was him! That was him! I saw him,’ she cried. ‘Oh, he’s got a lovely ginger beard.’
She rushed to Mrs Oliver, who was the nearest person.
‘Do look, do look. Don’t you think he’s rather wonderful? He’s like Eddie Presweight, the pop singer. Don’t you think so?’
Mrs Oliver did think he looked like one of the faces she daily deplored having to see in her morning paper. The beard, she thought, had been an after-thought of genius.
‘Where do all these things come from?’ she asked.
‘Oh, Rowena gets Nicky to make them. And his friend Desmond helps. He experiments a good deal with photography. He and a couple of pals of his made themselves up, with a great deal of hair or side-burns or beards and things. And then with the light on him and everything, of course it sends the girls wild with delight.’
‘I can’t help thinking,’ said Ariadne Oliver, ‘that girls are really very silly nowadays.’
‘Don’t you think they always were?’ asked Rowena Drake.
Mrs Oliver considered.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ she admitted.
‘Now then,’ cried Mrs Drake—‘supper.’
Supper went off well. Rich iced cakes, savouries, prawns, cheese and nut confections. The eleven-pluses stuffed themselves.
‘And now,’ said Rowena, ‘the last one for the evening. Snapdragon. Across there, through the pantry. That’s right. Now then. Prizes first.’
The prizes were presented, and then there was a wailing, banshee call. The children rushed across the hall back to the dining-room.
The food had been cleared away. A green baize cloth was laid across the table and here was borne a great dish of flaming raisins. Everybody shrieked, rushing forward, snatching the blazing raisins, with cries of ‘Ow, I’m burned! Isn’t it lovely?’ Little by little the Snapdragon flickered and died down. The lights went up. The party was over.
‘It’s been a great success,’ said Rowena.
‘So it should be with all the trouble you’ve taken.’
‘It was lovely,’ said Judith quietly. ‘Lovely.’
‘And now,’ she added ruefully, ‘we’ll have to clear up a bit. We can’t leave everything for those poor women tomorrow morning.’
In a flat in London the telephone bell rang. The owner of the flat, Hercule Poirot, stirred in his chair. Disappointment attacked him. He knew before he answered it what it meant. His friend Solly, with whom he had been going to spend the evening, reviving their never-ending controversy about the real culprit in the Canning Road Municipal Baths murder, was about to say that he could not come. Poirot, who had collected certain bits of evidence in favour of his own somewhat far-fetched theory, was deeply disappointed. He did not think his friend Solly would accept his suggestions, but he had no doubt that when Solly in his turn produced his own fantastic beliefs, he himself, Hercule Poirot, would just as easily be able to demolish them in the name of sanity, logic, order and method. It was annoying, to say the least of it, if Solly did not come this evening. But it is true that when they had met earlier in the day, Solly had been racked with a chesty cough and was in a state of highly infectious catarrh.
‘He had a nasty cold,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘and no doubt, in spite of the remedies that I have handy here, he would probably have given it to me. It is better that he should not come. Tout de même,’ he added, with a sigh, ‘it will mean that now I shall pass a dull evening.’
Many of the evenings were dull now, Hercule Poirot thought. His mind, magnificent as it was (for he had never doubted that fact) required stimulation from outside sources. He had never been of a philosophic cast of mind. There were times when he almost regretted that he had not taken to the study of theology instead of going into the police force in his early days. The number of angels who could dance on the point of a needle; it would be interesting to feel that that mattered and to argue passionately on the point with one’s colleagues.
His manservant, George, entered the room.
‘It was Mr Solomon Levy, sir.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Hercule Poirot.
‘He very much regrets that he will not be able to join you this evening. He is in bed with a serious bout of ’flu.’
‘He has not got ’flu,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘He has only a nasty cold. Everyone always thinks they have ’flu. It sounds more important. One gets more sympathy. The trouble with a catarrhal cold is that it is hard to glean the proper amount of sympathetic consideration from one’s friends.’
‘Just as well he isn’t coming here, sir, really,’ said George. ‘Those colds in the head are very infectious. Wouldn’t be good for you to go down with one of those.’
‘It would be extremely tedious,’ Poirot agreed.
The telephone bell rang again.
‘And now who has a cold?’ he demanded. ‘I have not asked anyone else.’
George crossed towards the telephone.
‘I will take the call here,’ said Poirot. ‘I have no doubt that it is nothing of interest. But at any rate—’ he shrugged his shoulders ‘—it will perhaps pass the time. Who knows?’
George said, ‘Very good, sir,’ and left the room.
Poirot stretched out a hand, raised the receiver, thus stilling the clamour of the bell.
‘Hercule Poirot speaks,’ he said, with a certain grandeur of manner designed to impress whoever was at the other end of the line.
‘That’s wonderful,’ said an eager voice. A female voice, slightly impaired with breathlessness. ‘I thought you’d be sure to be out, that you wouldn’t be there.’
‘Why should you think that?’ inquired Poirot.
‘Because I can’t help feeling that nowadays things always happen to frustrate one. You want someone in a terrible hurry, you feel you can’t wait, and you have to wait. I wanted to get hold of you urgently—absolutely urgently.’
‘And who are you?’ asked Hercule Poirot.
The voice, a female one, seemed surprised.
‘Don’t you know?’ it said incredulously.
‘Yes, I know,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘You are my friend, Ariadne.’
‘And I’m in a terrible state,’ said Ariadne.
‘Yes, yes, I can hear that. Have you also been running? You are very breathless, are you not?’
‘I
