strode across to the window and pulled aside the blind, then shrank back with an oath.
‘You see, monsieur? Sign—it is your best chance.’
‘What guarantee have I—’
‘That I shall keep faith? The word of Hercule Poirot. You will sign? Good. Hastings, be so kind as to pull that left-hand blind half-way up. That is the signal that Mr Radnor may leave unmolested.’
White, muttering oaths, Radnor hurried from the room. Poirot nodded gently.
‘A coward! I always knew it.’
‘It seems to me, Poirot, that you’ve acted in a criminal manner,’ I cried angrily. ‘You always preach against sentiment. And here you are letting a dangerous criminal escape out of sheer sentimentality.’
‘That was not sentiment—that was business,’ replied Poirot. ‘Do you not see, my friend, that we have no shadow of proof against him? Shall I get up and say to twelve stolid Cornishmen that I, Hercule Poirot, know? They would laugh at me. The only chance was to frighten him and get a confession that way. Those two loafers that I noticed outside came in very useful. Pull down the blind again, will you, Hastings. Not that there was any reason for raising it. It was part of our mise en scène.
‘Well, well, we must keep our word. Twenty-four hours, did I say? So much longer for poor Mr Pengelley—and it is not more than he deserves; for mark you, he deceived his wife. I am very strong on the family life, as you know. Ah, well, twenty-four hours—and then? I have great faith in Scotland Yard. They will get him, mon ami; they will get him.’
The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly
‘You can understand the feelings of a mother,’ said Mrs Waverly for perhaps the sixth time.
She looked appealingly at Poirot. My little friend, always sympathetic to motherhood in distress, gesticulated reassuringly.
‘But yes, but yes, I comprehend perfectly. Have faith in Papa Poirot.’
‘The police—’ began Mr Waverly.
His wife waved the interruption aside. ‘I won’t have anything more to do with the police. We trusted to them and look what happened! But I’d heard so much of M. Poirot and the wonderful things he’d done, that I felt he might possibly be able to help us. A mother’s feelings—’
Poirot hastily stemmed the reiteration with an eloquent gesture. Mrs Waverly’s emotion was obviously genuine, but it assorted strangely with her shrewd, rather hard type of countenance. When I heard later that she was the daughter of a prominent steel manufacturer who had worked his way up in the world from an office boy to his present eminence, I realized that she had inherited many of the paternal qualities.
Mr Waverly was a big, florid, jovial-looking man. He stood with his legs straddled wide apart and looked the type of the country squire.
‘I suppose you know all about this business, M. Poirot?’
The question was almost superfluous. For some days past the papers had been full of the sensational kidnapping of little Johnnie Waverly, the three-year-old son and heir of Marcus Waverly, Esq., of Waverly Court, Surrey, one of the oldest families in England.
‘The main facts I know, of course, but recount to me the whole story, monsieur, I beg of you. And in detail if you please.’
‘Well, I suppose the beginning of the whole thing was about ten days ago when I got an anonymous letter—beastly things, anyway—that I couldn’t make head or tail of. The writer had the impudence to demand that I should pay him twenty-five thousand pounds—twenty-five thousand pounds, M. Poirot! Failing my agreement, he threatened to kidnap Johnnie. Of course I threw the thing into the wastepaper basket without more ado. Thought it was some silly joke. Five days later I got another letter. “Unless you pay, your son will be kidnapped on the twenty-ninth.” That was on the twenty-seventh. Ada was worried, but I couldn’t bring myself to treat the matter seriously. Damn it all, we’re in England. Nobody goes about kidnapping children and holding them up to ransom.’
‘It is not a common practice, certainly,’ said Poirot. ‘Proceed, monsieur.’
‘Well, Ada gave me no peace, so—feeling a bit of a fool—I laid the matter before Scotland Yard. They didn’t seem to take the thing very seriously—inclined to my view that it was some silly joke. On the twenty-eighth I got a third letter. “You have not paid. Your son will be taken from you at twelve o’clock noon tomorrow, the twenty-ninth. It will cost you fifty thousand pounds to recover him.” Up I drove to Scotland Yard again. This time they were more impressed. They inclined to the view that the letters were written by a lunatic, and that in all probability an attempt of some kind would be made at the hour stated. They assured me that they would take all due precautions. Inspector McNeil and a sufficient force would come down to Waverly on the morrow and take charge.
‘I went home much relieved in mind. Yet we already had the feeling of being in a state of siege. I gave orders that no stranger was to be admitted, and that no one was to leave the house. The evening passed off without any untoward incident, but on the following morning my wife was seriously unwell. Alarmed by her condition, I sent for Doctor Dakers. Her symptoms appeared to puzzle him. While hesitating to suggest that she had been poisoned, I could see that was what was in his mind. There was no danger, he assured me, but it would be a day or two before she would be able to get about again. Returning to my own room, I was startled and amazed to find a note pinned to my pillow. It was in the same handwriting as the others and contained just three words: “At twelve o’clock”.
‘I admit, M. Poirot, that then I saw red! Someone in the house was in this—one of the servants. I had them all up, blackguarded them right and left. They never split on each other; it was Miss Collins, my wife’s companion, who informed me that she had seen Johnnie’s nurse slip down the drive early that morning. I taxed her with it, and she broke down. She had left the child with the nursery maid and stolen out to meet a friend of hers—a man! Pretty goings on! She denied having pinned the note to my pillow—she may have been speaking the truth, I don’t know. I felt I couldn’t take the risk of the child’s own nurse being in the plot. One of the servants was implicated—of that I was sure. Finally I lost my temper and sacked the whole bunch, nurse and all. I gave them an hour to pack their boxes and get out of the house.’
Mr Waverly’s face was quite two shades redder as he remembered his just wrath.
‘Was not that a little injudicious, monsieur?’ suggested Poirot. ‘For all you know, you might have been playing into the enemy’s hands.’
Mr Waverly stared at him. ‘I don’t see that. Send the whole lot packing, that was my idea. I wired to London for a fresh lot to be sent down that evening. In the meantime, there’d be only people I could trust in the house: my wife’s secretary, Miss Collins, and Tredwell, the butler, who has been with me since I was a boy.’
‘And this Miss Collins, how long has she been with you?’
‘Just a year,’ said Mrs Waverly. ‘She has been invaluable to me as a secretary-companion, and is also a very efficient housekeeper.’
‘The nurse?’
‘She has been with me six months. She came to me with excellent references. All the same, I never really
