Top secret — or they were once. And it seems as though they are going to be again.
An inter-change of letters, it was. Not of any particular importance at the time — or it was thought they were of no importance, but then of course politics change. You know the way it is. They go round and face the other way. You know how it was when the war broke out. None of us knew whether we were on our head or on our heels. One war we’re pals with the Italians, next war we’re enemies. I don’t know which of them all was the worst. First war the Japanese were our dear allies, and the next war there they are blowing up Pearl Harbour! Never knew where you were!
Start one way with the Russians, and finish the opposite way. I tell you, Poirot, nothing’s more difficult nowadays than the question of allies. They can change overnight.”
“And you have lost some papers,” said Poirot, recalling the old man to the subject of his visit.
“Yes. I’ve got a lot of papers, you know, and I’ve dug ’em out lately. I had ’em put away safely. In a bank, as a matter of fact, but I got ’em all out and I began sorting through them because I thought why not write my memoirs. All the chaps are doing it nowadays. We’ve had Montgomery and Alanbrooke and Auchinleck all shooting their mouths off in print, mostly saying what they thought of the other generals. We’ve even had old Moran, a respectable physician, blabbing about his important patient. Don’t know what things will come to next! Anyway, there it is, and I thought I’d be quite interested myself in telling a few facts about some people I knew! Why shouldn’t I have a go as well as everyone else? I was in it all.” “I am sure it could be a matter of much interest to people,” said Poirot.
“Ah-ha, yes! One knew a lot of people in the news. Everyone looked at them with awe. They didn’t know they were complete fools, but I knew. My goodness, the mistakes some of those brass-hats made — you’d be surprised. So I got out my papers, and I had the little girl help me sort ’em out. Nice little girl, that, and quite bright.
Doesn’t know English very well, but apart from that, she’s very bright and helpful.
I’d salted away a lot of stuff, but everything was in a bit of a muddle. The point of the whole thing is, the papers I wanted weren’t there.” “Weren’t there?” “No. We thought we’d given it a miss by mistake to begin with, but we went over it again and I can tell you, Poirot, a lot of stuff seemed to me to have been pinched.
Some of it wasn’t important. Actually, the stuff I was looking for wasn’t particularly important — I mean, nobody had thought it was, otherwise I suppose I shouldn’t have been allowed to keep it. But anyway, these particular letters weren’t there.” “I wish of course to be discreet,” said Poirot, “but can you tell me at all the nature of these letters you refer to?” “Don’t know that I can, old boy. The nearest I can go is of somebody who’s shooting off his mouth nowadays about what he did and what he said in the past.
But he’s not speaking the truth, and these letters just show exactly how much of a liar he is! Mind you, I don’t suppose they’d be published now. We’ll just send him nice copies of them, and tell him this is exactly what he did say at the time, and that we’ve got it in writing. I shouldn’t be surprised if–well, things went a bit differently after that. See? I hardly need ask that, need I? You’re familiar with all that kind oftalky-talky.” “You’re quite right. Sir Roderick. I know exactly the kind of thing you mean, but you see also that it is not easy to help you recover something if one does not know what that something is, and where it is likely to be now.” “First things first: I want to know who pinched ’em because you see that’s the important point. There may be more top secret stuff in my little collection, and I want to know who’s tampering with it.” “Have you any ideas yourself?” “You think I ought to have, hell?”