Actually I have a small share in the business. We run a certain amount of side-fines besides beauty treatment. Accessories, that type of thing. Small Parisian novelties. And that’s my department.” “You go over then fairly often to Paris and to the Continent7” “Oh yes, about once a month, sometimes oftener.” “You must forgive me,” said Poirot, “If I seem to be displaying curiosity. . . .” “Why not?” She cut him short. “In the circumstances in which we find ourselves we must all put up with curiosity. I’ve answered a good many questions yesterday from Inspector Sharpe. You look as though you would like an upright chair, Monsieur Poirot, rather than a low armchair.” “You display the perspicacity, Mademoiselle.” Poirot sat down carefully and squarely in a high-backed chair with arms to it.
Valerie sat down on the divan. She offered him a cigarette and took one herself and lighted it.
He studied her with some attention. She had a nervous, rather haggard elegance that appealed to him more than mere conventional good looks would have done. An intelligent and attractive young woman, he thought. He wondered if her nervousness was the result of the recent inquiry or whether it was a natural component of her manner. He remembered that he had thought much the same about her on the evening when he had come to supper.
“Inspector Sharpe has been making inquiries of you?” he asked.
“Yes, indeed.” “And you have told him all that you know?” “Of course.” “I wonder,” said Poirot, “if that is true.” She looked at him with an ironic expression.
“Since you did not hear my answers to Inspector Sharpe you can hardly be a judge,” she said.
“Ah no. It is merely one of my Jittle ideas. I have them, you know comthe little ideas. They are here.” He tapped his head.
It could be noticedthat Poirot, as he sometimes did, was deliberately playing the mountebank.
Valerie, however, did not smile. She looked at him in a straightforward manner. When she spoke it was with a certain abruptness.
“Shall we come to the point, Mr. Poirot?” she asked. “I really don’t know what you’re driving at.” “But certainly, Miss Hobhouse.” He took from his pocket a little package.
“You can guess, perhaps, what I have here?” “I’m not clairvoyant, Mr. Poirot. I can’t see through paper and wrappings.” “I have here,” said Poirot, “the ring that was stolen from Miss Patricia Lane.” “Patricia’s engagement ring? I mean, her mother’s engagement ring? But why should you have it?” “I asked her to lend it to me for a day or two.” Again Valerie’s rather surprised eyebrows mounted her forehead.
“Indeed,” she observed.
“I was interested in the ring,” said Poirot.
“Interested in its disappearance, in its return and in something else about it. So I asked Miss Lane to lend it to me. She agreed readily. I took it straight away to a jeweller friend of mine.” “Yes?” “I asked him to report on the diamond in it.
A fairly large stone, if you remember, flanked at either side by a little cluster of small stones. You remember-Mademoiselle?” “I think so. I don’t really remember it very well.” “But you handled it, didn’t you? It was in your soup plate.” “That was how it was returned! Oh yes, I remember that. I nearly swallowed it.” Valerie gave a short laugh.
“As I say, I took the ring to my jeweller friend and I asked him his opinion on the diamond.
Do you know what his answer was?” “How could I?” “His answer was that the stone was not a diamond.
It was merely a zircon. A white zircon.” “Oh!” She stared at him. Then she went on, her tone a little uncertain, “D’you mean that-Patricia thought it was a diamond but it was only a zircon or …” Poirot was shaking his head.
“No, I do not mean that. It was the engagement ring, so I understand, of this Patricia Lane’s mother.
Miss Patricia Lane is a young lady of good family and her people, I should say, certainly before recent taxation, were in comfortable circumstances. In those circles, Mademoiselle, money is spent upon an engagement ring. An engagement ring must be a handsome ringa diamond ring or a ring containing some other precious stone. I am quite certain that the papa of Miss Lane would not have given her mamma anything but a valuable engagement ring.” “As to that,” said Valerie, “I couldnt agree with you more. Patricia’s father was a small country squire, I believe.” “Therefore,” said Poirot, “it would seem that the stone in the ring must have been replaced with another stone later.” “I suppose,” said Valerie slowly, “that Pat might have lost the stone out of it, couldn’t afford to replace it with a diamond, and had a zircon put in instead.” “That is possible,” said Hercule Poirot, “but I do not think it is what happened.” “Well, Monsieur Poirot, if we’re guessing, what do you think happened?” “I think,” said Poirot, “that the ring was taken by Mademoiselle Celia and that the diamond was deliberately removed and the zircon substituted before the ring was returned.” Valerie sat up very straight.