'No, I am not mad. See, I will show you something.'
He picked up the goblet. With his finger-nail, he pressed hard into the open jaws of the snake that was coiled round the tree. Inside the cup a tiny portion of the gold chased interior slid aside leaving an aperture into the hollow handle.
Poirot said: 'You see? This was the drinking cup of the Borgia Pope. Through this little hole the poison passed into the drink. You have said yourself that the history of this cup is evil. Violence and blood and evil passions have accompanied its possession. Evil will perhaps come to you in turn.'
'Superstition!'
'Possibly. But why were you so anxious to possess this thing? Not for its beauty. Not for its value. You have a hundred – a thousand perhaps – beautiful and rare things. You wanted it to sustain your pride. You were determined not to be beaten. Eh bien, you are not beaten. You win! The goblet is in your possession. But now, why not make a great – a supreme gesture? Send it back to where it has dwelt in peace for nearly ten years. Let the evil of it be purified there. It belonged to the Church once – let it return to the Church. Let it stand once more on the altar, purified and absolved as we hope that the souls of men shall be also purified and absolved from their sins.'
He leaned forward.
'Let me describe for you the place where I found it – the Garden of Peace, looking out over the Western Sea towards a forgotten Paradise of Youth and Eternal Beauty.'
He spoke on, describing in simple words the remote charm of Inishgowlan.
Emery Power sat back, one hand over his eyes.
He said at last: 'I was born on the west coast of Ireland. I left there as a boy to go to America.'
Poirot said gently: 'I heard that.'
The financier sat up. His eyes were shrewd again. He said, and there was a faint smile on his lips: 'You are a strange man, M. Poirot. You shall have your way. Take the goblet to the Convent as a gift in my name. A pretty costly gift. Thirty thousand pounds – and what shall I get in exchange?'
Poirot said gravely: 'The nuns will say Masses for your soul.'
The rich man's smile widened – a rapacious, hungry smile.
He said: 'So, after all, it may be an investment! Perhaps, the best one I ever made…'
IX
In the little parlour of the Convent, Hercule Poirot told his story and restored the chalice to the Mother Superior.
She murmured: 'Tell him we thank him and we will pray for him.'
Hercule Poirot said gently: 'He needs your prayers.'
'Is he then an unhappy man?'
Poirot said: 'So unhappy that he has forgotten what happiness means. So unhappy that he does not know he is unhappy.'
The nun said softly: 'Ah, a rich man…'
Hercule Poirot said nothing – for he knew there was nothing to say.
Chapter 12
THE CAPTURE OF CERBERUS
I
Hercule Poirot, swaying to and fro in the tube train, thrown now against one body, now against another, thought to himself that there were too many people in the world! Certainly there were too many people in the Underground world of London at this particular moment (6:30 p.m.) of the evening. Heat, noise, crowd, contiguity – the unwelcome pressure of hands, arms, bodies, shoulders! Hemmed in and pressed around by strangers – and on the whole (he thought distastefully) a plain and uninteresting lot of strangers! Humanity seen thus en masse was not attractive. How seldom did one see a face sparkling with intelligence, how seldom a femme bien mise! What was this passion that attacked women for knitting under the most unpropitious conditions? A woman did not look her best knitting; the absorption, the glassy eyes, the restless, busy fingers! One needed the agility of a wild cat, and the willpower of a Napoleon to manage to knit in a crowded tube, but women managed it! If they succeeded in obtaining a seat, out came a miserable little strip of shrimp pink and click, click went the pins!
No repose, thought Poirot, no feminine grace! His elderly soul revolted from the stress and hurry of the modern world. All these young women who surrounded him – so alike, so devoid of charm, so lacking in rich, alluring femininity! He demanded a more flamboyant appeal. Ah! to see a femme du monde, chic, sympathetic, spirituelle – a woman with ample curves, a woman ridiculously and extravagantly dressed! Once there had been such women. But now – now – The train stopped at a station, people surged out, forcing Poirot back on to the points of knitting pins, surged in, squeezing him into even more sardine-like proximity with his fellow passengers. The train started off again with a jerk, Poirot was thrown against a stout woman with knobbly parcels, said 'Pardon!' bounced off again into a long angular man whose attache-case caught him in the small of the back. He said 'Pardon!' again. He felt his moustaches becoming limp and uncurled. Quel enfer! Fortunately the next station was his!
It was also the station of what seemed to be about a hundred and fifty other people, since it happened to be Piccadilly Circus. Like a great tidal wave they flowed out on to the platform. Presently Poirot was again jammed tightly on an escalator being carried upwards towards the surface of the earth.
Up, thought Poirot, from the Infernal Regions… How exquisitely painful was a suit-case rammed into one's knees from behind on an ascending escalator!
At that moment, a voice cried his name. Startled, he raised his eyes. On the opposite escalator, the one descending, his unbelieving eyes saw a vision from the past. A woman of full and flamboyant form; her luxuriant henna red hair crowned with a small plastron of straw to which was attached a positive platoon of brilliantly feathered little birds. Exotic-looking furs dripped from her shoulders.
Her crimson mouth opened wide, her rich, foreign voice echoed resoundingly. She had good lungs.
'It is!' she screamed. 'But it is! Mon cher Hercule Poirot! We must meet again! I insist!'
But Fate itself is not more inexorable than the behaviour of two escalators moving in an inverse direction. Steadily, remorselessly, Hercule Poirot was borne upward, and the Countess Vera Rossakoff was borne downwards.
Twisting himself sideways, leaning over the balustrade, Poirot cried despairingly: 'Chere Madame – where can I find you?'
Her reply came to him faintly from the depths. It was unexpected, yet seemed at the moment strangely apposite.
'In Hell…'
Hercule Poirot blinked. He blinked again. Suddenly he rocked on his feet. Unawares he had reached the top – and had neglected to step off properly. The crowd spread out round him. A little to one side a dense crowd was pressing on to the downward escalator. Should he join them? Had that been the Countess's meaning? No doubt that travelling in the bowels of the earth at the rush hour was Hell. If that had been the Countess's meaning, he could not agree with her more…
Resolutely Poirot crossed over, sandwiched himself into the descending crowd and was borne back into the depths. At the foot of the escalator no sign of the Countess. Poirot was left with a choice of blue, amber, etc. lights
