guarded. Insists on working alone at his house in the country. No security at all. Frightening.'
I wonder, Poirot thought to himself as he replaced Who's Who on the bookshelf, I wonder – can Sir Claud want to engage Hercule Poirot to be a tired old watchdog? The inventions of war, the secret weapons, they are not for me. If Sir Claud -
The telephone in the next room rang, and Poirot could hear George answering it. A moment later, the valet appeared.
'It's Sir Claud Amory again, sir,' he said.
Poirot went to the phone.
'Hallo. It is Hercule Poirot who speaks,' he announced into the mouthpiece.
'Poirot? We've not met, though we have acquaintances in common. My name is Amory, Claud Amory -'
'I have heard of you, of course, Sir Claud,' Poirot responded.
'Look here, Poirot. I've got a devilishly tricky problem on my hands. Or rather, I might have. I can't be certain. I've been working on a formula to bombard the atom – I won't go into details, but the Ministry of Defence regards it as of the utmost importance. My work is now complete, and I've produced a formula from which a new and deadly explosive can be made. I have reason to suspect that a member of my household is attempting to steal the formula. I can't say any more now, but I should be greatly obliged if you would come down to Abbot's Cleve for the weekend, as my house-guest. I want you to take the formula back with you to London, and hand it over to a certain person at the Ministry. There are good reasons why a Ministry courier can't do the job. I need someone who is ostensibly an unobtrusive, unscientific member of the public but who is also astute enough -'
Sir Claud talked on. Hercule Poirot, glancing across at the reflection in the mirror of his bald, egg-shaped head and his elaborately waxed moustache, told himself that he had never before, in a long career, been considered unobtrusive, nor did he so consider himself. But a weekend in the country and a chance to meet the distinguished scientist could be agreeable, plus, no doubt, the suitably expressed thanks of a grateful government – and merely for carrying in his pocket from Surrey to Whitehall an obscure, if deadly, scientific formula.
'I shall be delighted to oblige you, my dear Sir Claud,' he interrupted. 'I shall arrange to arrive on Saturday afternoon, if that is convenient to you, and return to London, with whatever you wish me to take with me, on Monday morning. I look forward greatly to making your acquaintance.'
Curious, he thought, as he replaced the receiver. Foreign agents might well be interested in Sir Claud's formula, but could it really be the case that someone in the scientist's own household -? Ah well, doubtless more would be revealed during the course of the weekend.
'George,' he called, 'please take my heavy tweed suit and my dinner jacket and trousers to the cleaner's. I must have them back by Friday, as I am going to the Country for the Weekend.' He made it sound like the Steppes of Central Asia and for a lifetime.
Then, turning to the phone, he dialled a number and waited for a few moments before speaking.
'My dear Hastings,' he began, 'would you not like to have a few days away from your business concerns in London? Surrey is very pleasant at this time of the year…'
Chapter 2
Sir Claud Amory's house, Abbot's Cleve, stood just on the outskirts of the small town – or rather, overgrown village – of Market Cleve, about twenty-five miles southeast of London. The house itself, a large but architecturally nondescript Victorian mansion, was set amid an attractive few acres of gently undulating countryside, here and there heavily wooded. The gravel drive, from the gatehouse up to the front door of Abbot's Cleve, twisted its way through trees and dense shrubbery. A terrace ran along the back of the house, with a lawn sloping down to a somewhat neglected formal garden.
On the Friday evening two days after his telephone conversation with Hercule Poirot, Sir Claud sat in his study, a small but comfortably furnished room on the ground floor of the house, on the east side. Outside, the light was beginning to fade. Sir Claud's butler, Tredwell, a tall, lugubrious-looking individual with an impeccably correct manner, had sounded the gong for dinner two or three minutes earlier, and no doubt the family was now assembling in the dining-room on the other side of the hall.
Sir Claud drummed on the desk with his fingers, his habit when forcing himself to a quick decision. A man of medium height and build in his fifties, with greying hair brushed straight back from a high forehead and eyes of a piercingly cold blue, he now wore an expression in which anxiety was mixed with puzzlement.
There was a discreet knock on the study door, and Tredwell appeared in the doorway.
'Excuse me, Sir Claud. I wondered if perhaps you had not heard the gong -'
'Yes, yes, Tredwell, that's all right. Would you tell them I shall be in very shortly? Say I'm caught on the phone. In fact, I am about to make a quick phone call. You may as well begin serving.'
Tredwell withdrew silently, and Sir Claud, taking a deep breath, pulled the telephone towards himself. Extracting a small address-book from a drawer of his desk, he consulted it briefly and then picked up the receiver. He listened for a moment and then spoke.
'This is Market Cleve three-oh-four. I want you to get me a London number.' He gave the number, then sat back, waiting. The fingers of his right hand began to drum nervously on the desk.
Several minutes later, Sir Claud Amory joined the dinner party, taking his place at the head of the table, around which the six others were already seated. On Sir Claud's right sat his niece, Barbara Amory, with Richard, her cousin and the only son of Sir Claud, next to her. On Richard Amory's right was a house-guest, Dr Carelli, an Italian. Continuing round, at the opposite end of the table to Sir Claud, sat Caroline Amory, his sister. A middle-aged spinster, she had run Sir Claud's house for him ever since his wife died some years earlier. Edward Raynor, Sir Claud's secretary, sat on Miss Amory's right, with Lucia, Richard Amory's wife, between him and the head of the household.
Dinner, on this occasion, was not at all festive. Caroline Amory made several attempts at small-talk with Dr Carelli, who answered her politely enough without offering much in the way of conversation himself. When she turned to address a remark to Edward Raynor, that normally polite and socially suave young man gave a nervous start, mumbled an apology and looked embarrassed. Sir Claud was as taciturn as he normally was at meal-times, or perhaps even more so. Richard Amory cast an occasional anxious glance across the table at his wife, Lucia. Barbara Amory alone seemed in good spirits, and made spasmodic light conversation with her Aunt Caroline.
It was while Tredwell was serving the dessert course that Sir Claud suddenly addressed the butler, speaking loudly enough for all at the dinner-table to hear his words.
'Tredwell,' he said, 'would you ring Jackson 's garage in Market Cleve, and ask them to send a car and driver to the station to meet the eight-fifty from London? A gentleman who is visiting us after dinner will be coming by that train.'
'Very well, Sir Claud,' replied Tredwell as he left. He was barely out of the room when Lucia, with a murmured apology, got up abruptly from the table and hurried out, almost colliding with the butler as he was about to close the door behind him.
Crossing the hall, she hurried along the corridor and proceeded to the large room at the back of the house. The library – as it was generally called – served normally as a drawing-room as well. It was a comfortable room rather than an elegant one. French windows opened from it onto the terrace, and another door led to Sir Claud's study. On the mantelpiece, above a large open fireplace, stood an old-fashioned clock and some ornaments, as well as a vase of spills for use in lighting the fire.
The library furniture consisted of a tall bookcase with a tin box on the top of it, a desk with a telephone on it, a stool, a small table with gramophone and records, a settee, a coffee-table, an occasional table with book-ends and books on it, two upright chairs, an arm-chair and another table on which stood a plant in a brass pot. The furniture in general was old-fashioned, but not sufficiently old or distinguished to be admired as antique.
Lucia, a beautiful young woman of twenty-five, had luxuriant dark hair which flowed to her shoulders, and brown eyes which could flash excitingly but were now smouldering with a suppressed emotion not easy to define.
She hesitated in the middle of the room, then crossed to the French windows and, parting the curtains slightly, looked out at the night. Uttering a barely audible sigh, she pressed her brow to the cool glass of the
