‘But what have I got?’ Poirot asked himself with irritation as he slowly walked up the hill back to the house.
II
Hercule Poirot made a meticulous toilet, applying a scented pomade to his moustaches and twirling them to a ferocious couple of points. He stood back from the mirror and was satisfied with what he saw.
The sound of a gong resounded through the house, and he descended the stairs.
The butler, having finished a most artistic performance, crescendo, forte, diminuendo, rallentando[76], was just replacing the gong stick on its hook. His dark melancholy face showed pleasure.
Poirot thought to himself: ‘A blackmailing letter from the housekeeper—or it may be the butler…’ This butler looked as though blackmailing letters would be well within his scope. Poirot wondered if Mrs Oliver took her characters from life.
Miss Brewis crossed the hall in an unbecoming flowered chiffon dress and he caught up with her, asking as he did so:
‘You have a housekeeper here?’
‘Oh, no, M. Poirot. I’m afraid one doesn’t run to niceties of that kind nowadays, except in a really large establishment, of course. Oh, no, I’m the housekeeper—more housekeeper than secretary, sometimes, in this house.’
She gave a short acid laugh.
‘So you are the housekeeper?’ Poirot considered her thoughtfully.
He could not see Miss Brewis writing a blackmailing letter. Now, an anonymous letter—that would be a different thing. He had known anonymous letters written by women not unlike Miss Brewis—solid, dependable women, totally unsuspected by those around them.
‘What is your butler’s name?’ he asked.
‘Henden.’ Miss Brewis looked a little astonished.
Poirot recollected himself and explained quickly:
‘I ask because I had a fancy I had seen him somewhere before.’
‘Very likely,’ said Miss Brewis. ‘None of these people ever seem to stay in any place more than four months. They must soon have done the round of all the available situations in England. After all, it’s not many people who can afford butlers and cooks nowadays.’
They came into the drawing-room, where Sir George, looking somehow rather unnatural in a dinner-jacket, was proffering sherry. Mrs Oliver, in iron-grey satin, was looking like an obsolete battleship, and Lady Stubbs’ smooth black head was bent down as she studied the fashions in Vogue[77].
Alec and Sally Legge were dining and also Jim Warburton.
‘We’ve a heavy evening ahead of us,’ he warned them. ‘No bridge tonight. All hands to the pumps[78]. There are any amount of notices to print, and the big card for the Fortune Telling. What name shall we have? Madame Zuleika? Esmeralda? Or Romany Leigh, the Gipsy Queen?’
‘The Eastern touch,’ said Sally. ‘Everyone in agricultural districts hates gipsies. Zuleika sounds all right. I brought my paint box over and I thought Michael could do us a curling snake to ornament the notice.’
‘Cleopatra rather than Zuleika, then?’
Henden appeared at the door.
‘Dinner is served, my lady.’
They went in. There were candles on the long table. The room was full of shadows.
Warburton and Alec Legge sat on either side of their hostess. Poirot was between Mrs Oliver and Miss Brewis. The latter was engaged in brisk general conversation about further details of preparation for tomorrow.
Mrs Oliver sat in brooding abstraction and hardly spoke.
When she did at last break her silence, it was with a somewhat contradictory explanation.
‘Don’t bother about me,’ she said to Poirot. ‘I’m just remembering if there’s anything I’ve forgotten.’
Sir George laughed heartily.
‘The fatal flaw, eh?’ he remarked.
‘That’s just it,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘There always is one. Sometimes one doesn’t realize it until a book’s actually in print. And then it’s agony!’ Her face reflected this emotion. She sighed. ‘The curious thing is that most people never notice it. I say to myself, “But of course the cook would have been bound to notice that two cutlets hadn’t been eaten.” But nobody else thinks of it at all.’
‘You fascinate me.’ Michael Weyman leant across the table. ‘The Mystery of the Second Cutlet. Please, please never explain. I shall wonder about it in my bath.’
Mrs Oliver gave him an abstracted smile and relapsed into her preoccupations.
Lady Stubbs was also silent. Now and again she yawned. Warburton, Alec Legge and Miss Brewis talked across her.
As they came out of the dining-room, Lady Stubbs stopped by the stairs.
‘I’m going to bed,’ she announced. ‘I’m very sleepy.’
‘Oh, Lady Stubbs,’ exclaimed Miss Brewis, ‘there’s so much to be done. We’ve been counting on you to help us.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Lady Stubbs. ‘But I’m going to bed.’ She spoke with the satisfaction of a small child.
She turned her head as Sir George came out of the dining-room.
‘I’m tired, George. I’m going to bed. You don’t mind?’
He came up to her and patted her on the shoulder affectionately.
‘You go and get your beauty sleep, Hattie. Be fresh for tomorrow.’
He kissed her lightly and she went up the stairs, waving her hand and calling out:
‘Goodnight, all.’
Sir George smiled up at her. Miss Brewis drew in her breath sharply and turned brusquely away.
‘Come along, everybody,’ she said, with a forced cheerfulness that did not ring true. ‘We’ve got to work.’
Presently everyone was set to their tasks. Since Miss Brewis could not be everywhere at once, there were soon some defaulters. Michael Weyman ornamented a placard with a ferociously magnificent serpent and the words, Madame Zuleika will tell your Fortune, and then vanished unobtrusively. Alec Legge did a few nondescript chores and then went out avowedly to measure for the hoop-la and did not reappear. The women, as women do, worked energetically and conscientiously. Hercule Poirot followed his hostess’s example and went early to bed.
III
Poirot came down to breakfast on the following morning at nine-thirty. Breakfast was served in pre-war fashion. A row of hot dishes on an electric heater. Sir George was eating a full-sized Englishman’s breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and kidneys. Mrs Oliver and Miss Brewis had a modified version of the same. Michael Weyman was eating a plateful of cold ham. Only Lady Stubbs was unheedful of the fleshpots and was nibbling thin toast and sipping black coffee. She was wearing a large pale-pink hat which looked odd at the breakfast table.
The post had just arrived. Miss Brewis had an enormous pile of letters in front of her which she was rapidly sorting into piles. Any of Sir George’s marked ‘Personal’ she passed over to him. The others she opened herself and sorted into categories.
Lady Stubbs had three letters. She opened what were clearly a couple of bills and tossed them aside. Then she opened the third letter and said suddenly and clearly:
‘Oh!’
The exclamation was so startled that all heads turned towards her.
‘It’s from Etienne,’ she said. ‘My cousin Etienne. He’s