Viceroy, but I'm sure if Mabelle had met them at all, she would have talked about it or mentioned them.
'I'm afraid,' added Mrs. Adams, with a faint smile, 'one does usually mention the important people. We're all such snobs at heart.'
'She never did mention the Blunts – Mrs. Blunt in particular?'
'Never.'
'If she had been a close friend of Mrs. Blunt's probably you would have known?'
'Oh, yes. I don't believe she knew anyone like that. Mabelle's friends were all very ordinary people – like us.'
'That, Madame, I cannot allow,' said Poirot gallantly.
Mrs. Adams went on talking of Mabelle Sainsbury Seale as one talks of a friend who has recently died. She recalled all Mabelle's good works, her kindnesses, her indefatigable work for the Mission, her zeal, her earnestness.
Hercule Poirot listened. As Japp had said, Mabelle Sainsbury Seale was a real person. She had lived in Calcutta and taught elocution and worked among the native population. She had been respectable, well-meaning, a little fussy and stupid perhaps, but also what is termed a woman with a heart of gold.
And Mrs. Adams' voice ran on:
'She was so much in earnest over everything, M. Poirot. And she found people so apathetic – so hard to rouse. It was very difficult to get subscriptions out of people – worse every year, with the income tax rising and the cost of living and everything. She said to me once: 'When one knows what money can do – the wonderful good you can accomplish with it – well, really, sometimes, Alice, I feel I would commit a crime to get it.' That shows, doesn't it, M. Poirot, how strongly she felt?'
'She said that, did she?' said Poirot thoughtfully.
He asked, casually, when Miss Sainsbury Seale had enunciated this particular statement, and learned that it had been about three months ago.
He left the house and walked away lost in thought.
He was considering the character of Mabelle Sainsbury Seale.
A nice woman – an earnest and kindly woman – a respectable dent type of woman. It was among that type of person that Mr. Barnes had suggested a potential criminal could be found.
She had travelled back on the same boat from India as Mr. Amberiotis. There seemed reason to believe that she had lunched with him at the Savoy.
She had accosted and claimed acquaintance with Alistair Blunt and laid claim to an intimacy with his wife.
She had twice visited King Leopold Mansions where, later, a dead body had been found dressed in her clothes and with her handbag conveniently identifying it.
A little too convenient, that!
She had left the Glengowrie Court Hotel suddenly after an interview with the police.
Could the theory that Hercule Poirot believed to be true account for and explain all those facts?
He thought it could.
III
These meditations had occupied Hercule Poirot on his homeward way until he reached Regent's Park.
He decided to traverse a part of the Park on foot before taking a taxi. By experience, he knew to a nicety the moment when his smart patent leather shoes began to press painfully on his feet.
It was a lovely summer's day and Poirot looked indulgently on courting nursemaids and their swains, laughing and giggling while their chubby charges profited by nurse's inattention. Dogs barked and romped. Little boys sailed boats.
And under nearly every tree was a couple sitting close together…
'Ah! Jeunesse, jeunesse,' murmured Hercule Poirot, pleasurably affected by the sight.
They were chic, these little London girls. They wore their tawdry clothes with an air.
Their figures, however, he considered, lamentably deficient. Where were the rich curves, the voluptuous lines that had formerly delighted the eye of an admirer?
He, Hercule Poirot, remembered women… One woman, in particular – what a sumptuous creature – a Bird of Paradise – a Venus…
What woman was there among these pretty chits nowadays, who could hold a candle to Countess Vera Rossakoff? A genuine Russian aristocrat, an aristocrat to her fingertips! And also, he remembered, a most accomplished thief One of those natural geniuses…
With a sigh, Poirot wrenched his thoughts away from the flamboyant creature of his dreams.
It was not only, he noted, the little nursemaids and their like who were being wooed under the trees of Regent's Park.
That was a Schiaparelli creation there, under that lime tree, with the young man who bent his head so close to hers, who was pleading so earnestly.
One must not yield too soon! He hoped the girl understood that. The pleasure of the chase must be extended as long as possible…
His beneficent eye still on them, he became suddenly aware of a familiarity in those two figures.
So Jane Olivera had come to Regent's Park to meet her young American revolutionary?
His face grew suddenly sad and rather stern.
After only a brief hesitation he crossed the grass to them. Sweeping off his hat with a flourish, he said: 'Bonjour, Mademoiselle.'
Jane Olivera, he thought, was not entirely displeased to see him.
Howard Raikes, on the other hand, was a good deal annoyed at the interruption.
He growled:
'Oh, so it's you again!'
'Good afternoon, M. Poirot,' said Jane. 'How unexpectedly you always pop up, don't you?'
'Kind of a Jack-in-the-Box,' said Raikes, still eyeing Poirot with considerable coldness.
'I do not intrude?' Poirot asked anxiously.
Jane Olivera said kindly:
'Not at all.'
Howard Raikes said nothing.
'It is a pleasant spot you have found here,' said Poirot.
'It was,' said Mr. Raikes.
Jane said: 'Be quiet, Howard. You need to learn manners!'
Howard Raikes snorted and asked:
'What's the good of manners?'
'You'll find they kind of help you along,' said Jane. 'I haven't got any myself, but that doesn't matter so much. To begin with I'm rich, and I'm moderately good looking, and I've got a lot of influential friends – and none of those unfortunate disabilities they talk about so freely in the advertisements nowadays. I can get along all right without manners.'
Raikes said:
'I'm not in the mood for small talk, Jane. I guess I'll take myself off.'
He got up, nodded curtly to Poirot and strode away.
Jane Olivera stared after him, her chin cupped in her palm.
Poirot said with a sigh:
'Alas, the proverb is true. When you are courting, two is company, is it not, three is none?'
Jane said:
'Courting? What a word!'
'But yes, it is the right word, is it not? For a young man who pays attention to a young lady before asking her
