'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 strop de cassis - '
'Good lord, no,' said Sir Roderick, alarmed at the mention ofsirop 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 inter-change 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 Harbour! 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, hell?'
'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
