Death in the Clouds - Agatha Christie [58]
‘You were saying,’ said Poirot, ‘that although you had been put to a lot of inconvenience—?’
‘Ah, yes, there was a bright side to the picture. I don’t mind telling you I cleaned up a tidy little sum from the papers. Eyewitness stuff—though there was more of the reporter’s imagination than of my eyesight; but that’s neither here nor there.’
‘It is interesting,’ said Poirot, ‘how a crime affects the lives of people who are quite outside it. Take yourself, for example—you make suddenly a quite unexpected sum of money—a sum of money perhaps particularly welcome at the moment.’
‘Money’s always welcome,’ said Mr Ryder.
He eyed Poirot sharply.
‘Sometimes the need of it is imperative. For that reason men embezzle—they make fraudulent entries—’ He waved his hands. ‘All sorts of complications arise.’
‘Well, don’t let’s get gloomy about it,’ said Mr Ryder.
‘True. Why dwell on the dark side of the picture? This money was grateful to you—since you failed to raise a loan in Paris—’
‘How the devil did you know that?’ asked Mr Ryder angrily.
Hercule Poirot smiled.
‘At any rate it is true.’
‘It’s true enough, but I don’t particularly want it to get about.’
‘I will be discretion itself, I assure you.’
‘It’s odd,’ mused Mr Ryder, ‘how small a sum will sometimes put a man in Queer Street. Just a small sum of ready money to tide him over a crisis—and if he can’t get hold of that infinitesimal sum, to hell with his credit. Yes, it’s damned odd. Money’s odd. Credit’s odd. Come to that, life is odd!’
‘Very true.’
‘By the way, what was it you wanted to see me about?’
‘It is a little delicate. It has come to my ears—in the course of my profession, you understand—that in spite of your denials you did have dealings with this woman Giselle.’
‘Who says so? It’s a lie! I never saw the woman.’
‘Dear me, that is very curious!’
‘Curious! It’s damned libel.’
Poirot looked at him thoughtfully.
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I must look into the matter.’
‘What do you mean? What are you getting at?’
Poirot shook his head.
‘Do not enrage yourself; there must be—a mistake.’
‘I should think there was. Catch me getting myself mixed up with these high-toned Society moneylenders. Society woman with gambling debts—that’s their sort.’
Poirot rose.
‘I must apologize for having been misinformed.’ He paused at the door. ‘By the way, just as a matter of curiosity, what made you call Dr Bryant Dr Hubbard just now?’
‘Blessed if I know. Let me see—Oh, yes, I think it must have been the flute. The nursery rhyme, you know. Old Mother Hubbard’s dog—But when she came back he was playing the flute. Odd thing how you mix up names.’
‘Ah, yes, the flute…These things interest me, you understand, psychologically.’
Mr Ryder snorted at the word psychologically. It savoured to him of what he called that tom-fool business psychoanalysis.
He looked at Poirot with suspicion.
Chapter 19
Enter and Exit Mr Robinson
The Countess of Horbury sat in her bedroom at 315 Grosvenor Square in front of her toilet table. Gold brushes and boxes, jars of face cream, boxes of powder—dainty luxury all around her. But in the midst of the luxury Cicely Horbury sat with dry lips and a face on which the rouge showed up in unbecoming patches on her cheeks.
She read the letter for the fourth time.
The Countess of Horbury.
Dear Madam,
re: Madame Giselle, deceased.
I am the holder of certain documents formerly in the possession of the deceased lady. If you or Mr Raymond Barraclough are interested in the matter, I should be happy to call upon you with a view to discussing the affair.
Or perhaps you would prefer me to deal with your husband in the matter?
Yours truly,
John Robinson.
Stupid, to read the same thing over and over again…
As though the