‘What a woman? cried Poirot enthusiastically as we descended the stairs. ‘Mon /]hu, quelle femrnel Not a word of argument – of protestation, of bluff! One quick glance, and she had sized up the position correctly. I tell you, Hastings, a woman who can accept defeat like that – with a careless smile – will go far! She is dangerous, she has the nerves of steel; she – ‘ He tripped heavily.
‘If you can manage to moderate your transports and look where you’re going, it might be as well,’ I suggested. ‘When did you first suspect the Countess?’ ‘Mon ami, it was the glove and the cigarette case – the double clue, shall we say? – that worried me. Bernard Parker might easily have dropped one or the other – but hardly both. Ah, no, that would have been too carelessl In the same way, if someone else had placed them there to incriminate Parker, one would have been sufficient – the cigarette case or the glove – again not both.
I was forced to the conclusion that one of the two things did not belong to Parker. I imagined at first that the case was his, and that the glove was not. But when I discovered the fellow to the glove, I saw that it was the other way about. Whose, then, was the cigarette case? Clearly, it could not belong to Lady Runcorn.
The initials were wrong. Mr Johnston? Only if he were here under a false name. I interviewed his secretary, and it was apparent at once that everything was clear and aboveboard. There was no reticence about Mr Johnston’s past. The Countess, then? She was supposed to have brought jewels with her from Russia; she had only to take the stones from their settings, and it was extremely doubtful if they could ever be identified. What could be easier for her than to pick up one of Parker’s gloves from the hall that day and thrust it into the safe? But, bien vfr, she did not intend to drop her own cigarette case.’ ‘But if the case was hers, why did it have “B.P.” on it? The Countess’s initials are V.R.’ Poirot smiled gently upon me.
‘Exactly, tnon ami; but in the Russian alphabet, B is V and Pis R.’ ‘Well, you couldn’t expect me to guess that. I don’t know Russian.’ ‘Neither do I, Hastings. That is why I bought my little book and urged it on your attention.’ He sighed.
‘A remarkable woman. I have a feeling, my friend – a very decided feeling – I shall meet her again. Where, I wonder?’
CHAPTER VI THE KING OF CLUBS
‘Truth,’ I observed, laying aside the Daily Nervrraonger, ‘is stranger than fiction?
The remark was not, perhaps, an original one. It appeared to incense my friend. Tilting his egg-shaped head on one side, the little man carefully flicked an imaginary fleck of dust from his carefully creased trousers, and observed: ‘How profoundt What a thinker is my friend Hastingsl’ Without displaying any annoyance at this quite uncalled-for gibe, I tapped the sheet I had laid aside.
‘You’ve read this morning’s paper?’ ‘I have. And after reading it, I folded it anew symmetrically.
I did not cast it on the floor as you have done, with your so lamentable absence of order and method.’ (That is the worst of Poirot. Order and Method are his gods.
He goes so far as to attribute all his success to them.) ‘Then you saw the account of the murder of Henry Reedburn, the impresario? It was that which prompted my remark. Not only is truth stranger than fiction – it is more dramatic. Think of that solid middle-class English family, the Oglanders. Father and mother, son and daughter, typical of thousands of families all over this country. The men of the family go to the city every day; the women look after the house. Their lives are perfectly peaceful, and utterly monotonous. Last night they were sitting in their neat suburban drawing-room at Daisymead, Streatham, playing bridge.
Suddenly, without any warning, the french window bursts open, and a woman staggers into the room. Her grey satin frock is marked with a crimson stain. She utters one word, “Murder!” before she sinks to the ground insensible. It is possible that they recognize her from her pictures as Valerie Saintclair, the famous dancer who has lately taken London by storm!’