Poirot Investigates, Agatha Christie [the false prince .TXT] 📗

day⁠—perhaps more. May have to, too, if things go on as they are now. Money’s confoundedly tight in the City. All this infernal E.P.D.” He rambled on, launching into technicalities where I could not follow him.

He was interrupted by a small pageboy who approached and murmured something in his ear.

“Eh⁠—what? I’ll come at once. Not taken ill, is she? Excuse me, gentlemen.”

He left us abruptly. Poirot leaned back and lit one of his tiny Russian cigarettes. Then, carefully and meticulously, he arranged the empty coffee-cups in a neat row, and beamed happily on the result.

The minutes passed. The Opalsens did not return.

“Curious,” I remarked, at length. “I wonder when they will come back.”

Poirot watched the ascending spirals of smoke, and then said thoughtfully:

“They will not come back.”

“Why?”

“Because, my friend, something has happened.”

“What sort of thing? How do you know?” I asked curiously.

Poirot smiled.

“A few moments ago the manager came hurriedly out of his office and ran upstairs. He was much agitated. The lift-boy is deep in talk with one of the pages. The lift-bell has rung three times, but he heeds it not. Thirdly, even the waiters are distrait; and to make a waiter distrait⁠—” Poirot shook his head with an air of finality. “The affair must indeed be of the first magnitude. Ah, it is as I thought! Here come the police.”

Two men had just entered the hotel⁠—one in uniform, the other in plain clothes. They spoke to a page, and were immediately ushered upstairs. A few minutes later, the same boy descended and came up to where we were sitting.

“Mr. Opalsen’s compliments, and would you step upstairs.”

Poirot sprang nimbly to his feet. One would have said that he awaited the summons. I followed with no less alacrity.

The Opalsens’ apartments were situated on the first floor. After knocking on the door, the pageboy retired, and we answered the summons, “Come in!” A strange scene met our eyes. The room was Mrs. Opalsen’s bedroom, and in the centre of it, lying back in an armchair, was the lady herself, weeping violently. She presented an extraordinary spectacle, with the tears making great furrows in the powder with which her complexion was liberally coated. Mr. Opalsen was striding up and down angrily. The two police officials stood in the middle of the room, one with a notebook in hand. An hotel chambermaid, looking frightened to death, stood by the fireplace; and on the other side of the room a Frenchwoman, obviously Mrs. Opalsen’s maid, was weeping and wringing her hands, with an intensity of grief that rivalled that of her mistress.

Into this pandemonium stepped Poirot, neat and smiling. Immediately, with an energy surprising in one of her bulk, Mrs. Opalsen sprang from her chair towards him.

“There now; Ed may say what he likes, but I believe in luck, I do. It was fated I should meet you the way I did this evening, and I’ve a feeling that if you can’t get my pearls back for me nobody can.”

“Calm yourself, I pray of you, madame.” Poirot patted her hand soothingly. “Reassure yourself. All will be well. Hercule Poirot will aid you!”

Mr. Opalsen turned to the police inspector.

“There will be no objection to my⁠—er⁠—calling in this gentleman, I suppose?”

“None at all, sir,” replied the man civilly, but with complete indifference. “Perhaps now your lady’s feeling better she’ll just let us have the facts?”

Mrs. Opalsen looked helplessly at Poirot. He led her back to her chair.

“Seat yourself, madame, and recount to us the whole history without agitating yourself.”

Thus abjured, Mrs. Opalsen dried her eyes gingerly, and began.

“I came upstairs after dinner to fetch my pearls for Mr. Poirot here to see. The chambermaid and Célestine were both in the room as usual⁠—”

“Excuse me, madame, but what do you mean by ‘as usual’?”

Mr. Opalsen explained.

“I make it a rule that no one is to come into this room unless Célestine, the maid, is there also. The chambermaid does the room in the morning while Célestine is present, and comes in after dinner to turn down the beds under the same conditions; otherwise she never enters the room.”

“Well, as I was saying,” continued Mrs. Opalsen, “I came up. I went to the drawer here,”⁠—she indicated the bottom right-hand drawer of the knee-hole dressing-table⁠—“took out my jewel-case and unlocked it. It seemed quite as usual⁠—but the pearls were not there!”

The inspector had been busy with his notebook. “When had you last seen them?” he asked.

“They were there when I went down to dinner.”

“You are sure?”

“Quite sure. I was uncertain whether to wear them or not, but in the end I decided on the emeralds, and put them back in the jewel-case.”

“Who locked up the jewel-case?”

“I did. I wear the key on a chain round my neck.” She held it up as she spoke.

The inspector examined it, and shrugged his shoulders.

“The thief must have had a duplicate key. No difficult matter. The lock is quite a simple one. What did you do after you’d locked the jewel-case?”

“I put it back in the bottom drawer where I always keep it.”

“You didn’t lock the drawer?”

“No, I never do. My maid remains in the room till I come up, so there’s no need.”

The inspector’s face grew graver.

“Am I to understand that the jewels were there when you went down to dinner, and that since then the maid has not left the room?”

Suddenly, as though the horror of her own situation for the first time burst upon her, Célestine uttered a piercing shriek, and, flinging herself upon Poirot, poured out a torrent of incoherent French.

The suggestion was infamous! That she should be suspected of robbing Madame! The police were well known to be of a stupidity incredible! But Monsieur, who was a Frenchman⁠—

“A Belgian,” interjected Poirot, but Célestine paid no attention to the correction.

Monsieur would not stand by and see her falsely accused, while that infamous chambermaid was allowed to go scot-free. She had never liked her⁠—a bold, red-faced thing⁠—a born thief. She had said from the first that she was not honest. And had kept a sharp watch over her too, when