‘Well, we have. Tell me something about yourself.’
‘I’m an actress. No—not the kind you’re thinking of. I’ve been on the boards since I was a kid of six—tumbling.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ I said, puzzled.
‘Haven’t you ever seen child acrobats?’
‘Oh, I understand!’
‘I’m American-born, but I’ve spent most of my life in England. We’ve got a new show now—’
‘We?’
‘My sister and I. Sort of song and dance, and a bit of patter, and a dash of the old business thrown in. It’s quite a new idea, and it hits them every time. There’s going to be money in it.’
My new acquaintance leaned forward, and discoursed volubly, a great many of her terms being quite unintelligible to me. Yet I found myself evincing an increasing interest in her. She seemed such a curious mixture of child and woman.
Though perfectly wordly-wise, and able, as she expressed it, to take care of herself there was yet something curiously ingenuous in her single-minded attitude towards life, and her wholehearted determination to ‘make good’.
We passed through Amiens. The name awakened many memories. My companion seemed to have an intuitive knowledge of what was in my mind.
‘Thinking of the War?’
I nodded.
‘You were through it, I suppose?’
‘Pretty well I was wounded once, and after the Somme they invalided me out altogether. I’m a sort of private secretary now to an MP.’
‘My! That’s brainy!’
‘No, it isn’t. There’s really awfully little to do. Usually a couple of hours every day sees me through. It’s dull work too. In fact, I don’t know what I should do if I hadn’t got something to fall back upon.’
‘Don’t say you collect bugs!’
‘No. I share rooms with a very interesting man. He’s a Belgian—an ex-detective. He’s set up as a private detective in London, and he’s doing extraordinarily well. He’s really a very marvellous little man. Time and again he has proved to be right where the official police have failed.’
My companion listened with widening eyes.
‘Isn’t that interesting, now? I just adore crime. I go to all the mysteries on the movies. And when there’s a murder on I just devour the papers.’
‘Do you remember the Styles Case?’ I asked.
‘Let me see, was that the old lady who was poisoned? Somewhere down in Essex?’
I nodded.
‘That was Poirot’s first big case. Undoubtedly, but for him the murderer would have escaped scot-free. It was a most wonderful bit of detective work.’
Warming to my subject, I ran over the heads of the affair, working up to the triumphant and unexpected denouement.
The girl listened spellbound. In fact, we were so absorbed that the train drew into Calais station before we realized it.
I secured a couple of porters, and we alighted on the platform.
My companion held out her hand.
‘Goodbye, and I’ll mind my language better in future.’
‘Oh, but surely you’ll let me look after you on the boat?’
‘Mayn’t be on the boat. I’ve got to see whether that sister of mine got aboard after all anywhere. But thanks, all the same.’
‘Oh, but we’re going to meet again, surely? Aren’t you even going to tell me your name.’ I cried as she turned away.
She looked over her shoulder.
‘Cinderella,’ she said, and laughed.
But little did I think when and how I should see Cinderella again.
CHAPTER 2
AN APPEAL FOR HELP
IT was five minutes past nine when I entered our joint sitting room for breakfast on the following morning. My friend Poirot, exact to the minute as usual, was just tapping the shell of his second egg.
He beamed upon me as I entered.
‘You have slept well, yes? You have recovered from the crossing so terrible? It is a marvel, almost you are exact this morning. Pardon, but your tie is not symmetrical. Permit that I rearrange him.’
Elsewhere, I have described Hercule Poirot. An extraordinary little man! Height, five feet four inches, egg-shaped head carried a little to one side, eyes that shone green when he was excited, stiff military moustache, air of dignity immense!
He was neat and dandified in appearance. For neatness of any kind he had an absolute passion. To see an ornament set crookedly, or a speck of dust, or a slight disarray in one’s attire, was torture to the little man until he could ease his feelings by remedying the matter. ‘Order’ and ‘Method’ were his gods. He had a certain disdain for tangible evidence, such as footprints and cigarette ash, and would maintain that taken by themselves, they would never enable a detective to solve a problem.