brass hats made—you'd be surprised. So I got out my papers, and I had the little girl help me sort 'em out. Nice little girl, that, and quite bright. Doesn't know English very well, but apart from that, she's very bright and helpful. I'd salted away a lot of stuff, but everything was in a bit of a muddle. The point of the whole thing is,
the papers I wanted weren't there.
”

“Weren't there?”

“No. We thought we'd given it a miss by mistake to begin with, but we went over it again and I can tell you, Poirot, a lot of stuff seemed to me to have been pinched. Some of it wasn't important. Actually, the stuff I was looking for wasn't particularly important—I mean, nobody had thought it was, otherwise I suppose I shouldn't have been allowed to keep it. But anyway, these particular letters weren't there.”

“I wish of course to be discreet,” said Poirot, “but can you tell me at all the nature of these letters you refer to?”

“Don't know that I can, old boy. The nearest I can go is of somebody who's shooting off his mouth nowadays about what he did and what he said in the past. But he's not speaking the truth, and these letters just show exactly how much of a liar he is! Mind
you, I don't suppose they'd be published now. We'll just send him nice copies of them, and tell him this is exactly what he did say at the time, and that we've got it in writing. I shouldn't be surprised if—well, things went a bit differently after that. See? I hardly need ask that, need I? You're familiar with all that kind of talky-talky.”

“You're quite right, Sir Roderick. I know exactly the kind of thing you mean, but you see also that it is not easy to help you recover something if one does not know what that something is, and where it is likely to be now.”

“First things first: I want to know who pinched 'em, because you see that's the important point. There may be more top secret stuff in my little collection, and I want to know who's tampering with it.”

“Have you any ideas yourself?”

“You think I ought to have, heh?”

“Well, it would seem that the principal possibility—”

“I know. You want me to say it's the little girl. Well, I don't think it
is
the little girl. She says she didn't, and I believe her. Understand?”

“Yes,” said Poirot with a slight sigh, “I understand.”

“For one thing she's too young. She wouldn't know these things were important. It's before her time.”

“Someone else might have instructed her as to that,” Poirot pointed out.

“Yes, yes, that's true enough. But it's too obvious as well.”

Poirot sighed. He doubted if it was any use insisting in view of Sir Roderick's obvious partiality. “Who else had access?”

“Andrew and Mary, of course, but I doubt if Andrew would even be interested in such things. Anyway, he's always been a very
decent boy. Always was. Not that I've ever known him very well. Used to come for the holidays once or twice with his brother and that's about all. Of course, he ditched his wife, and went off with an attractive bit of goods to South Africa, but that might happen to any man, especially with a wife like Grace. Not that I ever saw much of her, either. Kind of woman who looked down her nose and was full of good works. Anyway you can't imagine a chap like Andrew being a spy. As for Mary, she seems all right. Never looks at anything but a rose bush as far as I can make out. There's a gardener but he's eighty-three and has lived in the village all his life, and there are a couple of women always dodging about the house making a noise with Hoovers, but I can't see them in the role of spies either. So you see it's got to be an outsider. Of course Mary wears a wig,” went on Sir Roderick rather inconsequently. “I mean it might make you think she was a spy because she wore a wig, but that's not the case. She lost her hair in a fever when she was eighteen. Pretty bad luck for a young woman. I'd no idea she wore a wig to begin with but a rose bush caught in her hair one day and whisked it sideways. Yes, very bad luck.”

“I thought there was something a little odd about the way she had arranged her hair,” said Poirot.

“Anyway, the best secret agents never wear wigs,” Sir Roderick informed him. “Poor devils have to go to plastic surgeons and get their faces altered. But someone's been mucking about with my private papers.”

“You don't think that you may perhaps have placed them in some different container—in a drawer or a different file. When did you see them last?”

“I handled these things about a year ago. I remember I thought
then, they'd make rather good copy, and I noted those particular letters. Now they're gone. Somebody's taken them.”

“You do not suspect your nephew Andrew, his wife or the domestic staff. What about the daughter?”

“Norma? Well Norma's a bit off her onion, I'd say. I mean she
might
be one of those kleptomaniacs who take people's things without knowing they're taking them but I don't see her fumbling about among my papers.”

“Then what
do
you think?”

“Well, you've been in the house. You saw what the house is like. Anyone can walk in and out anytime they like. We don't lock our doors. We never have.”

“Do you lock the door of your own room—if you go up to London, for instance?”

“I never thought of it as necessary. I do now of course, but what's the use of that? Too late. Anyway, I've only an ordinary key, fits any of the doors. Someone must have come in from outside. Why nowadays that's how all the burglaries take place. People walk in in the middle of the day, stump up the stairs, go into any room they like, rifle the jewel box, go out again, and nobody sees them or cares who they are. They probably look like mods or rockers or beatniks or whatever they call these chaps nowadays with the long hair and the dirty nails. I've seen more than one of them prowling about. One doesn't like to say ‘Who the devil are you?' You never know which sex they are, which is embarrassing. The place crawls with them. I suppose they're Norma's friends. Wouldn't have been allowed in the old days. But you turn them out of the house, and then you find out it's Viscount Endersleigh or Lady Charlotte Marjoribanks. Don't know where you are nowadays.” He paused. “If
anyone can get to the bottom of it, you can, Poirot.” He swallowed the last mouthful of whisky and got up.

“Well, that's that. It's up to you. You'll take it on, won't you?”

“I will do my best,” said Poirot.

The front-door bell rang.

“That's the little girl,” said Sir Roderick. “Punctual to the minute. Wonderful, isn't it? Couldn't go about London without her, you know. Blind as a bat. Can't see to cross the road.”

“Can you not have glasses?”

“I've got some somewhere, but they're always falling off my nose or else I lose them. Besides, I don't like glasses. I've never had glasses. When I was sixty-five I could see to read without glasses and that's pretty good.”

“Nothing,” said Hercule Poirot, “lasts forever.”

George ushered in Sonia. She was looking extremely pretty. Her slightly shy manner became her very well, Poirot thought. He moved forward with Gallic
empressement.