him.
Lord Dittisham was a man just under forty. He was not only a Peer of the Realm, he was a poet. Two of his fantastical poetic dramas had been staged at vast expense and had had a succés d’estime. His forehead was rather prominent, his chin was eager, and his eyes and his mouth unexpectedly beautiful.
He said:
‘Sit down, M. Poirot.’
Poirot sat down and accepted a cigarette from his host. Lord Dittisham shut the box, struck a match and held it for Poirot to light his cigarette, then he himself sat down and looked thoughtfully at his visitor.
Then he said:
‘It is my wife you have come to see, I know.’
Poirot answered:
‘Lady Dittisham was so kind as to give me an appointment.’
‘Yes.’
There was a pause. Poirot hazarded:
‘You do not, I hope, object, Lord Dittisham?’
The thin dreamy face was transformed by a sudden quick smile.
‘The objections of husbands, M. Poirot, are never taken seriously in these days.’
‘Then you do object?’
‘No. I cannot say that. But I am, I must confess it, a little fearful of the effect upon my wife. Let me be quite frank. A great many years ago, when my wife was only a young girl, she passed through a terrible ordeal. She has, I hope, recovered from the shock. I have come to believe that she has forgotten it. Now you appear and necessarily your questions will reawaken these old memories.’
‘It is regrettable,’ said Hercule Poirot politely.
‘I do not know quite what the result will be.’
‘I can only assure you, Lord Dittisham, that I shall be as discreet as possible, and do all I can not to distress Lady Dittisham. She is, no doubt, of a delicate and nervous temperament.’
Then, suddenly and surprisingly, the other laughed. He said:
‘Elsa? Elsa’s as strong as a horse!’
‘Then-’ Poirot paused diplomatically. The situation intrigued him.
Lord Dittisham said:
‘My wife is equal to any amount of shocks. I wonder if you know her reason for seeing you?’
Poirot replied placidly: ‘Curiosity?’
A kind of respect showed in the other man’s eyes.
‘Ah, you realize that?’
Poirot said:
‘It is inevitable. Women will always see a private detective! Men will tell him to go to the devil.’
‘Some women might tell him to go to the devil too.’
‘After they have seen him-not before.’
‘Perhaps.’ Lord Dittisham paused. ‘What is the idea behind this book?’
Hercule Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
‘One resurrects the old tunes, the old stage turns, the old costumes. One resurrects, too, the old murders.’
‘Faugh!’ said Lord Dittisham.
‘Faugh! If you like. But you will not alter human nature by saying Faugh. Murder is a drama. The desire for drama is very strong in the human race.’
Lord Dittisham murmured:
‘I know-I know…’
‘So you see,’ said Poirot, ‘the book will be written. It is my part to make sure that there shall be no gross mis-statements, no tampering with the known facts.’
‘The facts are public property I should have thought.’
‘Yes. But not the interpretation of them.’
Dittisham said sharply:
‘Just what do you mean by that, M. Poirot?’
‘My dear Lord Dittisham, there are many ways of regarding, for instance, a historical fact. Take an example: many books have been written on your Mary Queen of Scots, representing her as a martyr, as an unprincipled and wanton woman, as a rather simpleminded saint, as a murderess and an intriguer, or again as a victim of circumstance and fate! One can take one’s choice.’
‘And in this case? Crale was killed by his wife-that is, of course, undisputed. At the trial my wife came in for some, in my opinion, undeserved calumny. She had to be smuggled out of court afterwards. Public opinion was very hostile to her.’
‘The English,’ said Poirot, ‘are a very moral people.’
Lord Dittisham said: ‘Confound them, they are!’
He added-looking at Poirot: ‘And you?’
‘Me,’ said Poirot. ‘I lead a very moral life. That is not quite the same thing as having moral ideas.’
Lord Dittisham said:
‘I’ve wondered sometimes what this Mrs Crale was really like. All this injured wife business-I’ve a feeling there was something behind that.’
‘Your wife might know,’ agreed Poirot.
‘My wife,’ said Lord Dittisham, ‘has never mentioned the case once.’
Poirot looked at him with quickened interest. He said:
‘Ah, I begin to see-’
The other said sharply:
‘What do you see?’
Poirot replied with a bow:
‘The creative imagination of the poet…’
Lord Dittisham rose and rang the bell. He said brusquely:
‘My wife will be waiting for you.’
The door opened.
‘You rang, my lord?’
‘Take M. Poirot up to her ladyship.’
Up two flights of stairs, feet sinking into soft pile carpets. Subdued flood lighting. Money, money everywhere. Of taste, not so much. There had been a sombre austerity in Lord Dittisham’s room. But here, in the house, there was only a solid lavishness. The best. Not necessarily the showiest, or the most startling. Merely ‘expense no object’, allied to a lack of imagination.
Poirot said to himself: ‘Roast beef? Yes, roast beef!’
It was not a large room into which he was shown. The big drawing-room was on the first floor. This was the personal sitting-room of the mistress of the house and the mistress of the house was standing against the mantelpiece as Poirot was announced and shown in.
A phrase leapt into his startled mind and refused to be driven out.
She died young…
That was his thought as he looked at Elsa Dittisham who had been Elsa Greer.
He would never have recognized her from the picture Meredith Blake had shown him. That had been, above all, a picture of youth, a picture of vitality. Here there was no youth-there might never have been youth. And yet he realized, as he had not realized from Crale’s picture, that Elsa was beautiful. Yes, it
