Hickory Dickory Dock - Agatha Christie [71]
Poirot’s answer was almost in the same words as Sharpe had used.
“Ah—yes,” he said. “What do you call it on the radio? The one deliberate mistake.”
The eyes of the two men met.
“No one,” said Hercule Poirot, “is as clever as they think they are.”
Inspector Sharpe was greatly tempted to say:
“Not even Hercule Poirot?” but he restrained himself.
“For the other, my friend, it is all fixed?”
“Yes, the balloon goes up tomorrow.”
“You go yourself?”
“No. I’m scheduled to appear at 26 Hickory Road. Cobb will be in charge.”
“We will wish him good luck.”
Gravely, Hercule Poirot raised his glass. It contained crème de menthe.
Inspector Sharpe raised his whisky glass.
“Here’s hoping,” he said.
II
“They do think up things, these places,” said Sergeant Cobb.
He was looking with grudging admiration at the display window of SABRINA FAIR. Framed and enclosed in an expensive illustration of the glassmaker’s art—the “glassy green translucent wave”—Sabrina was displayed, recumbent, clad in brief and exquisite panties and happily surrounded with every variety of deliciously packaged cosmetics. Besides the panties she wore various examples of barbaric costume jewellery.
Detective-Constable McCrae gave a snort of deep disapproval.
“Blasphemy, I call it. Sabrina Fair, that’s Milton, that is.”
“Well, Milton isn’t the Bible, my lad.”
“You’ll not deny that Paradise Lost is about Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden and all the devils of hell and if that’s not religion, what is?”
Sergeant Cobb did not enter on these controversial matters. He marched boldly into the establishment, the dour constable at his heels. In the shell pink interior of Sabrina Fair the sergeant and his satellite looked as out of place as the traditional bull in a china shop.
An exquisite creature in delicate salmon pink swam up to them, her feet hardly seeming to touch the floor.
Sergeant Cobb said, “Good morning, madam,” and produced his credentials. The lovely creature withdrew in a flutter. An equally lovely but slightly older creature appeared. She in turn gave way to a superb and resplendent duchess whose blue grey hair and smooth cheeks set age and wrinkles at nought. Appraising steel grey eyes met the steady gaze of Sergeant Cobb.
“This is most unusual,” said the duchess severely. “Please come this way.”
She led him through a square salon with a centre table where magazines and periodicals were heaped carelessly. All round the walls were curtained recesses where glimpses could be obtained of recumbent women supine under the ministrant hands of pink robed priestesses.
The duchess led the police officers into a small businesslike apartment with a big roll top desk, severe chairs, and no softening of the harsh northern light.
“I am Mrs. Lucas, the proprietress of this establishment,” she said. “My partner, Miss Hobhouse, is not here today.”
“No, madam,” said Sergeant Cobb, to whom this was no news.
“This search warrant of yours seems to be most high-handed,” said Mrs. Lucas. “This is Miss Hobhouse’s private office. I sincerely hope that it will not be necessary for you to—er—upset our clients in any way.”
“I don’t think you need to worry unduly on that score,” said Cobb. “What we’re after isn’t likely to be in the public rooms.”
He waited politely until she unwillingly withdrew. Then he looked round Valerie Hobhouse’s office. The narrow window gave a view of the back premises of the other Mayfair firms. The walls were panelled in pale grey and there were two good Persian rugs on the floor. His eyes went from the small wall safe to the big desk.
“Won’t be in the safe,” said Cobb. “Too obvious.”
A quarter of an hour later, the safe and the drawers of the desk had yielded up their secrets.
“Looks like it’s maybe a mare’s nest,” said McCrae, who was by nature both gloomy and disapproving.
“We’re only beginning,” said Cobb.
Having emptied the drawers of their contents and arranged the latter neatly in piles, he now proceeded to take the drawers out and turn them upside down.