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By Root 515 0

Mary, she seems all right. Never looks at anything but a rose bush as far as I can make out. There’s a gardener but he’s eighty-three and has lived in the village all his life, and there are a couple of women always dodging about the house making a noise with Hoovers, but I can’t see them in the role of spies either. So you see it’s got to be an outsider. Of course Mary wears a wig,’ went on Sir Roderick rather inconsequently. ‘I mean it might make you think she was a spy because she wore a wig, but that’s not the case. She lost her hair in a fever when she was eighteen. Pretty bad luck for a young woman. I’d no idea she wore a wig to begin with but a rose bush caught in her hair one day and whisked it sideways. Yes, very bad luck.’

‘I thought there was something a little odd about the way she had arranged her hair,’ said Poirot.

‘Anyway, the best secret agents never wear wigs,’ Sir Roderick informed him. ‘Poor devils have to go to plastic surgeons and get their faces altered. But someone’s been mucking about with my private papers.’

‘You don’t think that you may perhaps have placed them in some different container — in a drawer or a different file. When did you see them last?’

‘I handled these things about a year ago. I remember I thought then, they’d make rather good copy, and I noted those particular letters. Now they’re gone. Somebody’s taken them.’

‘You do not suspect your nephew Andrew, his wife or the domestic staff. What about the daughter?’

‘Norma? Well Norma’s a bit off her onion, I’d say. I mean she might be one of those kleptomaniacs who take people’s things without knowing they’re taking them but I don’t see her fumbling about among my papers.’

‘Then what do you think?’

‘Well, you’ve been in the house. You saw what the house is like. Anyone can walk in and out any time they like. We don’t lock our doors. We never have.’

‘Do you lock the door of your own room — if you go up to London, for instance?’

‘I never thought of it as necessary. I do now of course, but what’s the use of that? Too late. Anyway, I’ve only an ordinary key, fits any of the doors. Someone must have come in from outside. Why nowadays that’s how all the burglaries take place. People walk in in the middle of the day, stump up the stairs, go into any room they like, rifle the jewel box, go out again, and nobody sees them or cares who they are. They probably look like mods or rockers or beatniks or whatever they call these chaps nowadays with the long hair and the dirty nails. I’ve seen more than one of them prowling about. One doesn’t like to say “Who the devil are you?” You never know which sex they are, which is embarrassing. The place crawls with them. I suppose they’re Norma’s friends. Wouldn’t have been allowed in the old days. But you turn them out of the house, and then you find out it’s Viscount Endersleigh or Lady Charlotte Marjoribanks. Don’t know where you are nowadays.’ He paused. ‘If anyone can get to the bottom of it, you can, Poirot.’ He swallowed the last mouthful of whisky and got up.

‘Well, that’s that. It’s up to you. You’ll take it on, won’t you?’

‘I will do my best,’ said Poirot.

The front-door bell rang.

‘That’s the little girl,’ said Sir Roderick. ‘Punctual to the minute. Wonderful, isn’t it? Couldn’t go about London without her, you know. Blind as a bat. Can’t see to cross the road.’

‘Can you not have glasses?’

‘I’ve got some somewhere, but they’re always falling off my nose or else I lose them. Besides, I don’t like glasses. I’ve never had glasses. When I was sixty-five I could see to read without glasses and that’s pretty good.’

‘Nothing,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘lasts for ever.’

George ushered in Sonia. She was looking extremely pretty. Her slightly shy manner became her very well, Poirot thought. He moved forward with Gallic empressement.

‘Enchanté, Mademoiselle,’ he said, bowing over her hand.

‘I’m not late, am I, Sir Roderick,’ she said, looking past him. ‘I have not kept you waiting. Please I hope not.’

‘Exactly to the minute, little girl,’ said Sir Roderick. ‘All ship-shape and Bristol fashion,