'And Andrew?'
'Andrew seems to have suffered from wanderlust. Nothing known against him.
Never stayed anywhere long, wandered about South Africa, South America, Kenya and a good many other places. His brother pressed him to come back more than once, but he wasn't having any. He didn't like London or business, but he seems to have had the Restarick family flair for making money. He went after mineral deposits, things like that. He wasn't an elephant hunter or an archaeologist or a plant man or any of those things. All his deals were business deals and they always turned out well.'
'So he also in his way is conventional?'
'Yes, that about covers it. I don't know what made him come back to England after his brother died. Possibly a new wife - he's married again. Good-looking woman a good deal younger than he is.
At the moment they're living with old Sir Roderick Horsefield whose sister had married Andrew Restarick's uncle. But I imagine that's only temporary. Is any of this news to you? Or do you know it all already?'
'I've heard most of it,' said Poirot. 'Is there any insanity in the family on either side?'
'Shouldn't think so, apart from old Auntie and her fancy religions. And that's not unusual in a woman who lives alone.'
'So all you can tell me really is that there is a lot of money,' said Poirot.
'Lots of money,' said Chief Inspector Neele. 'And all quite respectable. Some of it, mark you, Andrew Restarick brought into the firm. South African concessions, mines, mineral deposits. I'd say that by the time these were developed, or placed on the market, there'd be a very large sum of money indeed.'
'And who will inherit it?' said Poirot.
'That depends on how Andrew Restarick leaves it. It's up to him, but I'd say that there's no one obvious, except his wife and his daughter.'
'So they both stand to inherit a very large amount of money one day?'
'I should say so. I expect there are a good many family trusts and things like that. All the usual City gambits.'
'There is, for instance, no other woman in whom he might be interested?'
'Nothing known of such a thing. I shouldn't think it likely. He's got a goodlooking new wife.'
'A young man,' said Poirot thoughtfully, 'could easily learn all this?'
'You mean and marry the daughter?
There's nothing to stop him, even if she was made a ward of Court or something like that. Of course her father could then disinherit her if he wanted to.' Poirot looked down at a neatly written list in his hand.
'What about the Wedderburn Gallery?'
'I wondered how you'd got on to that.
Were you consulted by a client about a forgery?'
'Do they deal in forgeries?'
'People don't deal in forgeries,' said Chief Inspector Neele reprovingly. 'There was a rather unpleasant business. A millionaire from Texas over here buying pictures, and paying incredible sums for them. They sold him a Renoir and a Van Gogh. The Renoir was a small head of a girl and there was some query about it.
There seemed no reason to believe that the Wedderburn Gallery had not bought it in the first place in all good faith. There was a case about it. A great many art experts came and gave their verdicts. In fact, as usual, in the end they all seemed to contradict each other. The gallery offered to take it back in any case. However, the millionaire didn't change his mind, since the latest fashionable expert swore that it was perfectly genuine. So he stuck to it.
All the same there's been a bit of suspicion hanging round the gallery ever since.' Poirot looked again at his list.
'And what about Mr. David Baker?
Have you looked him up for me?'
'Oh, he's one of the usual mob. Riffraff - go about in gangs and break up night clubs. Live on purple hearts - heroin - Coke - Girls go mad about them. He's the kind they moan over saying his life has been so hard and he's such a wonderful genius. His painting is not appreciated. Nothing but good old sex, if you ask me.' Poirot consulted his list again.
'Do you know anything about Mr. Reece-Holland, m.p.?'
'Doing quite well, politically. Got the gift of the gab all right. One or two slightly peculiar transactions in the City, but he's wriggled out of them quite neatly.
I'd say he was a slippery one. He's made quite a good deal of money off and on by rather doubtful means.' Poirot came to his last point.
'What about Sir Roderick Horsefield?'
'Nice old boy but gaga. What a nose you have, Poirot, get it into everything, don't you? Yes, there's been a lot of trouble in the Special Branch. It's this craze for memoirs. Nobody knows what indiscreet revelations are going to be made next.
All the old boys, service and otherwise, are raving hard to bring out their own particular brand of what they remember of the indiscretions of others! Usually it doesn't much matter, but sometimes - well, you know. Cabinets change their policies and you don't want to affront someone's susceptibilities or give the wrong publicity, so we have to try and muffle the old boys. Some of them are not too easy. But you'll have to go to the Special Branch if you want to nose into any of that. I shouldn't think there was much wrong. The trouble is they don't destroy the papers they should. They keep the lot. However, I don't think there is much in that, but we have evidence that a certain Power is nosing around.' Poirot gave a deep sigh.
'Haven't I helped?' asked the Chief Inspector.
'I am very glad to get the real lowdown from official quarters. But no, I don't think there is much help in what you have told me.' He sighed and then said, 'What would be your opinion if someone said to you casually that a woman - a young attractive woman - wore a wig?'
'Nothing in that,' said Chief Inspector Neele, and added, with slight asperity, 'my wife wears a wig when we're travelling any time. It saves a lot of trouble.'
'I beg your pardon,' said Hercule Poirot.
As the two men bade each other goodbye, the Chief Inspector asked: 'You got all the dope, I suppose, on that suicide case you were asking about in the flats? I had it sent round to you.'
'Yes, thank you. The official facts, at least. A bare record.'
'There was something you were talking about just now that brought it back to my mind. I'll think of it in a moment. It was the usual, rather sad story. Gay woman, fond of men, enough money to live upon, no particular worries, drank too much and went down the hill. And then she gets what I call the health bug. You know, they're convinced they have cancer or something in that line. They consult a doctor and he tells them they're all right, and they go home and don't believe him.
If you ask me it's usually because they find they're no longer as attractive as they used to be to men. That's what's really depressing them. Yes, it happens all the time. They're lonely, I suppose, poor devils. Mrs. Charpentier was just one of them. I don't suppose that any - ' he stopped. 'Oh yes, of course, I remember.
You were asking about one of our M.P.s, Reece-Holland. He's a fairly gay one himself in a discreet way. Anyway, Louise Charpentier was his mistress at one time.
That's all.'
'Was it a serious liaison?'
'Oh I shouldn't say so particularly.
They went to some rather questionable clubs together and things like that. You know, we keep a discreet eye on things of that kind. But there was never anything in the Press about them. Nothing of that kind.'
'I see.'
'But it lasted for a certain time. They were seen together, off and on for about six months, but I don't think she was the only one and I don't think he was the only one either. So you can't make anything of that, can you?'
'I do not think so,' said Poirot.
'But all the same,' he said to himself as he went down the stairs, 'all the same, it is a link. It explains the embarrassment of Mr. McFarlane. It is a link, a tiny link, a link between Ernlyn ReeceHolland, m.p., and Louise Charpentier.' It didn't mean anything probably. Why should it?
