Lady Hoggin flushed. 'I'm very glad to hear you say that, Mr Poirot. For it was a crime. Pekinese are terribly sensitive – just as sensitive as children. Poor Shan Tung might have died of fright if of nothing else.'
Miss Carnaby chimed in breathlessly: 'Yes, it was wicked – wicked!'
'Please tell me the facts.'
'Well, it was like this. Shan Tung was out for his walk in the Park with Miss Carnaby -'
'Oh dear me, yes, it was all my fault,' chimed in the companion. 'How could I have been so stupid – so careless -'
Lady Hoggin said acidly: 'I don't want to reproach you, Miss Carnaby, but I do think you might have been more alert.'
Poirot transferred his gaze to the companion.
'What happened?'
Miss Carnaby burst into voluble and slightly flustered speech.
'Well, it was the most extraordinary thing! We had just been along the flower walk – Shan Tung was on the lead, of course – he'd had his little run on the grass – and I was just about to turn and go home when my attention was caught by a baby in a pram – such a lovely baby – it smiled at me – lovely rosy cheeks and such curls. I couldn't just resist speaking to the nurse in charge and asking how old it was – seventeen months, she said – and I'm sure I was only speaking to her for about a minute or two, and then suddenly I looked down and Shan wasn't there any more. The lead had been cut right through -'
Lady Hoggin said: 'If you'd been paying proper attention to your duties, nobody could have sneaked up and cut that lead.'
Miss Carnaby seemed inclined to burst into tears. Poirot said hastily: 'And what happened next?'
'Well, of course I looked everywhere. And called! And I asked the park attendant if he'd seen a man carrying a Pekinese dog but he hadn't noticed anything of the kind – and I didn't know what to do – and I went on searching, but at last, of course, I had to come home -'
Miss Carnaby stopped dead. Poirot could imagine the scene that followed well enough. He asked: 'And then you received a letter?'
Lady Hoggin took up the tale.
'By the first post the following morning. It said that if I wanted to see Shan Tung alive I was to send 200 pounds in one-pound notes in an unregistered packet to Captain Curtis, 38 Bloomsbury Road Square. It said that if the money were marked or the police informed then – then – Shan Tung's ears and tail would be – cut off!'
Miss Carnaby began to sniff.
'So awful,' she murmured. 'How people can be such fiends!'
Lady Hoggin went on: 'It said that if I sent the money at once, Shan Tung would be returned the same evening alive and well, but that if – if afterwards I went to the police, it would be Shan Tung who would suffer for it -'
Miss Carnaby murmured tearfully: 'Oh dear, I'm so afraid that even now – of course, M. Poirot isn't exactly the police -'
Lady Hoggin said anxiously: 'So you see, Mr Poirot, you will have to be very careful.'
Hercule Poirot was quick to allay her anxiety.
'But I, I am not of the police. My enquiries, they will be conducted very discreetly, very quietly. You can be assured, Lady Hoggin, that Shan Tung will be perfectly safe. That I will guarantee.'
Both ladies seemed relieved by the magic word. Poirot went on: 'You have here the letter?'
Lady Hoggin shook her head.
'No, I was instructed to enclose it with the money.'
'And you did so?'
'Yes.'
'H'm, that is a pity.'
Miss Carnaby said brightly: 'But I have the dog lead still. Shall I get it?'
She left the room. Hercule Poirot profited by her absence to ask a few pertinent questions.
'Amy Carnaby? Oh! she's quite all right. A good soul, though foolish, of course. I have had several companions and they have all been complete fools. But Amy was devoted to Shan Tung and she was terribly upset over the whole thing – as well she might be – hanging over perambulators and neglecting my little sweetheart! These old maids are all the same, idiotic over babies! No, I'm quite sure she had nothing whatever to do with it.'
'It does not seem likely,' Poirot agreed. 'But as the dog disappeared when in her charge one must make quite certain of her honesty. She has been with you long?'
'Nearly a year. I had excellent references with her. She was with old Lady Hartingfield until she died – ten years, I believe. After that she looked after an invalid sister for a while. She is really an excellent creature – but a complete fool, as I said.'
Amy Carnaby returned at this minute, slightly more out of breath, and produced the cut dog lead which she handed to Poirot with the utmost solemnity, looking at him with hopeful expectancy.
Poirot surveyed it carefully.
'Mais oui,' he said. 'This has undoubtedly been cut.'
The two women still waited expectantly.
He said: 'I will keep this.'
Solemnly he put it in his pocket. The two women breathed a sigh of relief. He had clearly done what was expected of him.
IV
It was the habit of Hercule Poirot to leave nothing untested.
Though on the face of it it seemed unlikely that Miss Carnaby was anything but the foolish and rather muddleheaded woman that she appeared to be, Poirot nevertheless managed to interview a somewhat forbidding lady who was the niece of the late Lady Hartingfield.
'Amy Carnaby?' said Miss Maltravers. 'Of course, remember her perfectly. She was a good soul and suited Aunt Julia down to the ground. Devoted to dogs and excellent at reading aloud. Tactful, too, never contradicted an invalid. What's happened to her? Not in distress of any kind, I hope. I gave her a reference about a year ago to some woman – name began with H -'
Poirot explained hastily that Miss Carnaby was still in her post. There had been, he said, a little trouble over a lost dog.
'Amy Carnaby is devoted to dogs. My aunt had a Pekinese. She left it to Miss Carnaby when she died and Miss Carnaby was devoted to it. I believe she was quite heart-broken when it died. Oh yes, she's a good soul. Not, of course, precisely intellectual.'
Hercule Poirot agreed that Miss Carnaby could not, perhaps be described as intellectual.
His next proceeding was to discover the Park Keeper to whom Miss Carnaby had spoken on the fateful afternoon. This he did without much difficulty. The man remembered the incident in question.
'Middle-aged lady, rather stout – in a regular state she was – lost her Pekinese dog. I knew her well by sight – brings the dog along most afternoons. I saw her come in with it. She was in a rare taking when she lost it. Came running to me to know if I'd seen any one with a Pekinese dog! Well, I ask you! I can tell you, the Gardens is full of dogs – every kind – terriers, Pekes, German sausage-dogs – even them Borzois – all kinds we have. Not likely as I'd notice one Peke more than another.'
Hercule Poirot nodded his head thoughtfully.
He went to 38 Bloomsbury Road Square.
Nos.38, 39, and 40 were incorporated together as the Balaclava Private Hotel. Poirot walked up the steps and pushed open the door. He was greeted inside by gloom and a smell of cooking cabbage with a reminiscence of breakfast kippers. On his left was a mahogany table with a sad-looking chrysanthemum plant on it. Above the table was a big baize-covered rack into which letters were stuck. Poirot stared at the board thoughtfully for some
