The Labors of Hercules - Agatha Christie [100]
“My dear M. Poirot,” she began, “I’m afraid you’re out of touch with the modern ideology. It is fundamentals that matter—not the trappings.”
She looked up as a dark and very beautiful young man came towards them.
“This is a most interesting type,” she murmured with zest. “Paul Varesco! Lives on women and has strange depraved cravings! I want him to tell me more about a nursery governess who looked after him when he was three years old.”
A moment or two later she was dancing with the young man. He danced divinely. As they drifted near Poirot’s table, Poirot heard her say: “And after the summer at Bognor she gave you a toy crane? A crane—yes, that’s very suggestive.”
For a moment Poirot allowed himself to toy with the speculation that Miss Cunningham’s interest in criminal types might lead one day to her mutilated body being found in a lonely wood. He did not like Alice Cunningham, but he was honest enough to realize that the reason for his dislike was the fact that she was so palpably unimpressed by Hercule Poirot! His vanity suffered!
Then he saw something that momentarily put Alice Cunningham out of his head. At a table on the opposite side of the floor sat a fair-haired young man. He wore evening dress, his whole demeanour was that of one who lives a life of ease and pleasure. Opposite him sat the right kind of expensive girl. He was gazing at her in a fatuous and foolish manner. Any one seeing them might have murmured: “The idle rich!” Nevertheless Poirot knew very well that the young man was neither rich nor idle. He was, in fact, Detective Inspector Charles Stevens, and it seemed probable to Poirot that Detective Inspector Charles Stevens was here on business. . . .
II
On the following morning Poirot paid a visit to Scotland Yard to his old friend Chief Inspector Japp.
Japp’s reception of his tentative inquiries was unexpected.
“You old fox!” said Japp affectionately. “How you get on to these things beats me!”
“But I assure you I know nothing—nothing at all! It is just idle curiosity.”
Japp said that Poirot could tell that to the Marines!
“You want to know all about this place Hell? Well, on the surface it’s just another of these things. It’s caught on! They must be making a lot of money, though of course the expenses are pretty high. There’s a Russian woman ostensibly running it, calls herself the Countess Something or other—”
“I am acquainted with Countess Rossakoff,” said Poirot coldly. “We are old friends.”
“But she’s just a dummy,” Japp went on. “She didn’t put up the money. It might be the headwaiter chap, Aristide Papopolous—he’s got an interest in it—but we don’t believe it’s really his show either. In fact we don’t know whose show it is!”
“And Inspector Stevens goes there to find out?”
“Oh, you saw Stevens, did you? Lucky young dog landing a job like that at the taxpayer’s expense! A fat lot he’s found out so far!”
“What do you suspect there is to find out?”
“Dope! Drug racket on a large scale. And the dope’s being paid for not in money, but in precious stones.”
“Aha?”
“This is how it goes. Lady Blank—or the Countess of Whatnot—finds it hard to get hold of cash—and in any case doesn’t want to draw large sums out of the Bank. But she’s got jewels—family heirlooms sometimes! They’re taken along to a place for ‘cleaning’ or ‘resetting’—there the stones are taken out of their settings and replaced with paste. The unset stones are sold over here or on the Continent. It’s all plain sailing—there’s been no robbery, no hue and cry after them. Say sooner or later it’s discovered that a certain tiara or necklace is a fake? Lady Blank is all innocence and dismay—can’t imagine how or when the substitution can have taken place—necklace has never been out of her possession! Sends the poor, perspiring police off on wild-goose chases after dismissed maids, or doubtful butlers, or suspicious window-
cleaners.
“But we’re not quite so dumb as these social birds think! We had several cases come up one after another—and we found a common factor