Mary Restarick said as she went up the stairs ahead of him:
“They have just come out of storage—and been cleaned up and—”
She stopped abruptly—coming to a dead halt, one hand on the stair rail.
Above her, a figure had just turned the corner of the staircase on its way down. It was a figure that seemed strangely incongruous. It might have been someone in fancy dress, someone who certainly did not match with this house.
He was a figure familiar enough to Poirot in different conditions, a figure often met in the streets of London or even at parties. A representative of the youth of today. He wore a black coat, an elaborate velvet waistcoat, skintight pants, and rich curls of chestnut hair hung down on his neck. He looked exotic and rather beautiful, and it needed a few moments to be certain of his sex.
“David!” Mary Restarick spoke sharply. “What on earth are you doing here?”
The young man was by no means taken aback. “Startled you?” he asked. “So sorry.”
“What are you doing here—in this house? You—have you come down here with Norma?”
“Norma? No, I hoped to find her here.”
“Find her here—what do you mean? She’s in London.”
“Oh, but my dear, she isn’t. At any rate, she’s not at 67 Borodene Mansions.”
“What do you mean, she isn’t there?”
“Well, since she didn’t come back this weekend, I thought she was probably here with you. I came down to see what she was up to.”
“She left here Sunday night as usual.” She added in an angry voice, “Why didn’t you ring the bell and let us know you were here? What are you doing roaming about the house?”
“Really, darling, you seem to be thinking I’m going to pinch the spoons or something. Surely it’s natural to walk into a house in broad daylight. Why ever not?”
“Well, we’re old-fashioned and we don’t like it.”
“Oh dear, dear.” David sighed. “The fuss everyone makes. Well, my dear, if I’m not going to have a welcome and you don’t seem to know where your stepdaughter is, I suppose I’d better be moving along. Shall I turn out my pockets before I go?”
“Don’t be absurd, David.”
“Ta-ta, then.” The young man passed them, waved an airy hand and went on down and out through the open front door.
“Horrible creature,” said Mary Restarick, with a sharpness of rancour that startled Poirot. “I can’t bear him. I simply can’t stand him. Why is En gland absolutely full of these people nowadays?”
“Ah, Madame, do not disquiet yourself. It is all a question of fashion. There have always been fashions. You see less in the country, but in London you meet plenty of them.”
“Dreadful,” said Mary. “Absolutely dreadful. Effeminate, exotic.”
“And yet not unlike a Vandyke portrait, do you not think so, Madame? In a gold frame, wearing a lace collar, you would not then say he was effeminate or exotic.”
“Daring to come down here like that. Andrew would have been furious. It worries him dreadfully. Daughters can be very worrying. It’s not even as though Andrew knew Norma well. He’s been abroad since she was a child. He left her entirely to her mother to bring up, and now he finds her a complete puzzle. So do I for that matter. I can’t help feeling that she is a very odd type of girl. One has no kind of authority over them these days. They seem to like the worst type of young men. She’s absolutely infatuated with this David Baker. One can’t do anything. Andrew forbade him the house, and look, he turns up here, walks in as cool as a cucumber. I think—I almost think I’d better not tell Andrew. I don’t want him to be unduly worried. I believe she goes about with this creature in London, and not only with him. There are some much worse ones even. The kind that don’t wash, completely unshaven faces and funny sprouting beards and greasy clothes.”
Poirot said cheerfully, “Alas, Madame, you must not distress yourself. The indiscretions of youth pass.”
“I hope so, I’m sure. Norma is a very difficult girl. Sometimes I think she’s not right in the head. She’s so peculiar. She really looks sometimes as though she isn’t all there. These extraordinary dislikes she takes—”
“Dislikes?”
“She hates me. Really hates me. I don’t see why it’s necessary. I suppose she was very devoted to her mother, but after all it’s only reasonable that her father should marry again, isn’t it?”
“Do you think she really hates you?”
“Oh, I know she does. I’ve had ample proof of it. I can’t say how relieved I was when she went off to London. I didn’t want to make trouble—” She stopped suddenly. It was as though for the first time she realised that she was talking to a stranger.
Poirot had the capacity to attract confidences. It was as though when people were talking to him they hardly realised who it was they were talking to. She gave a short laugh now.
“Dear me,” she said, “I don’t really know why I’m saying all this to you. I expect every family has these problems. Poor stepmothers, we have a hard time of it. Ah, here we are.”
She tapped on a door.
“Come in, come in.”
It was a stentorian roar.
“Here is a visitor to see you, Uncle,” said Mary Restarick, as she walked into the room, Poirot behind her.
A broad-shouldered, square-faced, red-cheeked, irascible looking elderly man had been pacing the floor. He stumped forward towards them. At the table behind him a girl was sitting sorting letters and papers. Her head was bent over them, a sleek, dark head.
“This is Monsieur Hercule Poirot, Uncle Roddy,” said Mary Restarick.
Poirot stepped forward gracefully into action and speech. “Ah, Sir Roderick, it is many years—many years since I have had the pleasure of meeting you. We have to go back, so far as the last war. It was, I think, in Normandy the last time. How well I remember, there was there also Colonel Race and there was General Abercromby and there was Air-Marshal Sir Edmund Collingsby. What decisions we had to take! And what difficulties we had with security. Ah, nowadays, there is no longer the need for secrecy. I recall the unmasking of that secret agent who succeeded for so long—you remember Captain Henderson.”
“Ah. Captain Henderson indeed. Lord, that damned swine! Unmasked!”
“You may not remember me, Hercule Poirot.”
“Yes, yes, of course I remember you. Ah, it was a close shave that, a close shave. You were the French representative, weren’t you? There were one or two of them, one I couldn’t get on with—can’t remember his name. Ah well, sit down, sit down. Nothing like having a chat over old days.”
“I feared so much that you might not remember me or my colleague, Monsieur Giraud.”
“Yes, yes, of course I remember both of you. Ah, those were the days, those were the days indeed.”
The girl at the table got up. She moved a chair politely towards Poirot.
“That’s right, Sonia, that’s right,” said Sir Roderick. “Let me introduce you,” he said, “to my charming little secretary here. Makes a great difference to me. Helps me, you know, files all my work. Don’t know how I ever got on without her.”
Poirot bowed politely. “Enchanté, mademoiselle,” he murmured.
The girl murmured something in rejoinder. She was a small creature with black bobbed hair. She looked shy. Her dark blue eyes were usually modestly cast down, but she smiled up sweetly and shyly at her employer. He patted her on the shoulder.
“Don’t know what I should do without her,” he said. “I don’t really.”
“Oh, no,” the girl protested. “I am not much good really. I cannot type very fast.”
“You type quite fast enough, my dear. You’re my memory, too. My eyes and my ears and a great many other things.”
She smiled again at him.
“One remembers,” murmured Poirot, “some of the excellent stories that used to go the round. I don’t know if they were exaggerated or not. Now, for instance, the day that someone sto
le your car and—” he proceeded to follow up the tale.
Sir Roderick was delighted. “Ha, ha, of course now. Yes, indeed, well, bit of exaggeration, I expect. But on the whole, that’s how it was. Yes, yes, well, fancy your remembering that, after all this long time. But I could tell you a better one than that now.” He launched forth into another tale. Poirot listened, applauded. Finally he glanced at his watch and rose to his feet.
“But I must detain you no longer,” he said. “You are engaged, I can see, in important work. It was just that being in this neighbourhood I could not help paying my respects. Years pass, but you, I see, have lost none of your vigour, of your enjoyment of life.”
“Well, well, perhaps you may say so. Anyway, you mustn’t pay me too many compliments—but surely you’ll stay and have tea. I’m sure Mary will give you some tea.” He looked round. “Oh, she’s gone away. Nice girl.”
“Yes, indeed, and very handsome. I expect she has been a great comfort to you for many years.”
“Oh! They’ve only married recently. She’s my nephew’s second wife. I’ll be frank with you. I’ve never cared very much for this nephew of mine, Andrew—not a steady chap. Always restless. His elder brother Simon was my favourite. Not that I knew him well, either. As for Andrew, he behaved very badly to his first wife. Went off, you know. Left her high and dry. Went off with a thoroughly bad lot. Everybody knew about her. But he was infatuated with her. The whole thing broke up in a year or two: silly fellow. The girl he’s married seems all right. Nothing wrong with her as far as I know. Now Simon was a steady chap—damned dull, though. I can’t say I liked it when my sister married into that family. Marrying into trade, you know. Rich, of course, but money isn’t everything—we’ve usually married into the Services. I never saw much of the Restarick lot.”
“They have, I believe, a daughter. A friend of mine met her last week.”
“Oh, Norma. Silly girl. Goes about in dreadful clothes and has picked up with a dreadful young man. Ah well, they’re all alike nowadays. Long-haired young fellows, beatniks, Beatles, all sorts of names they’ve got. I can’t keep up with them. Practically talk a foreign language. Still, nobody cares to hear an old man’s criticisms, so there we are. Even Mary—I always thought she was a good, sensible sort, but as far as I can see she can be thoroughly hysterical in some ways—mainly about her health. Some fuss about going to hospital for observation or something. What about a drink? Whisky? No? Sure you won’t stop and have a drop of tea?”
“Thank you, but I am staying with friends.”
“Well, I must say I have enjoyed this chat with you very much. Nice to remember some of the things that happened in the old days. Sonia, dear, perhaps you’ll take Monsieur—sorry, what’s your name, it’s gone again—ah, yes, Poirot. Take him down to Mary, will you?”
“No, no,” Hercule Poirot hastily waved aside the offer. “I could not dream of troubling Madame anymore. I am quite all right. Quite all right. I can find my way perfectly. It has been a great pleasure to meet you again.”
He left the room.
“Haven’t the faintest idea who that chap was,” said Sir Roderick, after Poirot had gone.
“You do not know who he was?” Sonia asked, looking at him in a startled manner.
“Personally I don’t remember who half the people are who come up and talk to me nowadays. Of course, I have to make a good shot at it. One learns to get away with that, you know. Same thing at parties. Up comes a chap and says, ‘Perhaps you don’t remember me. I last saw you in 1939.’ I have to say ‘Of course I remember,’ but I don’t. It’s a handicap being nearly blind and deaf. We got pally with a lot of frogs like that towards the end of the war. Don’t remember half of them. Oh, he’d been there all right. He knew me and I knew a good many of the chaps he talked about. That story about me and the stolen car, that was true enough. Exaggerated a bit, of course, they made a pretty good story of it at the time. Ah well, I don’t think he knew I didn’t remember him. Clever chap, I should say, but a thorough frog, isn’t he? You know, mincing and dancing and bowing and scraping. Now then, where were we?”
Sonia picked up a letter and handed it to him. She tentatively proffered a pair of spectacles which he immediately rejected.
“Don’t want those damned things—I can see all right.”
He screwed up his eyes and peered down at the letter he was holding. Then he capitulated and thrust it back into her hands.
“Well, perhaps you’d better read it to me.”
She started reading it in her clear soft voice.
Five
I
Hercule Poirot stood upon the landing for a moment. His head was a little on one side with a listening air. He could hear nothing from downstairs. He crossed to the landing window and looked out. Mary Restarick was below on the terrace, resuming her gardening work. Poirot nodded his head in satisfaction. He walked gently along the corridor. One by one in turn he opened the doors. A bathroom, a linen cupboard, a double bedded spare room, an occupied single bedroom, a woman’s room with a double bed (Mary Restarick’s?). The next door was that of an adjoining room and was, he guessed, the room belonging to Andrew Restarick. He turned to the other side of the landing. The door he opened first was a single bedroom. It was not, he judged, occupied at the time, but it was a room which possibly was occupied at weekends. There were toilet brushes on the dressing table. He listened carefully, then tiptoed in. He opened the wardrobe. Yes, there were some clothes hanging up there. Country clothes.
There was a writing table but there was nothing on it. He opened the desk drawers very softly. There were a few odds and ends, a letter or two, but the letters were trivial and dated some time ago. He shut the desk drawers. He walked downstairs, and going out of the house, bade farewell to his hostess. He refused her offer of tea. He had promised to get back, he said, as he had to catch a train to town very shortly afterwards.
“Don’t you want a taxi? We could order you one, or I could drive you in the car.”
“No, no, Madame, you are too kind.”
Poirot walked back to the village and turned down the lane by the church. He crossed a little bridge over a stream. Presently he came to where a large car with a chauffeur was waiting discreetly under a beech tree. The chauffeur opened the door of the car, Poirot got inside, sat down and removed his patent leather shoes, uttering a gasp of relief.
“Now we return to London,” he said.
The chauffeur closed the door, returned to his seat and the car purred quietly away. The sight of a young man standing by the roadside furiously thumbing a ride was not an unusual one. Poirot’s eyes rested almost indifferently on this member of the fraternity, a brightly dressed young man with long and exotic hair. There were many such but in the moment of passing him Poirot suddenly sat upright and addressed the driver.
“If you please, stop. Yes, and if you can reverse a little…There is someone requesting a lift.”
The chauffeur turned an incredulous eye over his shoulder. It was the last remark he would have expected. However, Poirot was gently nodding his head, so he obeyed.
The young man called David advanced to the door. “Thought you weren’t going to stop for me,” he said cheerfully. “Much obliged, I’m sure.”
He got in, removed a small pack from his shoulders and let it slide to the floor, smoothed down his copper brown locks. “So you recognised me,” he said.
“You are perhaps somewhat conspicuously dressed.”
“Oh, do you think so? Not really. I’m just one of a band of brothers.”
“The school of Vandyke. Very dressy.”
“Oh. I’ve never thought of it like that. Yes, there may be something in what you say.”
“You should wear a cavalier’s hat,” said Poirot, “and a lace collar, if I might advise.”
“Oh, I don’t think we go quite as far as that.” The young man laughed. “How Mrs. Restarick dislikes the mere sight of me. Actually I reciprocate her dislike. I don’t care mu
ch for Restarick, either. There is something singularly unattractive about successful tycoons, don’t you think?”
“It depends on the point of view. You have been paying attentions to the daughter, I understand.”
“That is such a nice phrase,” said David. “Paying attentions to the daughter. I suppose it might be called that. But there’s plenty of fifty-fifty about it, you know. She’s paying attention to me, too.”
“Where is Mademoiselle now?”
David turned his head rather sharply. “And why do you ask that?”
“I should like to meet her.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t believe she’d be your type, you know, anymore than I am. Norma’s in London.”
“But you said to her stepmother—”
“Oh! We don’t tell stepmothers everything.”
“And where is she in London?”
“She works in an interior decorator’s down the King’s Road somewhere in Chelsea. Can’t remember the name of it for the moment. Susan Phelps, I think.”
“But that is not where she lives, I presume. You have her address?”
“Oh yes, a great block of flats. I don’t really understand your interest.”
“One is interested in so many things.”
“What do you mean?”
“What brought you to that house—(what is its name?—Crosshedges) today. Brought you secretly into the house and up the stairs.”
“I came in the back door, I admit.”
“What were you looking for upstairs?”
“That’s my business. I don’t want to be rude—but aren’t you being rather nosy?”
“Yes, I am displaying curiosity. I would like to know exactly where this young lady is.”
“I see. Dear Andrew and dear Mary—lord rot ’em—are employing you, is that it? They are trying to find her?”
“As yet,” said Poirot, “I do not think they know that she is missing.”