The Labors of Hercules - Agatha Christie [93]
The Mother Superior bowed her head. She said:
“That is so. Sister Mary Ursula in religion.”
Hercule Poirot said: “There is a certain wrong that needs righting. I believe that Sister Mary Ursula could help me. She has information that might be invaluable.”
The Mother Superior shook her head. Her face was placid, her voice calm and remote. She said:
“Sister Mary Ursula cannot help you.”
“But I assure you—”
He broke off. The Mother Superior said:
“Sister Mary Ursula died two months ago.”
V
In the saloon bar of Jimmy Donovan’s Hotel, Hercule Poirot sat uncomfortably against the wall. The hotel did not come up to his ideas of what a hotel should be. His bed was broken—so were two of the window panes in his room—thereby admitting that night air which Hercule Poirot distrusted so much. The hot water brought him had been tepid and the meal he had eaten was producing curious and painful sensations in his inside.
There were five men in the bar and they were all talking politics. For the most part Hercule Poirot could not understand what they said. In any case, he did not much care.
Presently he found one of the men sitting beside him. This was a man of slightly different class to the others. He had the stamp of the seedy townsman upon him.
He said with immense dignity:
“I tell you, sir. I tell you—Pegeen’s Pride hasn’t got a chance, not a chance . . . bound to finish right down the course—right down the course. You take my tip . . . everybody ought to take my tip. Know who I am, shir, do you know, I shay? Atlas, thatsh who I am—Atlas of the Dublin Sun . . . been tipping winnersh all the season . . . Didn’t I give Larry’s Girl? Twenty-five to one—twenty-five to one. Follow Atlas and you can’t go wrong.”
Hercule Poirot regarded him with a strange reverence. He said, and his voice trembled:
“Mon Dieu, it is an omen!”
VI
It was some hours later. The moon showed from time to time, peeping out coquettishly from behind the clouds. Poirot and his new friend had walked some miles. The former was limping. The idea crossed his mind that there were, after all, other shoes—more suitable to country walking than patent leather. Actually George had respectfully conveyed as much. “A nice pair of brogues,” was what George had said.
Hercule Poirot had not cared for the idea. He liked his feet to look neat and well-shod. But now, tramping along this stony path, he realized that there were other shoes. . . .
His companion said suddenly:
“Is it the way the Priest would be after me for this? I’ll not have a mortal sin upon my conscience.”
Hercule Poirot said: “You are only restoring to Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s.”
They had come to the wall of the Convent. Atlas prepared to do his part.
A groan burst from him and he exclaimed in low, poignant tones that he was destroyed entirely!
Hercule Poirot spoke with authority.
“Be quiet. It is not the weight of the world that you have to support—only the weight of Hercule Poirot.”
VII
Atlas was turning over two new five pound notes.
He said hopefully:
“Maybe I’ll not remember in the morning the way I earned this. I’m after worrying that Father O’Reilly will be after me.”
“Forget everything, my friend. Tomorrow the world is yours.”
Atlas murmured:
“And what’ll I put it on? There’s Working Lad, he’s a grand horse, a lovely horse he is! And there’s Sheila Boyne. 7 to 1 I’d get on her.”
He paused:
“Was it my fancy now or did I hear you mention the name of a heathen god? Hercules, you said, and glory be to God, there’s a Hercules running in the three-thirty tomorrow.”
“My friend,” said Hercule Poirot, “put your money on that horse. I tell you this, Hercules cannot fail.”
And it is certainly true that on the following day Mr. Rosslyn’s Hercules very unexpectedly won the Boynan Stakes, starting price 60 to 1.
VIII
Deftly Hercule Poirot unwrapped the neatly done-up parcel. First the brown paper, then the wadding, lastly the tissue paper.
On the desk in front of Emery Power