Her crimson mouth opened wide, her rich, foreign voice echoed resoundingly. She had good lungs.
“It is!” she screamed. “But it is! Mon cher Hercule Poirot! We must meet again! I insist!”
But Fate itself is not more inexorable than the behaviour of two escalators moving in an inverse direction. Steadily, remorselessly, Hercule Poirot was borne upward, and the Countess Vera Rossakoff was borne downwards.
Twisting himself sideways, leaning over the balustrade, Poirot cried despairingly:
“Chère Madame—where can I find you?”
Her reply came to him faintly from the depths. It was unexpected, yet seemed at the moment strangely apposite.
“In Hell . . .”
Hercule Poirot blinked. He blinked again. Suddenly he rocked on his feet. Unawares he had reached the top—and had neglected to step off properly. The crowd spread out round him. A little to one side a dense crowd was pressing on to the downward escalator. Should he join them? Had that been the Countess’s meaning? No doubt that travelling in the bowels of the earth at the rush hour was Hell. If that had been the Countess’s meaning, he could not agree with her more. . . .
Resolutely Poirot crossed over, sandwiched himself into the descending crowd and was borne back into the depths. At the foot of the escalator no sign of the Countess. Poirot was left with a choice of blue, amber, etc. lights to follow.
Was the Countess patronizing the Bakerloo or the Piccadilly line? Poirot visited each platform in turn. He was swept about amongst surging crowds boarding or leaving trains, but nowhere did he espy the flamboyant Russian figure, the Countess Vera Rossakoff.
Weary, battered, and infinitely chagrined, Hercule Poirot once more ascended to ground level and stepped out into the hubbub of Piccadilly Circus. He reached home in a mood of pleasurable excitement.
It is the misfortune of small precise men to hanker after large and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the fatal fascination the Countess held for him. Though it was something like twenty years since he had seen her last the magic still held. Granted that her makeup now resembled a scene-painter’s sunset, with the woman under the makeup well hidden from sight, to Hercule Poirot she still represented the sumptuous and the alluring. The little bourgeois was still thrilled by the aristocrat. The memory of the adroit way she stole jewellery roused the old admiration. He remembered the magnificent aplomb with which she had admitted the fact when taxed with it. A woman in a thousand—in a million! And he had met her again—and lost her!
“In Hell,” she had said. Surely his ears had not deceived him? She had said that?
But what had she meant by it? Had she meant London’s Underground Railways? Or were her words to be taken in a religious sense? Surely, even if her own way of life made Hell the most plausible destination for her after this life, surely—surely her Russian courtesy would not suggest that Hercule Poirot was necessarily bound for the same place?
No, she must have meant something quite different. She must have meant—Hercule Poirot was brought up short against bewilderment. What an intriguing, what an unpredictable woman! A lesser woman might have shrieked “The Ritz” or “Claridge’s.” But Vera Rossakoff had cried poignantly and impossibly: “Hell!”
Poirot sighed. But he was not defeated. In his perplexity he took the simplest and most straightforward course on the following morning, he asked his secretary, Miss Lemon.
Miss Lemon was unbelievably ugly and incredibly efficient. To her Poirot was nobody in particular—he was merely her employer. She gave him excellent service. Her private thoughts and dreams were concentrated on a new filing system which she was slowly perfecting in the recesses of her mind.
“Miss Lemon, may I ask you a question?”
“Of course, M. Poirot.” Miss Lemon took her fingers off the typewriter keys and waited attentively.
“If a friend asked you to meet her—or him—in Hell, what would you do?”
Miss Lemon, as usual, did not pause. She knew, as the saying goes, all the answers.
“It would be advisable, I think, to ring up for a table,” she said.
Hercule Poirot stared at her in a stupefied fashion.
He said, staccato, “You—would—ring—up—for—a table?”
Miss Lemon nodded and drew the telephone towards her.
“Tonight?” she asked, and taking assent for granted since he did not speak, she dialled briskly.
“Temple Bar 14578? Is that Hell? Will you please reserve a table for two. M. Hercule Poirot. Eleven o’clock.”
She replaced the receiver and her fingers hovered over the keys of her typewriter. A slight—a very slight look of impatience was discernible upon her face. She had done her part, the look seemed to say, surely her employer could now leave her to get on with what she was doing?
But Hercule Poirot required explanations.
“What is it, then, this Hell?” he demanded.
Miss Lemon looked slightly surprised.
“Oh didn’t you know, M. Poirot? It’s a nightclub—quite new and very much the rage at present—run by some Russian woman, I believe. I can fix up for you to become a member before this evening quite easily.”
Whereupon, having wasted (as she made obvious) quite time enough, Miss Lemon broke into a perfect fusillade of efficient typing.
At eleven that evening Hercule Poirot passed through a doorway over which a Neon sign discreetly showed one letter at a time. A gentleman in red tails received him and took from him his coat.
A gesture directed him to a flight of wide shallow stairs leading downwards. On each step a phrase was written. The first one ran:
“I meant well . . .”
The second:
“Wipe the slate clean and start afresh . . .”
The third:
“I can give it up any time I like . . .”
“The good intentions that pave the way to Hell,” Hercule Poirot murmured appreciatively. “C’est bien imaginé, ça!”
He descended the stairs. At the foot was a tank of water with scarlet lilies. Spanning it was a bridge shaped like a boat. Poirot crossed by it.
On his left in a kind of marble grotto sat the largest and ugliest and blackest dog Poirot had ever seen! It sat up very straight and gaunt and immovable. It was perhaps, he thought, (and hoped!) not real. But at that moment the dog turned its ferocious and ugly head and from the depths of its black body a low, rumbling growl was emitted. It was a terrifying sound.
And then Poirot noticed a decorative basket of small round dog biscuits. They were labelled, “A sop for Cerberus!”
It was on them that the dog’s eyes were fixed. Once again the low, rumbling growl was heard. Hastily Poirot picked up a biscuit and tossed it towards the great hound.
A cavernous red mouth yawned; then came a snap as the powerful jaws closed again. Cerberus had accepted his sop! Poirot moved on through an open doorway.
The room was not a big one. It was dotted with little tables, a space of dancing floor in the middle. It was lighted with small red lamps, there were frescoes on the walls, and at the far end was a vast grill at which officiated chefs dressed as devils with tails and horns.
All this Poirot took in before, with all the impulsiveness of her Russian nature, Countess Vera Rossakoff, resplendent in scarlet evening dress, bore down upon him with outstretched hands.
“Ah, you have come! My dear—my very dear friend! what a joy to see you again! After such years—so many—how many?—No, we will not say how many! To me it seems but as yesterday. You have not changed—not in the least have you changed!”
“Nor you, chère amie,” Poirot exclaimed, bowing over her hand.
Nevertheless he was fully conscious now that twenty years is twenty years. Countess Rossakoff might not uncharitably have been described as a ruin. But she was at least a spectacular ruin. The exuberance, the full-blooded enjoyment of life was still there, and she knew, none better, how to flatter a man.
She drew
Poirot with her to a table at which two other people were sitting.
“My friend, my celebrated friend, M. Hercule Poirot,” she announced. “He who is the terror of evildoers! I was once afraid of him myself, but now I lead a life of the extreme, the most virtuous dullness. Is it not so?”
The tall thin elderly man to whom she spoke said, “Never say dull, Countess.”
“The Professor Liskeard,” the Countess announced. “He who knows everything about the past and who gave me the valuable hints for the decorations here.”
The Archæologist shuddered slightly.
“If I’d known what you meant to do!” he murmured. “The result is so appalling.”
Poirot observed the frescoes more closely. On the wall facing him Orpheus and his jazz band played, while Eurydice looked hopefully towards the grill. On the opposite wall Osiris and Isis seemed to be throwing an Egyptian underworld boating party. On the third wall some bright young people were enjoying mixed bathing in a state of Nature.
“The Country of the Young,” explained the Countess and added in the same breath, completing her introductions: “And this is my little Alice.”
Poirot bowed to the second occupant of the table, a severe-looking girl in a check coat and skirt. She wore horn-rimmed glasses.
“She is very, very clever,” said Countess Rossakoff. “She has a degree and she is a psychologist and she knows all the reasons why lunatics are lunatics! It is not, as you might think, because they are mad! No, there are all sorts of other reasons! I find that very peculiar.”
The girl called Alice smiled kindly but a little disdainfully. She asked the Professor in a firm voice if he would like to dance. He appeared flattered but dubious.
“My dear young lady, I fear I only waltz.”
“This is a waltz,” said Alice patiently.
They got up and danced. They did not dance well.
The Countess Rossakoff sighed. Following out a train of thought of her own, she murmured, “And yet she is not really bad-looking. . . .”
“She does not make the most of herself,” said Poirot judicially.
“Frankly,” cried the Countess, “I cannot understand the young people of nowadays. They do not try any more to please—always, in my youth, I tried—the colours that suited me—a little padding in the frocks—the corset laced tight round the waist—the hair, perhaps, a more interesting shade—”
She pushed back the heavy Titian tresses from her forehead—it was undeniable that she, at least, was still trying and trying hard!
“To be content with what Nature has given you, that—that is stupid! It is also arrogant! The little Alice she writes pages of long words about Sex, but how often, I ask you, does a man suggest to her that they should go to Brighton for the weekend? It is all long words and work, and the welfare of the workers, and the future of the world. It is very worthy, but I ask you, is it gay? And look, I ask you, how drab these young people have made the world! It is all regulations and prohibitions! Not so when I was young.”
“That reminds me, how is your son, Madame?” At the last moment he substituted “son,” for “little boy,” remembering that twenty years had passed.
The Countess’s face lit up with enthusiastic motherhood.
“The beloved angel! So big now, such shoulders, so handsome! He is in America. He builds there—bridges, banks, hotels, department stores, railways, anything the Americans want!”
Poirot looked slightly puzzled.
“He is then an engineer? Or an architect?”
“What does it matter?” demanded the Countess. “He is adorable! He is wrapped up in iron girders, and machinery, and things called stresses. The kind of thing that I have never understood in the least. But we adore each other—always we adore each other! And so for his sake I adore the little Alice. But yes, they are engaged. They meet on a plane or a boat or a train, and they fall in love, all in the midst of talking about the welfare of the workers. And when she comes to London she comes to see me and I take her to my heart.” The Countess clasped her arms across her vast bosom, “And I say—‘You and Niki love each other—so I too love you—but if you love him why do you leave him in America?’ And she talks about her ‘job’ and the book she is writing, and her career, and frankly I do not understand, but I have always said: ‘One must be tolerant.’ ” She added all in one breath, “And what do you think, cher ami, of all this that I have imagined here?”
“It is very well imagined,” said Poirot, looking round him approvingly. “It is chic!”
The place was full and it had about it that unmistakable air of success which cannot be counterfeited. There were languid couples in full evening dress, Bohemians in corduroy trousers, stout gentlemen in business suits. The band, dressed as devils, dispensed hot music. No doubt about it, Hell had caught on.
“We have all kinds here,” said the Countess. “That is as it should be, is it not? The gates of Hell are open to all?”
“Except, possibly, to the poor?” Poirot suggested.
The Countess laughed. “Are we not told that it is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Naturally, then, he should have priority in Hell.”
The Professor and Alice were returning to the table. The Countess got up.
“I must speak to Aristide.”
She exchanged some words with the head waiter, a lean Mephistopheles, then went round from table to table, speaking to the guests.
The Professor, wiping his forehead and sipping a glass of wine, remarked:
“She is a personality, is she not? People feel it.”
He excused himself as he went over to speak to someone at another table. Poirot, left alone with the severe Alice, felt slightly embarrassed as he met the cold blue of her eyes. He recognized that she was actually quite good-looking, but he found her distinctly alarming.
“I do not yet know your last name,” he murmured.
“Cunningham. Dr. Alice Cunningham. You have known Vera in past days, I understand?”
“Twenty years ago it must be.”
“I find her a very interesting study,” said Dr. Alice Cunningham. “Naturally I am interested in her as the mother of the man I am going to marry, but I am interested in her from the professional standpoint as well.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. I am writing a book on criminal psychology. I find the night life of this place very illuminating. We have several criminal types who come here regularly. I have discussed their early life with some of them. Of course you know all about Vera’s criminal tendencies—I mean that she steals?”
“Why, yes—I know that,” said Poirot, slightly taken aback.
“I call it the Magpie complex myself. She takes, you know, always glittering things. Never money. Always jewels. I find that as a child she was petted and indulged but very much shielded. Life was unendurably dull for her—dull and safe. Her nature demanded drama—it craved for punishment. That is at the root of her indulgence in theft. She wants the importance, the notoriety of being punished!”
Poirot objected, “Her life can surely not have been safe and dull as a member of the ancien régime in Russia during the revolution?”
A look of faint amusement showed in Miss Cunningham’s pale blue eyes.
“Ah,” she said. “A member of the ancien régime? She has told you that?”
“She is undeniably an aristocrat,” said Poirot staunchly, fighting back certain uneasy memories of the wildly varying accounts of her early life told him by the Countess herself.
“One believes what one wishes to believe,” remarked Miss Cunningham, casting a professional eye on him.
Poirot felt alarmed. In a moment, he felt, he would be told what was his complex. He decided to carry the war into the enemy’s camp. He enjoyed the Countess Rossakoff’s society partly because of her aristocratic provenance, and he was not going to have his enjoyment spoiled by a spectacled little girl with boiled gooseberry eyes and a degree in psychology!
“
Do you know what I find astonishing?” he asked.
Alice Cunningham did not admit in so many words that she did not know. She contented herself with looking bored but indulgent.
Poirot went on:
“It amazes me that you—who are young, and who could look pretty if you took the trouble—well, it amazes me that you do not take the trouble! You wear the heavy coat and skirt with the big pockets as though you were going to play the game of golf. But it is not here the golf links, it is the underground cellar with the temperature of 71 Fahrenheit, and your nose it is hot and shines, but you do not powder it, and the lipstick you put it on your mouth without interest, without emphasizing the curve of the lips! You are a woman, but you do not draw attention to the fact of being a woman. And I say to you ‘Why not?’ It is a pity!”
For a moment he had the satisfaction of seeing Alice Cunningham look human. He even saw a spark of anger in her eyes. Then she regained her attitude of smiling contempt.
“My dear M. Poirot,” she began, “I’m afraid you’re out of touch with the modern ideology. It is fundamentals that matter—not the trappings.”
She looked up as a dark and very beautiful young man came towards them.
“This is a most interesting type,” she murmured with zest. “Paul Varesco! Lives on women and has strange depraved cravings! I want him to tell me more about a nursery governess who looked after him when he was three years old.”
A moment or two later she was dancing with the young man. He danced divinely. As they drifted near Poirot’s table, Poirot heard her say: “And after the summer at Bognor she gave you a toy crane? A crane—yes, that’s very suggestive.”
For a moment Poirot allowed himself to toy with the speculation that Miss Cunningham’s interest in criminal types might lead one day to her mutilated body being found in a lonely wood. He did not like Alice Cunningham, but he was honest enough to realize that the reason for his dislike was the fact that she was so palpably unimpressed by Hercule Poirot! His vanity suffered!