'What about the money you had paid over?'
'The Marchese, a very punctilious person, offered to refund it to me as the cup had been stolen from his house.'
'But you did not accept?'
'No.'
'Why was that?'
'Shall we say because I preferred to keep the matter in my own hands?'
'You mean that if you had accepted the Marchese's offer, the goblet, if recovered, would be his property, whereas now it is legally yours?'
'Exactly.'
Poirot asked: 'What was there behind that attitude of yours?'
Emery Power said with a smile: 'You appreciate that point, I see. Well, M. Poirot, it is quite simple. I thought I knew who was actually in possession of the goblet.'
'Very interesting. And who was it?'
'Sir Reuben Rosenthal. He was not only a fellow collector but he was at the time a personal enemy. We had been rivals in several business deals – and on the whole I had come out the better. Our animosity culminated in this rivalry over the Borgia Goblet. Each of us was determined to possess it. It was more or less a point of honour. Our appointed representatives bid against each other at the sale.'
'And your representative's final bid secured the treasure?'
'Not precisely. I took the precaution of having a second agent – ostensibly the representative of a Paris dealer. Neither of us, you understand, would have been willing to yield to the other, but to allow a third party to acquire the cup, with the possibility of approaching that third party quietly afterwards – that was a very different matter.'
'In fact, une petite deception.'
'Exactly.'
'Which was successful – and immediately afterwards Sir Reuben discovered how he had been tricked?'
Power smiled.
It was a revealing smile.
Poirot said: 'I see the position now. You believed that Sir Reuben, determined not to be beaten, deliberately commissioned the theft?'
Emery Power raised a hand.
'Oh no, no! It would not be so crude as that. It amounted to this – shortly afterwards Sir Reuben would have purchased a Renaissance goblet, provenance unspecified.'
'The description of which would have been circulated by the police?'
'The goblet would not have been placed openly on view.'
'You think it would have been sufficient for Sir Reuben to know that he possessed it?'
'Yes. Moreover, if I had accepted the Marchese's offer – it would have been possible for Sir Reuben to conclude a private arrangement with him later, thus allowing the goblet to pass legally into his possession.'
He paused a minute and then said: 'But by retaining the legal ownership, there were still possibilities left open to me of recovering my property.'
'You mean,' said Poirot bluntly, 'that you could arrange for it to be stolen from Sir Reuben.'
'Not stolen, M. Poirot. I should have been merely recovering my own property.'
'But I gather that you were not successful?'
'For a very good reason. Rosenthal has never had the goblet in his possession!'
'How do you know?'
'Recently there has been a merger of oil interests. Rosenthal's interests and mine now coincide. We are allies and not enemies. I spoke to him frankly on the subject and he at once assured me that the cup had never been in his possession.'
'And you believe him?'
'Yes.'
Poirot said thoughtfully: 'Then for nearly ten years you have been, as they say in this country, barking up the mistaken tree?'
The financier said bitterly: 'Yes, that is exactly what I have been doing!'
'And now – it is all to start again from the beginning?'
The other nodded.
'And that is where I come in? I am the dog that you set upon the cold scent – a very cold scent.'
Emery Power said dryly: 'If the affair were easy it would not have been necessary for me to send for you. Of course, if you think it impossible -'
He had found the right word.
Hercule Poirot drew himself up. He said coldly: 'I do not recognise the word impossible, Monsieur! I ask myself only – is this affair sufficiently interesting for me to undertake?'
Emery Power smiled again.
He said: 'It has this interest – you may name your own fee.'
The small man looked at the big man.
He said softly: 'Do you then desire this work of art so much? Surely not!'
Emery Power said: 'Put it that I, like yourself, do not accept defeat.'
Hercule Poirot bowed his head. He said: 'Yes – put that way – I understand.'
II
Inspector Wagstaffe was interested.
'The Veratrino cup? Yes, I remember all about it. I was in charge of the business this end. I speak a bit of Italiano, you know, and I went over and had a powwow with the Macaronis. It's never turned up from that day to this. Funny thing, that.'
'What is your explanation? A private sale?'
Wagstaffe shook his head.
'I doubt it. Of course it's remotely possible… No, my explanation is a good deal simpler. The stuff was cached – and the only man who knew where it was is dead.'
'You mean Casey?'
'Yes. He may have cached it somewhere in Italy, or he may have succeeded in smuggling it out of the country. But he hid it and wherever he hid it, there it still is.'
Hercule Poirot sighed. 'It is a romantic theory. Pearls stuffed into plaster casts – what is the story – the Bust of Napoleon, is it not? But in this case it is not jewels – it is a large, solid gold cup. Not so easy to hide that, one would think.'
Wagstaffe said vaguely: 'Oh, I don't know. It could be done, I suppose. Under the floor-boards – something of that kind.'
'Had Casey a house of his own?'
'Yes – in Liverpool.' He grinned. 'It wasn't under the floor-boards there. We made sure of that.'
'What about his family?'
'Wife was a decent sort of woman – tubercular. Worried to death by her husband's way of life. She was religious – a devout Catholic – but couldn't make up her mind to leave him. She died a couple of years ago. Daughter took after her – she became a nun. The son was different – a chip off the old block. Last I heard of him he was doing time in America.'
Hercule Poirot wrote, in his little notebook, America.
He said: 'It is possible that Casey's son may have known the hiding-place?'
'Don't believe he did. It would have come into the fences' hands by now.'
'The cup might have been melted down.'
