that that young man must have very bad toothache indeed.
In the hall Poirot paused before the mirror there to adjust his moustaches, slightly disarranged as the result of Mr Morley’s ministrations.
He had just completed their arrangement to his satisfaction when the lift came down again and the page-boy emerged from the back of the hall whistling discordantly. He broke off abruptly at the sight of Poirot and came to open the front door for him.
A taxi had just drawn up before the house and a foot was protruding from it. Poirot surveyed the foot with gallant interest.
A neat ankle, quite a good quality stocking. Not a bad foot. But he didn’t like the shoe. A brand new patent leather shoe with a large gleaming buckle. He shook his head.
Not chic—very provincial!
The lady got out of the taxi, but in doing so she caught her other foot in the door and the buckle was wrenched off. It fell tinkling on to the pavement. Gallantly, Poirot sprang forward and picked it up, restoring it with a bow.
Alas! Nearer fifty than forty. Pince-nez. Untidy yellow-grey hair—unbecoming clothes—those depressing art greens! She thanked him, dropping her pince-nez, then her handbag.
Poirot, polite if no longer gallant, picked them up for her.
She went up the steps of 58, Queen Charlotte Street, and Poirot interrupted the taxi-driver’s disgusted contemplation of a meagre tip.
‘You are free, hein?’
The taxi-driver said gloomily: ‘Oh, I’m free.’
‘So am I,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘Free of care!’
He saw the taxi-man’s air of deep suspicion.
‘No, my friend, I am not drunk. It is that I have been to the dentist and I need not go again for six months. It is a beautiful thought.’
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