“And I? Well, for the first time perhaps I felt I would like life in England, too. And I thought of Norma as well. Her mother had died two years earlier. I talked to Mary about it all, and she was quite willing to help me make a home for my daughter.
The prospects all seemed good and so — ” he smiled, ” — and so I came home.” Poirot looked at the portrait that hung behind Restarick’s head. It was in a better light here than it had been at the house in the country. It showed very plainly the man who was sitting at the desk, there were the distinctive features, the obstinacy of the chin, the quizzical eyebrows, the poise of the head, but the portrait had one thing that the man sitting in the chair beneath it lacked. Youth!
Another thought occurred to Poirot.
Why had Andrew Restarick moved the portrait from the country to his London office? The two portraits of him and his wife had been companion portraits done at the same time and by that particular fashionable artist of the day whose speciality was portrait painting. It would have been more natural, Poirot thought, to have left them together, as they had been meant to be originally. But Restarick had moved one portrait, his own, to his office. Was it a kind of vanity on his part—a wish to display himself as a City man, as someone important to the City? Yet he was a man who had spent his time in wild places, who professed to prefer wild places. Or did he perhaps do it in order to keep before his mind himself in his City personality. Did he feel the need of reinforcement.
“Or, of course,” thought Poirot, “it could be simple vanity!” “Even I myself,” said Poirot to himself, in an unusual fit of modesty, “even I myself am capable of vanity on occasions.” The short silence, of which both men had seemed unaware, was broken. Restarick spoke apologetically.
“You must forgive me, M. Poirot. I seem to have been boring you with the story of my life.” “There is nothing to excuse, Mr. Restarick.
You have been talking really only of your life as it may have affected that of your daughter. You are much disquieted about your daughter. But I do not think that you have yet told me the real reason.
You want her found, you say?” “Yes, I want her found.” “You want her found, yes, but do you want her found by me? Ah, do not hesitate. La politesse — it is very necessary in life, but it is not necessary here. Listen. I tell you, if you want your daughter found I advise you, I — Hercule Poirot — to go to the police for they have the facilities. And from my own knowledge they can be discreet.” “I won’t go to the police unless — well, unless I get very desperate.” “You would rather go to a private agent?” “Yes. But you see, I don’t know anything about private agents. I don’t know who — who can be trusted. I don’t know who — ” “And what do you know about me?” “I do know something about you. I know, for instance, that you held a responsible position in Intelligence during the war, since, in fact, my own uncle vouches for you. That is an admitted fact.” The faintly cynical expression on Poirot’s face was not perceived by Restarick.
The admitted fact was, as Poirot was well aware, a complete illusion — although Restarick must have known how undependable Sir Roderick was in the matter of memory and eyesight — he had swallowed Poirot’s own account of himself, hook, line and sinker. Poirot did not disillusion him. It merely confirmed him in his long-held belief that you should never believe anything anyone said without first checking it. Suspect everybody, had been for many years, if not his whole life, one of his first axioms.
“Let me reassure you,” said Poirot. “I have been throughout my career exceptionally successful. I have been indeed in many ways unequalled.” Restarick looked less reassured by this than he might have been! Indeed, to an Englishman, a man who praised himself in such terms aroused some misgivings.