• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 666 0

the first. She hated the bush and was terrified of the natives and was bored to death. Her idea of life was to go round to the local and meet the theatrical crowd and talk shop. Solitude à deux in the jungle wasn’t at all her cup of tea. Mind you, I never met her myself — I heard all this from poor old Underhay. It hit him pretty hard. He did the decent thing, sent her home and agreed to give her a divorce. It was just after that I met him. He was all on edge and in the mood when a man’s got to talk. He was a funny old-fashioned kind of chap in some ways — an R.C., and he didn’t care for divorce. He said to me, “There are other ways of giving a woman her freedom.” “Now, look here, old boy,” I said, “don’t go doing anything foolish. No woman in the world is worth putting a bullet through your head.”

‘He said that that wasn’t his idea at all. “But I’m a lonely man,” he said. “Got no relations to bother about me. If a report of my death gets back that will make Rosaleen a widow, which is what she wants.” “And what about you?” I said. “Well,” he said, “maybe a Mr Enoch Arden will turn up somewhere a thousand miles or so away and start life anew.” “Might be awkward for her some day,” I warned him. “Oh, no,” he says, “I’d play the game. Robert Underhay would be dead all right.”

‘Well, I didn’t think any more of it, but six months later I heard that Underhay had died of fever up in the bush somewhere. His natives were a trustworthy lot and they came back with a good circumstantial tale and a few last words scrawled in Underhay’s writing saying they’d done all they could for him, and he was afraid he was pegging out, and praising up his headman. That man was devoted to him and so were all the others. Whatever he told them to swear to, they would swear to. So there it is…Maybe Underhay’s buried up country in the midst of equatorial Africa but maybe he isn’t — and if he isn’t Mrs Gordon Cloade may get a shock one day. And serve her right, I say. I never met her, but I know the sound of a little gold-digger! She broke up poor old Underhay all right. It’s an interesting story.’

Major Porter looked round rather wistfully for confirmation of this assertion. He met two bored and fishy stares, the half-averted gaze of young Mr Mellon and the polite attention of M. Hercule Poirot.

Then the newspaper rustled and a grey-haired man with a singularly impassive face rose quietly from his arm-chair by the fire and went out.

Major Porter’s jaw dropped, and young Mr Mellon gave a faint whistle.

‘Now you’ve done it!’ he remarked. ‘Know who that was?’

‘God bless my soul,’ said Major Porter in some agitation. ‘Of course. I don’t know him intimately but we are acquainted…Jeremy Cloade, isn’t it, Gordon Cloade’s brother? Upon my word, how extremely unfortunate! If I’d had any idea — ’

‘He’s a solicitor,’ said young Mr Mellon. ‘Bet he sues you for slander or defamation of character or something.’

For young Mr Mellon enjoyed creating alarm and despondency in such places as it was not forbidden by the Defence of the Realm Act.

Major Porter continued to repeat in an agitated manner:

‘Most unfortunate. Most unfortunate!’

‘It will be all over Warmsley Heath by this evening,’ said Mr Mellon. ‘That’s where all the Cloades hang out. They’ll sit up late discussing what action to take.’

But at that moment the All Clear sounded, and young Mr Mellon stopped being malicious, and tenderly piloted his friend Hercule Poirot out into the street.

‘Terrible atmosphere, these clubs,’ he said. ‘The most crashing collection of old bores. Porter’s easily the worst, though. His description of the Indian rope trick takes three quarters of an hour, and he knows everybody whose mother ever passed through Poona!’

This was in the autumn of 1944. It was in late spring, 1946, that Hercule Poirot received a visit.

II

Hercule Poirot was sitting at his neat writing-desk on a pleasant May morning when his manservant George approached him and murmured deferentially:

‘There is a lady, sir, asking to see you.’

‘What kind of a lady?’ Poirot asked cautiously.

He