‘You might give me credit for a little dissimulation at need.’
‘When you try to dissimulate, it is worse. No, no, mon ami, we must be very incognito, you and I. Then, when we pounce, we pounce.’
‘You obstinate old devil,’ I said. ‘I’ve a good mind to –’
I broke off as there was a tap on the door. Poirot called, ‘Come in,’ and my daughter Judith entered.
I should like to describe Judith, but I’ve always been a poor hand at descriptions.
Judith is tall, she holds her head high, she has level dark brows, and a very lovely line of cheek and jaw, severe in its austerity. She is grave and slightly scornful, and to my mind there has always hung about her a suggestion of tragedy.
Judith didn’t come and kiss me – she is not that kind. She just smiled at me and said, ‘Hullo, Father.’
Her smile was shy and a little embarrassed, but it made me feel that in spite of her undemonstrativeness she was pleased to see me.
‘Well,’ I said, feeling foolish as I so often do with the younger generation, ‘I’ve got here.’
‘Very clever of you, darling,’ said Judith.
‘I describe to him,’ said Poirot, ‘the cooking.’
‘Is it very bad?’ asked Judith.
‘You should not have to ask that, my child. Is it that you think of nothing but the test tubes and the microscopes? Your middle finger it is stained with methylene blue. It is not a good thing for your husband if you take no interest in his stomach.’
‘I dare say I shan’t have a husband.’
‘Certainly you will have a husband. What did the bon Dieu create you for?’
‘Many things, I hope,’ said Judith.
‘Le mariage first of all.’
‘Very well,’ said Judith. ‘You will find me a nice husband and I will look after his stomach very carefully.’
‘She laughs at me,’ said Poirot. ‘Some day she will know how wise old men are.’
There was another tap on the door and Dr Franklin entered. He was a tall, angular young man of thirty-five, with a decided jaw, reddish hair, and bright blue eyes. He was the most ungainly man I had ever known, and was always knocking into things in an absentminded way.
He cannoned into the screen round Poirot’s chair, and half turning his head murmured ‘I beg your pardon’ to it automatically.
I wanted to laugh, but Judith, I noted, remained quite grave. I suppose she was quite used to that sort of thing.
‘You remember my father,’ said Judith.
Dr Franklin started, shied nervously, screwed up his eyes and peered at me, then stuck out a hand, saying awkwardly: ‘Of course, of course, how are you? I heard you were coming down.’ He turned to Judith. ‘I say, do you think we need change? If not we might go on a bit after dinner. If we got a few more of those slides prepared –’
‘No,’ said Judith. ‘I want to talk to my father.’
‘Oh, yes. Oh, of course.’ Suddenly he smiled, an apologetic, boyish smile. ‘I am sorry – I get so awfully wrapped up in a thing. It’s quite unpardonable – makes me so selfish. Do forgive me.’
The clock struck and Franklin glanced at it hurriedly.
‘Good Lord, is it as late as that? I shall get into trouble. Promised Barbara I’d read to her before dinner.’
He grinned at us both and hurried out, colliding with the door post as he went.
‘How is Mrs Franklin?’ I asked.
‘The same and rather more so,’ said Judith.
‘It’s very sad her being such an invalid,’ I said.
‘It’s maddening for a doctor,’ said Judith. ‘Doctors like healthy people.’
‘How hard you young people are!’ I exclaimed.
Judith said coldly: ‘I was just stating a fact.’
‘Nevertheless,’ said Poirot, ‘the good doctor hurries to read to her.’
‘Very stupid,’ said Judith. ‘That nurse of hers can read to her perfectly well if she wants to be read to. Personally I should loathe anyone reading aloud to me.’
‘Well, well, tastes differ,’ I said.
‘She’s a very stupid woman,’ said Judith.
‘Now there, mon enfant,’ said Poirot, ‘I do not agree with you.’
‘She never reads anything but the cheapest kind of novel. She takes no interest in his work. She doesn’t keep abreast of current thought. She just talks about her health to everyone who will listen.’
‘I still maintain, said Poirot, ‘that she uses her grey cells in ways that you, my child, know nothing about.’
‘She’s a very feminine sort of woman,’ said Judith. ‘She coos and purrs. I expect you like ’em like that, Uncle Hercule.’
‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘He likes them large and flamboyant and Russian for choice.’
‘So that is how you give me away, Hastings? Your father, Judith, has always had a penchant for auburn hair. It has landed him in trouble many a time.’
Judith smiled at us both indulgently. She said: ‘What a funny couple you are.’
She turned away and I rose.
‘I must get unpacked, and I might have a bath before dinner.’
Poirot pressed a little bell within reach of his hand and a minute or two later his valet attendant entered. I was surprised to find that the man was a stranger.
‘Why! Where’s George?’
Poirot’s valet George had been with him for many years.
‘George has returned to his family. His father is ill. I hope he will come back to me some time. In the meantime –’ he smiled at the new valet – ‘Curtiss looks after me.’
Curtiss smiled back respectfully. He was a big man with a bovine, rather stupid, face.
As I went out of the door I noted that Poirot was carefully locking up the despatch case with the papers inside it.
My mind in a whirl I crossed the passage to my own room.
Chapter 4
I went down to dinner that night feeling that the whole of life had become suddenly unreal.
Once or twice, while dressing, I had asked myself if possibly Poirot had imagined the whole thing. After all, the dear old chap was an old man now and sadly broken in health. He himself might declare his brain was as sound as ever – but in point of fact, was it? His whole life had been spent in tracking down crime. Would it really be surprising if, in the end, he was to fancy crimes where no crimes were? His enforced inaction must have fretted him sorely. What more likely than that he should invent for himself a new manhunt? Wishful thinking – a perfectly reasonable neurosis. He had selected a number of publicly reported happenings, and had read into them something that was not there – a shadowy figure behind them, a mad mass murderer. In all probability Mrs Etherington had really killed her husband, the labourer had shot his wife, a young woman had given her old aunt an overdose of morphia, a jealous wife had polished off her husband as she had threatened to do, and a crazy spinster had really committed the murder for which she had subsequently given herself up. In fact these crimes were exactly what they seemed!