The Labors of Hercules - Agatha Christie [67]
“Oh, absolutely. No mistaking it. It’s cocaine all right. I found some in a lacquer box—they snuff it up, you know. Question is, where does it come from? I remembered that you’d been talking the other day about a big, new wave of drug taking and the increase of drug addicts.”
Hercule Poirot nodded. He said:
“The police will be interested in this party tonight.”
Michael Stoddart said unhappily:
“That’s just it. . . .”
Poirot looked at him with suddenly awakened interest. He said:
“But you—you are not very anxious that the police should be interested?”
Michael Stoddart mumbled:
“Innocent people get mixed up in things . . . hard lines on them.”
“Is it Mrs. Patience Grace for whom you are so solicitous?”
“Good Lord, no. She’s as hard-boiled as they make them!”
Hercule Poirot said gently:
“It is, then, the other one—the girl?”
Dr. Stoddart said:
“Of course, she’s hard-boiled, too, in a way. I mean, she’d describe herself as hard-boiled. But she’s really just very young—a bit wild and all that—but it’s just kid foolishness. She gets mixed up in a racket like this because she thinks it’s smart or modern or something like that.”
A faint smile came to Poirot’s lips. He said softly:
“This girl, you have met her before tonight?”
Michael Stoddart nodded. He looked very young and embarrassed.
“Ran across her in Mertonshire. At the Hunt Ball. Her father’s a retired General—blood and thunder, shoot ’em down—pukka Sahib—all that sort of thing. There are four daughters and they are all a bit wild—driven to it with a father like that, I should say. And it’s a bad part of the county where they live—armaments works nearby and a lot of money—none of the old-fashioned country feeling—a rich crowd and most of them pretty vicious. The girls have got in with a bad set.”
Hercule Poirot looked at him thoughtfully for some minutes. Then he said:
“I perceive now why you desired my presence. You want me to take the affair in hand?”
“Would you? I feel I ought to do something about it—but I confess I’d like to keep Sheila Grant out of the limelight if I could.”
“That can be managed, I fancy. I should like to see the young lady.”
“Come along.”
He led the way out of the room. A voice called fretfully from a door opposite.
“Doctor—for God’s sake, doctor, I’m going crazy.”
Stoddart went into the room. Poirot followed. It was a bedroom in a complete state of chaos—powder spilled on the floor—pots and jars everywhere, clothes flung about. On the bed was a woman with unnaturally blonde hair and a vacant, vicious face. She called out:
“I’ve got insects crawling all over me . . . I have. I swear I have. I’m going mad . . . For God’s sake, give me a shot of something.”
Dr. Stoddart stood by the bed, his tone was soothing—
professional.
Hercule Poirot went quietly out of the room. There was another door opposite him. He opened that.
It was a tiny room—a mere slip of a room—plainly furnished. On the bed a slim, girlish figure lay motionless.
Hercule Poirot tiptoed to the side of the bed and looked down upon the girl.
Dark hair, a long, pale face—and—yes, young—very young. . . .
A gleam of white showed between the girl’s lids. Her eyes opened, startled, frightened eyes. She stared, sat up, tossing her head in an effort to throw back the thick mane of blue-black hair. She looked like a frightened filly—she shrank away a little—as a wild animal shrinks when it is suspicious of a stranger who offers it food.
She said—and her voice was young and thin and abrupt:
“Who the hell are you?”
“Do not be afraid, Mademoiselle.”
“Where’s Dr. Stoddart?”
That young man came into the room at that minute. The girl said with a note of relief in her voice:
“Oh! there you are! Who’s this?”
“This is a friend of mine, Sheila. How are you feeling now?”
The girl said:
“Awful. Lousy . . . Why did I take that foul stuff?”
Stoddart said drily:
“I shouldn’t do it again, if I were you.”
“I—I shan’t.”
Hercule Poirot said:
“Who gave it to you?”
Her eyes widened, her upper lip twitched a little. She said:
“It was here—at the party. We all