Hercule Poirots casebook. Agatha Christie
a smile, half of derision, half of affection, I picked up the coat, and stretched out my hand for the clothes brush.
The next morning, hearing nothing from Poirot, I went out for a stroll, met some old friends, and lunched with them at their hotel. In the afternoon we went for a spin. A punctured tire delayed us, and it was past eight when I got back to the Grand Metropolitan.
The first sight that met my eyes was Poirot, looking even more diminutI have than usual, sandwiched between the Opalsens, beaming in a state of placid satisfaction.
4”Mon ami Hastings!” he cried, and sprang to meet me. “Embrace me, my friend； all has marched to a marvel!’
Luckily, the embrace was merely figuratI have一not a thing one is always sure of with Poirot.
“Do you mean—’ I began.
“Just wonderful, I call it!” said Mrs. Opalsen,smiling all over her fat face. “Didn’t I tell you, Ed, that if he couldn’t get back my pearls nobody would?”
“You did,my dear,you did. And you were right.”
I looked helplessly at Poirot, and he answered the glance.
“My friend Hastings is, as you say in England, all at the seaside. Seat yourself, and I will recount to you all the aflFair that has so happily ended.”
“Ended?”
“But yes. They are arrested.”
“Who are arrested?”
“he chambermaid and the valet, parbleu! You did not suspect? Not with my parting hint about the French chalk?"
“You said cabinetmakers used it.”
“Certainly they do—to make drawers slide easily. Somebody wanted that drawer to slide in and out without any noise. Who could that be? Obviously, only the chambermaid. The plan was so ingenious that it did not at once leap to the eye—not even to the eye of Hercule Poirot.
"Listen, this was how it was done. The valet was in the empty room next door, waiting. The French maid leaves the room. Quick as a flash the chambermaid whips open the drawer, takes out the jewel case, and, slipping back the bolt, passes it through the door. The valet opens it at his leisure with the duplicate key with which he has provided himself, extracts the necklace, and waits his time. C6lestine leaves the room again, and一pst!一in a flash the case is passed back again and replaced in the drawer.
“Madame arrI haves” the theft is discovered. The chambermaid demands to be searched, with a good deal of righteous indignation, and leaves the room without a stain on her character. The imitation necklace with which they have provided themselves has been concealed in the French girl’s bed that morning by the chambermaid—a master slroke9ca!"
“But what did you go to London for?”
“You remember the card?”
“Certainly. It puzzled me—and puzzles me still. I thought—”
I hesitated delicately, glancing at Mr. Opalsen.
Poirot laughed heartily.
f<Une blague! For the benefit of the valet. The card was one with a specially prepared surface—for fingerprints. I went straight to Scotland Yard, asked for our old friend Inspector Japp, and laid the facts before him. As I had suspected, the fingerprints proved to be those of two well-known jewel thieves who have been 'wanted’ for some time. Japp came down with me, the thieves were arrested, and the necklace was discovered in the valet”s possession. A clever pair, but they failed in method. Have I not told you, Hastings, at least thirty- six times, that without method—,’
“At least thirty-six thousand times!” I interrupted. “But where did their method break down?”
‘Mon amiy it is a good plan to take a place as chambermaid or valet一but you must not shirk your work. They left an empty room undusted; and therefore, when the man put down the jewel case on the little table near the communicating door, it left a square mark一”
“remember” I cried.
“Before, I was undecided. Then—l knew!”
There was a moment's silence.
“And I’ve got my pearls,” said Mrs. Opalsen as a sort of Greek chorus.
“Well,” I said,‘Td better have some dinner.”
Poirot accompanied me.
“This ought to mean kudos for you,” I observed.
“Pasdu tout, “ replied Poirot tranquilly. “Japp and the local inspector will divide the credit between them. But’_he tapped his pocket_ “I have a check here, from Mr. Opalsen,and,how say you, my friend? This weekend has not gone according to plan. Shall we return here next weekend一at my expense this time?”
The Kidnapped Prime Minister
OW that war and the problems of war are things of the past,
which my friend Poirot played in a moment of national crisis. The secret has been well-guarded. Not a whisper of it reached the press. But, now that the need for secrecy has gone by, I feel it is only just that England should know the debt it owes to my quaint little friend, whose marvelous brain so ably averted a great catastrophe.
One evening after dinner—I will not particularize the date； it suffices to say that it was at the time when “Peace by negotiation” was the parrot cry of England’s enemies—my friend and I were siting in his rooms. After being invalided out of the Army I had been gaven a recruiting job, and it had become my custom to drop in on Poirot in the evenings after dinner and talk with him of any cases of interest that he might have on hand.
I was attempting to discuss with him the sensational news of that day—no less than an attempted assassination of Mr. David MacAdam, England’s Prime Minister. The account in the papers had evidently been carefully censored. No details were gaven, save that the Prime Minister had had a marvelous escape, the bullet just grazing his cheek.
I considered that our police must have been shamefully careless for such an outrage to be possible. I could well understand that the German agents in England would be willing to risk much for such an achievement. “Fighting Mac,” as his own party had nicknamed him, had strenuously and unequivocally combated the pacifist influence which was becoming so prevalent.
He was more than England’s Prime Minister—he was England； and to have removed him from his sphere of influence would have been a crushing and paralyzing blow to Britain.
Poirot was busy mopping a gray suit with a minute sponge. Never was there a dandy such as Hercule Poirot. Neatness and order were his passion. Now, with the odor of benzine filling the air, he was quite unable to gave me his full attention.
“n a little minute I am with you, my friend. I have all but finished. The spot of grease—he is not good—I remove him—so!” He waved his sponge.
I smiled as I lit another cigarette-
“Anything interesting on?” I inquired,after a minute or two.
“I assist a—how do you call it?—”charlady’ to find her husband. A difficult a£Fair, needing the tact. For I have a little idea that when he is found he will not be pleased. What would you? For my part, I sympathize with him. He was a man of discrimination to lose himself.”
I laughed.
“At last! The spot of grease, he is gone! I am at your disposal”
“was asking you what you thought of this attempt to assassinate MacAdam?”
“EnfantillageVy replied Poirot promptly. "One can hardly take it seriously. To fire with the rifle—never does it succeed. It is a device of the past.”
“It was very near succeeding this time,” I reminded him.
Poirot