with a decided jaw, reddish hair, and bright blue eyes. He was the most ungainly man I had ever known, and was always knocking into things in an absent-minded way.
He cannoned into the screen round Poirot's chair and half turning his head murmured 'I beg your pardon' to it automatically.
I wanted to laugh, but Judith, I noted, remained quite grave. I suppose she was quite used to that sort of thing.
'You remember my father,' said Judith.
Dr Franklin started, shied nervously, screwed up his eyes and peered at me, then stuck out a hand, saying awkwardly:
'Of course, of course, how are you? I heard you were coming down.'
He turned to Judith.
'I say, do you think we need change? If not, we might go on a bit after dinner. If we got a few more of those slides prepared -'
'No,' said Judith. 'I want to talk to my father.'
'Oh yes. Oh, of course.' Suddenly he smiled, an apologetic boyish smile. 'I am sorry – I get so awfully wrapped up in a thing. It's quite unpardonable – makes me so selfish. Do forgive me.'
The clock struck and Franklin glanced at it hurriedly.
'Good Lord, is it as late as that? I shall get into trouble. Promised Barbara I'd read to her before dinner.'
He grinned at us both and hurried out, colliding with the doorpost as he went out.
'How is Mrs Franklin?' I asked.
'The same and rather more so,' said Judith.
'It's very sad her being such an invalid,' I said.
'It's maddening for a doctor,' said Judith. 'Doctors like healthy people.'
'How hard you young people are!' I exclaimed.
Judith said coldly:
'I was just stating a fact.'
'Nevertheless,' said Poirot, 'the good doctor hurries to read to her.'
'Very stupid,' said Judith. 'That nurse of hers can read to her perfectly well if she wants to be read to. Personally I should loathe anyone reading aloud to me.'
'Well, well, tastes differ,' I said.
'She's a very stupid woman,' said Judith.
'Now there, mon enfant,' said Poirot, 'I do not agree with you.'
'She never reads anything but the cheapest kind of novel. She takes no interest in his work. She doesn't keep abreast of current thought. She just talks about her health to everyone who will listen.'
'I still maintain,' said Poirot, 'that she uses her grey cells in ways that you, my child, know nothing about.'
'She's a very feminine sort of woman,' said Judith. 'She coos and purrs. I expect you like 'em like that, Uncle Hercule.'
'Not at all,' I said. 'He likes them large and flamboyant and Russian for choice.'
'So that is how you give me away, Hastings? Your father, Judith, has always had a penchant for auburn hair. It has landed him in trouble many a time.'
Judith smiled at us both indulgently. She said:
'What a funny couple you are.'
She turned away and I rose.
'I must get unpacked, and I might have a bath before dinner.'
Poirot pressed a little bell within reach of his hand and a minute or two later his valet attendant entered. I was surprised to find that the man was a stranger.
'Why! Where's Georges?'
Poirot's valet, Georges, had been with him for many years.
'Georges has returned to his family. His father is ill. I hope he will come back to me sometime. In the meantime,' he smiled at the new valet, 'Curtiss looks after me.'
Curtiss smiled back respectfully. He was a big man with a bovine rather stupid face.
As I went out of the door, I noted that Poirot was carefully locking up the dispatch case with the papers inside it.
My mind in a whirl, I crossed the passage to my own room.
Chapter 4
I went down to dinner that night feeling that the whole of life had become suddenly unreal.
Once or twice, while dressing, I had asked myself if possibly Poirot had imagined the whole thing. After all, the dear old chap was an old man now and sadly broken in health. He himself might declare his brain was as sound as ever – but in point of fact, was it? His whole life had been spent in tracking down crime. Would it really be surprising if, in the end, he was to fancy crimes where no crimes were? His enforced inaction must have fretted him sorely. What more likely than that he should ninvent for himself a new manhunt? Wishful thinking – a perfectly reasonable neurosis. He had selected a number of publicly reported happenings, and had read into them something that was not there – a shadowy figure behind them – a mad mass murderer. In all probability Mrs Etherington had really killed her husband, the labourer had shot his wife, a young woman had given her old aunt an overdose of morphia, a jealous wife had polished off her husband as she had threatened to do, and a crazy spinster had really committed the murder for which she had subsequently given herself up. In fact these crimes were exactly what they seemed!
Against that view (surely the common-sense one) I could only set my own inherent belief in Poirot's acumen.
Poirot said that a murder had been arranged. For the second time Styles was to house a crime.
Time would prove or disprove that assertion, but if it were true, it behooved us to forestall that happening.
And Poirot knew the identity of the murderer, which I did not.
The more I thought about that, the more annoyed I became! Really, frankly, it was damned cheek of Poirot! He wanted my cooperation and yet he refused to take me into his confidence!
Why? There was the reason he gave – surely a most inadequate one! I was tired of this silly joking about my 'speaking countenance.' I could keep a secret as well as anyone. Poirot has always persisted in the humiliating belief that I am a transparent character and that anyone can read what is passing in my mind. He tries to soften the blow sometimes by attributing it to my beautiful and honest character, which abhors all form of deceit! Of course, I reflected, if the whole thing was a chimera of Poirot's imagination, his reticence was easily explained.
I had come to no conclusion by the time the gong sounded, and I went down to dinner with an open mind, but with an alert eye, for the detection of Poirot's mythical X.
For the moment I would accept everything that Poirot had said as gospel truth. There was a person under this roof who had already killed five times and who was preparing to kill again. Who was it?
In the drawing room before we went in to dinner I was introduced to Miss Cole and Major Allerton. The former was a tall, still handsome woman of thirty-three or -four. Major Allerton I instinctively disliked. He was a good-looking man in the early forties, broad-shouldered, bronzed of face, with an easy way of talking, most of what he said holding a double implication. He had the pouches under his eyes that come with a dissipated way of life. I suspected him of racketing around, of gambling, of drinking hard, and of being first and last a womanizer.
Old Colonel Luttrell, I saw, did not much like him either, and Boyd Carrington was also rather stiff in his manner towards him. Allerton's success was with the women of the party. Mrs Luttrell twittered to him delightedly, while he flattered her lazily and with a hardly concealed impertinence. I was also annoyed to see that Judith, too, seemed to enjoy his company and was exerting herself far more than usual to talk to him. Why the worst type of
