The girl called Alice smiled kindly but a little disdainfully. She asked the Professor in a firm voice if he would like to dance. He appeared flattered but dubious.
'My dear young lady, I fear I only waltz.'
'This is a waltz,' said Alice patiently.
They got up and danced. They did not dance well.
The Countess Rossakoff sighed. Following out a train of thought of her own, she murmured, 'And yet she is not really bad-looking…'
'She does not make the most of herself,' said Poirot judicially.
'Frankly,' cried the Countess, 'I cannot understand the young people of nowadays. They do not try any more to please – always, in my youth, I tried – the colours that suited me – a little padding in the frocks – the corset laced tight round the waist – the hair, perhaps, a more interesting shade -'
She pushed back the heavy Titian tresses from her forehead – it was undeniable that she, at least, was still trying and trying hard!
'To be content with what Nature has given you, that – that is stupid! It is also arrogant! The little Alice she writes pages of long words about Sex, but how often, I ask you, does a man suggest to her that they should go to Brighton for the weekend? It is all long words and work, and the welfare of the workers, and the future of the world. It is very worthy, but I ask you, is it gay? And look, I ask you, how drab these young people have made the world! It is all regulations and prohibitions! Not so when I was young.'
'That reminds me, how is your son, Madame?' At the last moment he substituted 'son', for 'little boy', remembering that twenty years had passed.
The Countess's face lit up with enthusiastic motherhood.
'The beloved angel! So big now, such shoulders, so handsome! He is in America. He builds there – bridges, banks, hotels, department stores, railways, anything the Americans want!'
Poirot looked slightly puzzled.
'He is then an engineer? Or an architect?'
'What does it matter?' demanded the Countess. 'He is adorable! He is wrapped up in iron girders, and machinery, and things called stresses. The kind of things that I have never understood in the least. But we adore each other – always we adore each other! And so for his sake I adore the little Alice. But yes, they are engaged. They meet on a plane or a boat or a train, and they fall in love, all in the midst of talking about the welfare of the workers. And when she comes to London she comes to see me and I take her to my heart.' The Countess clasped her arms across her vast bosom, 'And I say – 'You and Niki love each other – so I too love you – but if you love him why do you leave him in America?' And she talks about her 'job' and the book she is writing, and her career, and frankly I do not understand, but I have always said: 'One must be tolerant'.' She added all in one breath, 'And what do you think, cher ami, of all this that I have imagined here?'
'It is very well imagined,' said Poirot, looking round him approvingly. 'It is chic!'
The place was full and it had about it that unmistakable air of success which cannot be counterfeited. There were languid couples in full evening dress, Bohemians in corduroy trousers, stout gentlemen in business suits. The band, dressed as devils, dispensed hot music. No doubt about it. Hell had caught on.
'We have all kinds here,' said the Countess. 'That is as it should be, is it not? The gates of Hell are open to all?'
'Except, possibly, to the poor?' Poirot suggested.
The Countess laughed. 'Are we not told that it is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Naturally, then, he should have priority in Hell.'
The Professor and Alice were returning to the table. The Countess got up.
'I must speak to Aristide.'
She exchanged some words with the head waiter, a lean Mephistopheles, then went round from table to table, speaking to the guests.
The Professor, wiping his forehead and sipping a glass of wine, remarked: 'She is a personality, is she not? People feel it.'
He excused himself as he went over to speak to someone at another table. Poirot, left alone with the severe Alice, felt slightly embarrassed as he met the cold blue of her eyes. He recognised that she was actually quite good-looking, but he found her distinctly alarming.
'I do not yet know your last name,' he murmured.
'Cunningham. Dr Alice Cunningham. You have known Vera in past days, I understand?'
'Twenty years ago it must be.'
'I find her a very interesting study,' said Dr Alice Cunningham. 'Naturally I am interested in her as the mother of the man I am going to marry, but I am interested in her from the professional standpoint as well.'
'Indeed?'
'Yes. I am writing a book on criminal psychology. I find the night life of this place very illuminating. We have several criminal types who come here regularly. I have discussed their early life with some of them. Of course you know all about Vera's criminal tendencies – I mean that she steals?'
'Why, yes – I know that,' said Poirot, slightly taken aback.
'I call it the Magpie complex myself. She takes, you know, always glittering things. Never money. Always jewels. I find that as a child she was petted and indulged but very much shielded. Life was unendurably dull for her – dull and safe. Her nature demanded drama – it craved for punishment. That is at the root of her indulgence in theft. She wants the importance, the notoriety of being punished!'
Poirot objected, 'Her life can surely not have been safe and dull as a member of the ancien regime in Russia during the Revolution?'
A look of faint amusement showed in Miss Cunningham's pale blue eyes.
'Ah,' she said. 'A member of the ancien regime? She has told you that?'
'She is undeniably an aristocrat,' said Poirot staunchly, fighting back certain uneasy memories of the wildly varying accounts of her early life told him by the Countess herself.
'One believes what one wishes to believe,' remarked Miss Cunningham, casting a professional eye on him.
Poirot felt alarmed. In a moment, he felt, he would be told what was his complex. He decided to carry the war into the enemy's camp. He enjoyed the Countess Rossakoff's society partly because of her aristocratic provenance, and he was not going to have his enjoyment spoiled by a spectacled little girl with boiled gooseberry eyes and a degree in psychology!
'Do you know what I find astonishing?' he asked.
Alice Cunningham did not admit in so many words that she did not know. She contented herself with looking bored but indulgent.
Poirot went on: 'It amazes me that you – who are young, and who could look pretty if you took the trouble – well, it amazes me that you do not take the trouble! You wear the heavy coat and skirt with the big pockets as though you were going to play the game of golf. But it is not here the golf links, it is the underground cellar with the temperature of 71 Fahrenheit, and your nose it is hot and shines, but you do not powder it, and the lipstick you put it on your mouth without interest, without emphasising the curve of the lips! You are a woman, but you do not draw attention to the fact of being a woman. And I say to you 'Why not?' It is a pity!'
For a moment he had the satisfaction of seeing Alice Cunningham look human. He even saw a spark of anger in her eyes. Then she regained her attitude of smiling contempt.
'My dear M. Poirot,' she said, 'I'm afraid you're out of touch with the modern ideology. It is fundamentals that matter – not the trappings.'
She looked up as a dark and very beautiful young man came towards them.
'This is a most interesting type,' she murmured with zest. 'Paul Varesco! Lives on women and has strange depraved cravings! I want him to tell me more about a nursery governess who looked after him when he was three years old.'
A moment or two later she was dancing with the young man. He danced divinely. As they drifted near Poirot's table, Poirot heard her say: 'And after the summer at Bognor she gave you a toy crane? A crane – yes, that's very suggestive.'
For a moment Poirot allowed himself to toy with the speculation that Miss Cunningham's interest in criminal
