Hercule Poirot’s eyebrows rose.
“Did she hit him?”
“Not she! Bullet went several yards wide, I should say. What she did hit was a miserable loafer who was creeping along the Mews looking in the dustbins. Got him through the fleshy part of the arm. He raised Hell, of course, and the crowd hustled him in here quick, got the wind up with all the blood that was spilling out of him and came round and got me.”
“Yes?”
“I patched him up all right. It wasn’t serious. Then one or two of the men got busy on him and in the end he consented to accept a couple of five pound notes and say no more about it. Suited him all right, poor devil. Marvellous stroke of luck.”
“And you?”
“I had a bit more work to do. Mrs. Grace herself was in raving hysterics by that time. I gave her a shot of something and packed her off to bed. There was another girl who’d more or less passed out—quite young she was, and I attended to her too. By that time everyone was slinking off as fast as they could leave.”
He paused.
“And then,” said Poirot, “you had time to think over the situation.”
“Exactly,” said Stoddart. “If it was an ordinary drunken binge, well, that would be the end of it. But dope’s different.”
“You are quite sure of your facts?”
“Oh, absolutely. No mistaking it. It’s cocaine all right. I found some in a lacquer box—they snuff it up, you know. Question is, where does it come from? I remembered that you’d been talking the other day about a big, new wave of drug taking and the increase of drug addicts.”
Hercule Poirot nodded. He said:
“The police will be interested in this party tonight.”
Michael Stoddart said unhappily:
“That’s just it. . . .”
Poirot looked at him with suddenly awakened interest. He said:
“But you—you are not very anxious that the police should be interested?”
Michael Stoddart mumbled:
“Innocent people get mixed up in things . . . hard lines on them.”
“Is it Mrs. Patience Grace for whom you are so solicitous?”
“Good Lord, no. She’s as hard-boiled as they make them!”
Hercule Poirot said gently:
“It is, then, the other one—the girl?”
Dr. Stoddart said:
“Of course, she’s hard-boiled, too, in a way. I mean, she’d describe herself as hard-boiled. But she’s really just very young—a bit wild and all that—but it’s just kid foolishness. She gets mixed up in a racket like this because she thinks it’s smart or modern or something like that.”
A faint smile came to Poirot’s lips. He said softly:
“This girl, you have met her before tonight?”
Michael Stoddart nodded. He looked very young and embarrassed.
“Ran across her in Mertonshire. At the Hunt Ball. Her father’s a retired General—blood and thunder, shoot ’em down—pukka Sahib—all that sort of thing. There are four daughters and they are all a bit wild—driven to it with a father like that, I should say. And it’s a bad part of the county where they live—armaments works nearby and a lot of money—none of the old-fashioned country feeling—a rich crowd and most of them pretty vicious. The girls have got in with a bad set.”
Hercule Poirot looked at him thoughtfully for some minutes. Then he said:
“I perceive now why you desired my presence. You want me to take the affair in hand?”
“Would you? I feel I ought to do something about it—but I confess I’d like to keep Sheila Grant out of the limelight if I could.”
“That can be managed, I fancy. I should like to see the young lady.”
“Come along.”
He led the way out of the room. A voice called fretfully from a door opposite.
“Doctor—for God’s sake, doctor, I’m going crazy.”
Stoddart went into the room. Poirot followed. It was a bedroom in a complete state of chaos—powder spilled on the floor—pots and jars everywhere, clothes flung about. On the bed was a woman with unnaturally blonde hair and a vacant, vicious face. She called out:
“I’ve got insects crawling all over me . . . I have. I swear I have. I’m going mad . . . For God’s sake, give me a shot of something.”
Dr. Stoddart stood by the bed, his tone was soothing—professional.
Hercule Poirot went quietly out of the room. There was another door opposite him. He opened that.
It was a tiny room—a mere slip of a room—plainly furnished. On the bed a slim, girlish figure lay motionless.
Hercule Poirot tiptoed to the side of the bed and looked down upon the girl.
Dark hair, a long, pale face—and—yes, young—very young. . . .
A gleam of white showed between the girl’s lids. Her eyes opened, startled, frightened eyes. She stared, sat up, tossing her head in an effort to throw back the thick mane of blue-black hair. She looked like a frightened filly—she shrank away a little—as a wild animal shrinks when it is suspicious of a stranger who offers it food.
She said—and her voice was young and thin and abrupt:
“Who the hell are you?”
“Do not be afraid, Mademoiselle.”
“Where’s Dr. Stoddart?”
That young man came into the room at that minute. The girl said with a note of relief in her voice:
“Oh! there you are! Who’s this?”
“This is a friend of mine, Sheila. How are you feeling now?”
The girl said:
“Awful. Lousy . . . Why did I take that foul stuff?”
Stoddart said drily:
“I shouldn’t do it again, if I were you.”
“I—I shan’t.”
Hercule Poirot said:
“Who gave it to you?”
Her eyes widened, her upper lip twitched a little. She said:
“It was here—at the party. We all tried it. It—it was wonderful at first.”
Hercule Poirot said gently:
“But who brought it here?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know . . . It might have been Tony—Tony Hawker. But I don’t really know anything about it.”
Poirot said gently:
“Is it the first time you have taken cocaine, Mademoiselle?”
She nodded.
“You’d better make it the last,” said Stoddart brusquely.
“Yes—I suppose so—but it was rather marvellous.”
“Now look here, Sheila Grant,” said Stoddart. “I’m a doctor and I know what I’m talking about. Once start this drug-taking racket and you’ll land yourself in unbelievable misery. I’ve seen some and I know. Drugs ruin people, body and soul. Drink’s a gentle little picnic compared to drugs. Cut it right out from this minute. Believe me, it isn’t funny! What do you think your father would say to tonight’s business?”
“Father?” Sheila Grant’s voice rose. “Father?” She began to laugh. “I can just see Father’s face! He mustn’t know about it. He’d have seven fits!”
“And quite right too,” said Stoddart.
“Doctor—doctor—” the long wail of Mrs. Grace’s voice came from the other room.
Stoddart muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath and went out of the room.
Sheila Grant stared at Poirot again. She was puzzled. She said:
“Who are you really? You weren’t at the party.”
“No, I was not at the party. I am a friend of Dr. Stoddart’s.”
“You’re a doctor, too? You don’t look like a doctor.”
“My name,” said Poirot, contriving as usual to make the simple statement sound like the curtain of the first act of a play, “my name is Hercule Poirot. . . .”
The statement did not fail of its effect. Occasionally Poirot was distressed to find that a callous younger generation had never heard of him.
But it was evident that Sheila Grant had heard of him. She was flabbergasted—dum
bfounded. She stared and stared. . . .
III
It has been said, with or without justification for the statement, that everyone has an aunt in Torquay.
It has also been said that everyone has at least a second cousin in Mertonshire. Mertonshire is a reasonable distance from London, it has hunting, shooting and fishing, it has several very picturesque but slightly self-conscious villages, it has a good system of railways and a new arterial road facilitates motoring to and from the metropolis. Servants object to it less than they do to other, more rural, portions of the British Isles. As a result, it is practically impossible to live in Mertonshire unless you have an income that runs into four figures, and what with income tax and one thing and another, five figures is better.
Hercule Poirot, being a foreigner, had no second cousins in the country, but he had acquired by now a large circle of friends and he had no difficulty in getting himself invited for a visit in that part of the world. He had, moreover, selected as hostess a dear lady whose chief delight was exercising her tongue on the subject of her neighbours—the only drawback being that Poirot had to submit to hearing a great deal about people in whom he had no interest whatever, before coming to the subject of the people he was interested in.
“The Grants? Oh yes, there are four of them. Four girls. I don’t wonder the poor General can’t control them. What can a man do with four girls?” Lady Carmichael’s hands flew up eloquently. Poirot said: “What indeed?” and the lady continued:
“Used to be a great disciplinarian in his regiment, so he told me. But those girls defeat him. Not like when I was young. Old Colonel Sandys was such a martinet, I remember, that his poor daughters—”
(Long excursion into the trials of the Sandys girls and other friends of Lady Carmichael’s youth.)
“Mind you,” said Lady Carmichael, reverting to her first theme. “I don’t say there’s anything really wrong about those girls. Just high spirits—and getting in with an undesirable set. It’s not what it used to be down here. The oddest people come here. There’s no what you might call ‘county’ left. It’s all money, money, money nowadays. And you do hear the oddest stories! Who did you say? Anthony Hawker? Oh yes, I know him. What I call a very unpleasant young man. But apparently rolling in money. He comes down here to hunt—and he gives parties—very lavish parties—and rather peculiar parties, too, if one is to believe all one is told—not that I ever do, because I do think people are so ill-natured. They always believe the worst. You know, it’s become quite a fashion to say a person drinks or takes drugs. Somebody said to me the other day that young girls were natural inebriates, and I really don’t think that was a nice thing to say at all. And if anyone’s at all peculiar or vague in their manner, everyone says ‘drugs’ and that’s unfair, too. They say it about Mrs. Larkin and though I don’t care for the woman, I do really think it’s nothing more than absentmindedness. She’s a great friend of your Anthony Hawker, and that’s why, if you ask me, she’s so down on the Grant girls—says they’re man-eaters! I dare say they do run after men a bit, but why not? It’s natural, after all. And they’re good-looking pieces, every one of them.”
Poirot interjected a question.
“Mrs. Larkin? My dear man, it’s no good asking me who she is? Who’s anybody nowadays? They say she rides well and she’s obviously well off. Husband was something in the city. He’s dead, not divorced. She’s not been here very long, came here just after the Grants did. I’ve always thought she—”
Old Lady Carmichael stopped. Her mouth opened, her eyes bulged. Leaning forward she struck Poirot a sharp blow across the knuckles with a paper cutter she was holding. Disregarding his wince of pain she exclaimed excitedly:
“Why of course! So that’s why you’re down here! You nasty, deceitful creature, I insist on your telling me all about it.”
“But what is it I am to tell you all about?”
Lady Carmichael aimed another playful blow which Poirot avoided deftly.
“Don’t be an oyster, Hercule Poirot! I can see your moustaches quivering. Of course, it’s crime brings you down here—and you’re just pumping me shamelessly! Now let me see, can it be murder? Who’s died lately? Only old Louisa Gilmore and she was eighty-five and had dropsy too. Can’t be her. Poor Leo Staverton broke his neck in the hunting field and he’s all done up in plaster—that can’t be it. Perhaps it isn’t murder. What a pity! I can’t remember any special jewel robberies lately . . . Perhaps it’s just a criminal you’re tracking down . . . Is it Beryl Larkin? Did she poison her husband? Perhaps it’s remorse that makes her so vague.”
“Madame, Madame,” cried Hercule Poirot. “You go too fast.”
“Nonsense. You’re up to something, Hercule Poirot.”
“Are you acquainted with the classics, Madame?”
“What have the classics got to do with it?”
“They have this to do with it. I emulate my great predecessor Hercules. One of the Labors of Hercules was the taming of the wild horses of Diomedes.”
“Don’t tell me you came down here to train horses—at your age—and always wearing patent-leather shoes! You don’t look to me as though you’d ever been on a horse in your life!”
“The horses, Madame, are symbolic. They were the wild horses who ate human flesh.”
“How very unpleasant of them. I always do think these ancient Greeks and Romans are very unpleasant. I can’t think why clergymen are so fond of quoting from the classics—for one thing one never understands what they mean and it always seems to me that the whole subject matter of the classics is very unsuitable for clergymen. So much incest, and all those statues with nothing on—not that I mind that myself but you know what clergymen are—quite upset if girls come to church with no stockings on—let me see, where was I?”
“I am not quite sure.”
“I suppose, you wretch, you just won’t tell me if Mrs. Larkin murdered her husband? Or perhaps Anthony Hawker is the Brighton trunk murderer?”
She looked at him hopefully, but Hercule Poirot’s face remained impassive.
“It might be forgery,” speculated Lady Carmichael. “I did see Mrs. Larkin in the bank the other morning and she’d just cashed a fifty pound cheque to self—it seemed to me at the time a lot of money to want in cash. Oh no, that’s the wrong way round—if she was a forger she would be paying it in, wouldn’t she? Hercule Poirot, if you sit there looking like an owl and saying nothing, I shall throw something at you.”
“You must have a little patience,” said Hercule Poirot.
IV
Ashley Lodge, the residence of General Grant, was not a large house. It was situated on the side of a hill, had good stables, and a straggling, rather neglected garden.
Inside, it was what a house agent would have described as “fully furnished.” Cross-legged Buddhas leered down from convenient niches, brass Benares trays and tables encumbered the floor space. Processional elephants garnished the mantelpieces and more tortured brasswork adorned the walls.
In the midst of this Anglo-Indian home from home, General Grant was ensconced in a large, shabby armchair with his leg, swathed in bandages, reposing on another chair.
“Gout,” he explained. “Ever had the gout, Mr.—er—Poirot? Makes a feller damned bad tempered! All my father’s fault. Drank port all his life—so did my grandfather. It’s played the deuce with me. Have a drink? Ring that bell, will you, for that feller of mine?”
A turbaned servant appeared. General Grant addressed him as Abdul and ordered him to bring the whisky and soda. When it came he poured out such a generous portion that Poirot was moved to protest.
“Can’t join you, I’m afraid, Mr. Poirot.” The General eyed the tantalus sadly. “My doctor wallah says it’s poison to me to touch the stuff. Don’t suppose he knows for a minute. Ignorant chaps doctors. Spoilsports. Enjoy knocking a man off his food and drink and putting him on some pap like steamed fish. Steamed fish—pah!”
In his indignation the General incautio
usly moved his bad foot and uttered a yelp of agony at the twinge that ensued.
He apologized for his language.
“Like a bear with a sore head, that’s what I am. My girls give me a wide berth when I’ve got an attack of gout. Don’t know that I blame them. You’ve met one of ’em, I hear.”
“I have had that pleasure, yes. You have several daughters, have you not?”
“Four,” said the General gloomily. “Not a boy amongst ’em. Four blinking girls. Bit of a thought, these days.”
“They are all four very charming, I hear?”
“Not too bad—not too bad. Mind you, I never know what they’re up to. You can’t control girls nowadays. Lax times—too much laxity everywhere. What can a man do? Can’t lock ’em up, can I?”
“They are popular in the neighbourhood, I gather.”
“Some of the old cats don’t like ’em,” said General Grant. “A good deal of mutton dressed as lamb round here. A man’s got to be careful. One of these blue-eyed widows nearly caught me—used to come round here purring like a kitten. ‘Poor General Grant—you must have had such an interesting life.’ ” The General winked and placed one finger against his nose. “A little bit too obvious, Mr. Poirot. Oh well, take it all round, I suppose it’s not a bad part of the world. A bit go ahead and noisy for my taste. I liked the country when it was the country—not all this motoring and jazz and that blasted, eternal radio. I won’t have one here and the girls know it. A man’s got a right to a little peace in his own home.”
Gently Poirot led the conversation round to Anthony Hawker.
“Hawker? Hawker? Don’t know him. Yes, I do, though. Nasty looking fellow with his eyes too close together. Never trust a man who can’t look you in the face.”
“He is a friend, is he not, of your daughter Sheila’s?”
“Sheila? Wasn’t aware of it. Girls never tell me anything.” The bushy eyebrows came down over the nose—the piercing, blue eyes looked out of the red face straight into Hercule Poirot’s. “Look here, Mr. Poirot, what’s all this about? Mind telling me what you’ve come to see me about?”
Poirot said slowly:
“That would be difficult—perhaps I hardly know myself. I would say only this: your daughter Sheila—perhaps all your daughters—have made some undesirable friends.”