He bowed and followed her.
She shut the door, motioned him to a chair, and offered him a cigarette. She sat down opposite him. She said quietly: 'You have just seen my husband – and he has told you – about my father.'
Poirot looked at her with attention. He saw a tall woman, still handsome, with character and intelligence in her face. Mrs Ferrier was a popular figure. As the wife of the Prime Minister she naturally came in for a good share of the limelight. As the daughter of her father, her popularity was even greater. Dagmar Ferrier represented the popular ideal of English womanhood.
She was a devoted wife, a fond mother, she shared her husband's love of country life. She interested herself in just those aspects of public life which were generally felt to be proper spheres of womanly activity. She dressed well, but never in an ostentatiously fashionable manner. She devoted much of her time and activity to large-scale charities, she had inaugurated special schemes for the relief of the wives of unemployed men. She was looked up to by the whole nation and was a most valuable asset to the Party.
Hercule Poirot said: 'You must be terribly worried, Madame.'
'Oh, I am – you don't know how much. For years I have been dreading – something.'
Poirot said: 'You had no idea of what was going on actually?'
She shook her head. 'No – not in the least. I only knew that my father was not – was not what everyone thought him. I realised, from the time that I was a child, that he was a – a humbug.'
Her voice was deep and bitter. She said: 'It is through marrying me that Edward – that Edward will lose everything.'
Poirot said in a quiet voice: 'Have you any enemies, Madame?'
She looked up at him, surprised.
'Enemies? I don't think so.'
Poirot said thoughtfully: 'I think you have…' He went on: 'Have you courage, Madame? There is a great campaign afoot – against your husband – and against yourself. You must prepare to defend yourself.'
She cried: 'But it doesn't matter about me. Only about Edward!'
Poirot said: 'The one includes the other. Remember, Madame, you are Caesar's wife.'
He saw her colour ebb. She leaned forward.
She said: 'What is it you are trying to tell me?'
III
Percy Perry, editor of the X-ray News, sat behind his desk smoking.
He was a small man with a face like a weasel.
He was saying in a soft, oily voice: 'We'll give 'em the dirt, all right. Lovely – lovely! Oh boy!'
His second-in-command, a thin, spectacled youth, said uneasily: 'You're not nervous?'
'Expecting strong arm stuff? Not them. Haven't got the nerve. Wouldn't do them any good, either. Not the way we've got it farmed out – in this country and on the Continent and America.'
The other said: 'They must be in a pretty good stew. Won't they do anything?'
'They'll send someone to talk pretty -'
A buzzer sounded. Percy Perry picked up a receiver.
He said: 'Who do you say? Right, send him up.'
He put the receiver down – grinned.
'They've got that high-toned Belgian dick on to it. He's coming up now to do his stuff. Wants to know if we'll play ball.'
Hercule Poirot came in. He was immaculately dressed – a white camellia in his buttonhole.
Percy Perry said: 'Pleased to meet you, M. Poirot. On your way to the Royal Enclosure at Ascot? No? My mistake.'
Hercule Poirot said: 'I am flattered. One hopes to present a good appearance. It is even more important,' his eyes roamed innocently over the editor's face and somewhat slovenly attire, 'when one has few natural advantages.'
Perry said shortly: 'What do you want to see me about?'
Poirot leaned forward, tapped him on the knee, and said with a beaming smile: 'Blackmail.'
'What the devil do you mean, blackmail?'
'I have heard – the little bird has told me – that on occasions you have been on the point of publishing certain very damaging statements in your so spirituel paper – then, there has been a pleasant little increase in your bank balance – and after all, those statements have not been published.'
Poirot leaned back and nodded his head in a satisfied sort of way.
'Do you realise that what you're suggesting amounts to slander?'
Poirot smiled confidently.
'I am sure you will not take offence.'
'I do take offence! As to blackmail there is no evidence of my ever having blackmailed anybody.'
'No, no, I am quite sure of that. You misunderstand me. I was not threatening you. I was leading up to a simple question. How much?'
'I don't know what you're talking about,' said Percy Perry.
'A matter of national importance, M. Perry.'
They exchanged a significant glance.
Percy Perry said: 'I'm a reformer, M. Poirot. I want to see politics cleaned up. I'm opposed to corruption. Do you know what the state of politics is in this country? The Augean Stables, no more, no less.'
'Tiens!' said Hercule Poirot. 'You, too, use that phrase.'
'And what is needed,' went on the editor, 'to cleanse those stables is the great purifying flood of Public Opinion.'
Hercule Poirot got up. He said: 'I applaud your sentiments.'
He added: 'It is a pity that you do not feel in need of money.'
Percy Perry said hurriedly: 'Here, wait a sec – I didn't say that exactly…'
But Hercule Poirot had gone through the door.
His excuse for later events is that he does not like blackmailers.
IV
Everett Dashwood, the cheery young man on the staff of The Branch, clapped Hercule Poirot affectionately on the back.
He said: 'There's dirt and dirt, my boy. My dirt's clean dirt – that's all.'
'I was not suggesting that you were on a par with Percy Perry.'
'Damned little bloodsucker. He's a blot on our profession. We'd all down him if we could.'
'It happens,' said Hercule Poirot, 'that I am engaged at the moment on a little matter of clearing up a political scandal.'
'Cleaning out the Augean Stables, eh?' said Dashwood. 'Too much for you, my boy. Only hope is to divert the Thames and wash away the Houses of Parliament.'
'You are cynical,' said Hercule Poirot, shaking his head.
'I know the world, that's all.'
Poirot said: 'You, I think, are just the man I seek. You have a reckless disposition, you are the good sport, you like something that is out of the usual.'
'And granting all that?'
'I have a little scheme to put into action. If my ideas are right, there is a sensational plot to unmask. That, my friend, shall be a scoop for your paper.'
