“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 physician, 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.
“Enchanté, Mademoiselle,” he said, bowing over her hand.
“I’m not late, am I, Sir Roderick,” she said, looking past him. “I have not kept you waiting. Please I hope not.”
“Exactly to the minute, little girl,” said Sir Roderick. “All shipshape and Bristol fashion,” he added.
Sonia looked slightly perplexed.
“Made a good tea, I hope,” Sir Roderick went on. “I told you, you know, to have a good tea, buy yourself some buns or éclairs or whatever it is young ladies like nowadays, eh? You obeyed orders, I hope.”
“No, not exactly. I took the time to buy a pair of shoes. Look, they are pretty, are they not?” She stuck out a foot.
It was certainly a very pretty foot. Sir Roderick beamed at it.
“Well, we must go and catch our train,” he said. “I may be old-fashioned but I’m all for trains. Start to time and get there on time, or they should do. But these cars, they get in a queue in the rush hour and you may idle the time away for about an hour and a half more than you need. Cars! Pah!”
“Shall I ask Georges to get you a taxi?” asked Hercule Poirot. “It will be no trouble, I assure you.”
“I have a taxi already waiting,” said Sonia.
“There you are,” said Sir Roderick, “you see, she thinks of everything.” He patted her on the shoulder. She looked at him in a way that Hercule Poirot fully appreciated.
Poirot accompanied them to the hall door and took a polite leave of them. Mr. Goby had come out of the kitchen and was standing in the hall giving, it could be said, an excellent performance of a man who had come to see about the gas.
George shut the hall door as soon as they had disappeared into the lift, and turned to meet Poirot’s gaze.
“And what is your opinion of that young lady, Georges, may I ask?” said Poirot. On certain points he always said George was infallible.
“Well, sir,” said George, “if I might put it that way, if you’ll allow me, I would say he’d got it badly, sir. All over her as you might say.”
“I think you are right,” said Hercule Poirot.
“It’s not unusual of course with gentlemen of that age. I remember Lord Mountbryan. He’d had a lot of experience in his life and you’d say he was as fly as anyone. But you’d be surprised. A young woman as came to give him massage. You’d be surprised at what he gave her. An evening frock, and a pretty bracelet. Forget-me-nots, it was. Turquoise and diamonds. Not too expensive but costing quite a pretty penny all the same. Then a fur wrap—not mink, Russian ermine, and a petty point evening bag. After that her brother got into trouble, debt or something, though whether she ever had a brother I sometimes wondered. Lord Mountbryan gave her the money to square it—she was so upset about it! All platonic, mind you, too. Gentlemen seem to lose their sense that way when they get to that age. It’s the clinging ones they go for, not the bold type.”
“I have no doubt that you are quite right, Georges,” said Poirot. “It is all the same not a complete answer to my question. I asked what you thought of the young lady.”
“Oh, the young lady…Well, sir, I wouldn’t like to say definitely, but she’s quite a definite type. There’s never anything that you could put your finger on. But they know what they’re doing, I’d say.”
Poirot entered his sitting room and Mr. Goby followed him, obeying Poirot’s gesture. Mr. Goby sat down on an upright chair in his usual attitude. Knees together, toes turned in. He took a rather dog-eared little notebook from his pocket, opened it carefully and then proceeded to survey the soda water siphon severely.
“Re the backgrounds you asked me to look up.
“Restarick family, perfectly respectable and of good standing. No scandal. The father, James Patrick Restarick, said to be a sharp man over a bargain. Business has been in the family three generations. Grandfather founded it, father enlarged it, Simon Restarick kept it going. Simon Restarick had coronary trouble two years ago, health declined. Died of coronary thrombosis, about a year ago.
“Young brother Andrew Restarick came into the business soon after he came down from Oxford, married Miss Grace Baldwin. One daughter, Norma. Left his wife and went out to South Africa. A Miss Birell went with him. No divorce proceedings. Mrs. Andrew Restarick died two and a half years ago. Had been an invalid for some time. Miss Norma Restarick was a boarder at Meadowfield Girls’ School. Nothing against her.”
Allowing his eyes to sweep across Hercule Poirot’s face, Mr. Goby observed, “In fact everything about the family seems quite OK and according to Cocker.”
“No black sheep, no mental instability?”
“It doesn’t appear so.”
“Disappointing,” said Poirot.
Mr. Goby let this pass. He cleared his throat, licked his finger, and turned over a leaf of his little book.
“David Baker. Unsatisfactory record. Been on probation twice. Police are inclined to be interested in him. He’s been on the fringe of several rather dubious affairs, thought to have been concerned in an important art robbery but no proof. He’s one of the arty lot. No particular means of subsistence but he does quite well. Prefers girls with money. Not above living on s
ome of the girls who are keen on him. Not above being paid off by their fathers either. Thorough bad lot if you ask me but enough brains to keep himself out of trouble.”
Mr. Goby shot a sudden glance at Poirot.
“You met him?”
“Yes,” said Poirot.
“What conclusions did you form, if I may ask?”
“The same as you,” said Poirot. “A gaudy creature,” he added thoughtfully.
“Appeals to women,” said Mr. Goby. “Trouble is nowadays they won’t look twice at a nice hardworking lad. They prefer the bad lots—the scroungers. They usually say ‘he hasn’t had a chance, poor boy.’”
“Strutting about like peacocks,” said Poirot.
“Well, you might put it like that,” said Mr. Goby, rather doubtfully.
“Do you think he’d use a cosh on anyone?”
Mr. Goby thought, then very slowly shook his head at the electric fire.
“Nobody’s accused him of anything like that. I don’t say he’d be past it, but I wouldn’t say it was his line. He is a smooth-spoken type, not one for the rough stuff.”
“No,” said Poirot, “no, I should not have thought so. He could be bought off? That was your opinion?”
“He’d drop any girl like a hot coal if it was made worth his while.”
Poirot nodded. He was remembering something. Andrew Restarick turning a cheque towards him so that he could read the signature on it. It was not only the signature that Poirot had read, it was the person to whom the cheque was made out. It had been made out to David Baker and it was for a large sum. Would David Baker demur at taking such a cheque, Poirot wondered. He thought not on the whole. Mr. Goby clearly was of that opinion. Undesirable young men had been bought off in any time or age, so had undesirable young women. Sons had sworn and daughters had wept but money was money. To Norma, David had been urging marriage. Was he sincere? Could it be that he really cared for Norma? If so, he would not be so easily paid off. He had sounded genuine enough. Norma no doubt believed him genuine. Andrew Restarick and Mr. Goby and Hercule Poirot thought differently. They were very much more likely to be right.