'There's Freddie.'
'Other than Mrs Rice.'
'Well, I don't know. I suppose I have. Why?'
'Because I want you to have a friend to stay with you-immediately.'
'Oh!'
Nick seemed rather taken aback. She was silent a moment or two, thinking. Then she said doubtfully: 'There's Maggie. I could get hold of her, I expect.'
'Who is Maggie?'
'One of my Yorkshire cousins. There's a large family of them. He's a clergyman, you know. Maggie's about my age, and I usually have her to stay sometime or other in the summer. She's no fun, though-one of those painfully pure girls, with the kind of hair that has just become fashionable by accident. I was hoping to get out of having her this year.'
'Not at all. Your cousin, Mademoiselle, will do admirably. Just the type of person I had in mind.'
'All right,' said Nick, with a sigh. 'I'll wire her. I certainly don't know who else I could get hold of just now. Everyone's fixed up. But if it isn't the Choirboys' Outing or the Mothers' Beanfeast she'll come all right. Though what you expect her to do…'
'Could you arrange for her to sleep in your room?'
'I suppose so.'
'She would not think that an odd request?'
'Oh, no, Maggie never thinks. She just does – earnestly, you know. Christian works-with faith and perseverance. All right, I'll wire her to come on Monday.'
'Why not tomorrow?'
'With Sunday trains? She'll think I'm dying if I suggest that. No, I'll say Monday. Are you going to tell her about the awful fate hanging over me?'
'Nous verrons. You still make a jest of it? You have courage, I am glad to see.'
'It makes a diversion anyway,' said Nick.
Something in her tone struck me and I glanced at her curiously. I had a feeling that there was something she had left untold. We had re-entered the drawing-room. Poirot was fingering the newspaper on the sofa.
'You read this, Mademoiselle?' he asked, suddenly.
'The St Loo Herald? Not seriously. I opened it to see the tides. It gives them every week.'
'I see. By the way, Mademoiselle, have you ever made a will?'
'Yes, I did. About six months ago. Just before my op.'
'Qu'est ce que vous dites? Your op?'
'Operation. For appendicitis. Someone said I ought to make a will, so I did. It made me feel quite important.'
'And the terms of that will?'
'I left End House to Charles. I hadn't much else to leave, but what there was I left to Freddie. I should think probably the-what do you call them-liabilities would have exceeded the assets, really.'
Poirot nodded absently.
'I will take my leave now. Au revoir, Mademoiselle. Be careful.'
'What of?' asked Nick.
'You are intelligent. Yes, that is the weak point-in which direction are you to be careful? Who can say? But have confidence, Mademoiselle. In a few days I shall have discovered the truth.'
'Until then beware of poison, bombs, revolver shots, motor accidents and arrows dipped in the secret poison of the South American Indians,' finished Nick glibly.
'Do not mock yourself, Mademoiselle,' said Poirot gravely. He paused as he reached the door.
'By the way,' he said. 'What price did M. Lazarus offer you for the portrait of your grandfather?'
'Fifty pounds.'
'Ah!' said Poirot.
He looked earnestly back at the dark saturnine face above the mantelpiece.
'But, as I told you, I don't want to sell the old boy.'
'No,' said Poirot, thoughtfully. 'No, I understand.'
Chapter 4 – There Must Be Something!
'Poirot,' I said, as soon as we were out upon the road. 'There is one thing I think you ought to know.'
'And what is that, mon ami?'
I told him of Mrs Rice's version of the trouble with the motor.
'Tiens! C'est interessant, ca. There is, of course, a type, vain, hysterical, that seeks to make itself interesting by having marvellous escapes from death and which will recount to you surprising histories that never happened! Yes, it is well known, that type there. Such people will even do themselves grave bodily injury to sustain the fiction.'
'You don't think that-'
'That Mademoiselle Nick is of that type? No, indeed. You observed, Hastings, that we had great difficulty in convincing her of her danger. And right to the end she kept up the farce of a half-mocking disbelief. She is of her generation, that little one. All the same, it is interesting-what Madame Rice said. Why should she say it? Why say it even if it were true? It was unnecessary-almost gauche.'
'Yes,' I said. 'That's true. She dragged it into the conversation neck and crop-for no earthly reason that I could see.'
'That is curious. Yes, that is curious. The little facts that are curious, I like to see them appear. They are significant. They point the way.'
'The way-where?'
'You put your finger on the weak spot, my excellent Hastings. Where? Where indeed! Alas, we shall not know till we get there.'
'Tell me, Poirot,' I said. 'Why did you insist on her getting this cousin to stay?'
Poirot stopped and waved an excited forefinger at me.
'Consider,' he cried. 'Consider for one little moment, Hastings. How we are handicapped! How are our hands tied! To hunt down a murderer after a crime has been committed-c'est tout simple! Or at least it is simple to one of my ability. The murderer has, so to speak, signed his name by committing the crime. But here there is no crime-and what is more we do not want a crime. To detect a crime before it has been committed-that is indeed of a rare difficulty.'
'What is our first aim? The safety of Mademoiselle. And that is not easy. No, it is not easy, Hastings. We cannot watch over her day and night-we cannot even send a policeman in big boots to watch over her. We cannot pass the night in a young lady's sleeping chamber. The affair bristles with difficulties.'
'But we can do one thing. We can make it more difficult for our assassin. We can put Mademoiselle upon her guard and we can introduce a perfectly impartial witness. It will take a very clever man to get round those two circumstances.'
He paused, and then said in an entirely different tone of voice: 'But what I am afraid of, Hastings- '
'Yes?'
'What I am afraid of is-that he is a very clever man. And I am not easy in my mind. No, I am not easy at all.'
'Poirot,' I said. 'You're making me feel quite nervous.'
'So am I nervous. Listen, my friend, that paper, the St Loo Weekly Herald. It was open and folded back at- where do you think? A little paragraph which said, 'Among the guests staying at the Majestic Hotel are M. Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings.' Supposing-just supposing that someone had read that paragraph. They know my name-everyone knows my name-'
'Miss Buckley didn't,' I said, with a grin.
