Hercule Poirot's Casebook

'Perhaps Hercule Poirot can.'

Suddenly Lord Mayfield laughed.

'By the Lord, George, I thought you were too much of an old John Bull to put your trust in a Frenchman, however clever.'

'He's not even a Frenchman, he's a Belgian,' said Sir George in a rather shamefaced manner.

'Well, have your Belgian down. Let him try his wits on this business. I'll bet he can't make more of it than we can.'

Without replying, Sir George stretched a hand to the telephone.

CHAPTER 4

Blinking a little, Hercule Poirot turned his head from one man to the other. Very delicately he smothered a yawn.

It was half-past two in the morning. He had been roused from sleep and rushed down through the darkness in a big Rolls Royce. Now he had just f'mished hearing what the two men had to tell him.

'Those are the facts, M. Poirot,' said Lord Mayfield.

He leaned back in his chair, and slowly f'med his monocle in one eye. Through it a shrewd, pale-blue eye watched Poirot attentively. Besides being shrewd the eye was def'mitely sceptical. Poirot cast a swift glance at Sir George Carrington.

That gentleman was leaning forward with an expression of almost childlike hopefulness on his face.

Poirot said slowly:

'I have the facts, yes. The maid screams, the secretary goes out, the nameless watcher comes in, the plans are there on top of the desk, he snatches them up and goes. The facts - they are all very convenient.'

Something in the way he uttered the last phrase seemed to attract Lord Mayfield's attention. He sat up a little straighter, his monocle dropped. It was as though a new alertness came to him.

'I beg your pardon, M. Poirot?'

'I said, Lord Mayfield, that the facts were all very conve-nient - for the thief. By the way, you are sure it was a man you saw?'

Lord Mayfield shook his head.

'That I couldn't say. It was just a - shadow. In fact, I was almost doubtful if I had seen anyone.'

Poirot transferred his gaze to the Air Marshal.

'And you, Sir George? Could you say if it was a man or a woman?'

'I didn't see anyone myself.'

Poirot nodded thoughtfully. Then he skipped suddenly to his feet and went over to the writing-table.

'I can assure you that the plans are not there,' said Lord Mayfield. 'We have all three been through those papers half a dozen times.'

'All three? You mean, your secretary also?'

'Yes, Carlile.'

Poirot turned suddenly.

'Tell me, Lord Mayfield, which paper was on top when you went over to the desk?'

Mayfield frowned a little in the effort of remembrance.

'Let me see - yes, it was a rough memorandum of some sort of our air defence positions.'

Deftly, Poirot nipped out a paper and brought it over.

'Is this the one, Lord Mayfield?'

Lord Mayfield took it and glanced over it.

'Yes, that's the one.'

Poirot took it over to Carrington.

'Did you notice this paper on the desk?'

Sir George took it, held it away from him, then slipped on his pincenez.

'Yes, that's right. I looked through them too, with Carlile and Mayfield. This was on top.'

Poirot nodded thoughtfully. He replaced the paper on the desk. Mayfield looked at him in a slightly puzzled manner.

'If there are any other questions -' he began.

'But yes, certainly there is a question. Carlile. Carlile is the question!'

Lord Mayfield's colour rose a little.

'Carlile, M. Poirot, is quite above suspicion! He has been my confidential secretary for nine years. He has access to all my private papers, and I may point out to you that he could have made a copy of the plans and a tracing of the spedfications quite easily without anyone being the wiser.'

'I appreciate your point,' said Poirot. 'If he had been guilty there would be no need for him to stage a clumsy robbery.'

'In any case,' said Lord Mayfield, 'I am sure of Carlile. I will guarantee him.'

'Carlile,' said Carrington gruffly, 'is all right.'

Poirot spread out his hands gracefully.

'And this Mrs Vanderlyn - she is all wrong?'

'She's a wrong 'un all right,' said Sir George.

Lord Mayfield said in more measured tones:

'I think, M. Poirot, that there can be no doubt of Mrs Vanderlyn's - well - activities. The Foreign Office can give you more precious data as to that.'

'And the maid, you take it, is in with her mistress?'

'Not a doubt of it,' said Sir George.

'It seems to me a plausible assumption,' said Lord Mayfield more cautiously.

There was a pause. Poirot sighed, and absent-mindedly rearranged one or two articles on a table at his right hand. Then he said:

'I take it that these papers represented money? That is, the stolen papers would be definitely worth a large sum in cash.'

'If presented in a certain quarter - yes.'

'Such as?'

Sir George mentioned the names of two European powers.

Poirot nodded.

'That fact would be known to anyone, I take it?'

'Mrs Vanderlyn would know it all right.'

'I said to anyone?' 'I suppose so, yes.'

'Anyone with a minimum of intelligence would appreciate the Cash value of the plans?'

'Yes, but M. Poirot -' Lord Mayfield was looking rather uncomfortable.'

Poirot held up a hand.

'I do what you call explore all the avenues.'

Suddenly he rose again, stepped nimbly out of the window and with a flashlight examined the edge of the grass at the farther side of the terrace.

The two men watched him.

He came in again, sat down and said:

'Tell me, Lord Mayfield, this malefactor, this skulker in the shadows, you do not have him pursued?'

Lord Mayfield shrugged his shoulders.

'At the bottom of the garden he could make his way out to a main road. If he had a car waiting there, he would soon be out of reach '

'But there are the police - the A.A. scouts '

Sir George interrupted.

'You forget, M. Poirot. We cannot risk publicity. If it were to get out that these plans had been stolen, the result would be extremely unfavourable to the Party.'

'Ah, yes,' said Poirot. 'One must remember La Politique. The great discretion must be observed. You send instead for me. Ah well, perhaps it is simpler.'

'You are hopeful of success, M. Poirot?' Lord Mayfield sounded a trifle incredulous.

The little man shrugged his shoulders.

'Why not? One has only to reason - to reflect.'

He paused a moment and then said:

'I would like now to speak to Mr Carlile.'

'Certainly.' Lord Mayfield rose. 'I asked him to wait up. He will be somewhere at hand.'

He went out of the room.

Poirot looked at Sir George.

'Eh bien,' he said. 'What about this man on the terrace?'

'My dear M. Poirot. Don't ask me! I didn't see him, and I can't describe him.'

Poirot leaned forward.

'So you have already said. But it is a little different from that is it not?'

'what d'you mean?' asked Sir George abruptly.

'How shall I say it? Your disbelief, it is more profomaxt.'

Sir George started to speak, then stopped.

'But yes,' said Poirot encouragingly. 'Tell me. You are both at the end of the terrace. Lord Mayfield sees a shadow slip from the window and across the grass. Why do you not see that shadow?'

Carrington stared at him.

'You've hit it, M. Poirot. I've been worrying about that ever since. You see, I'd swear that no one did leave this window. I though Mayfield had imagined it - branch of a tree waving something of that kind. And then when we came in here and found there had been a robbery, it seemed as though Mayfield must have been right and I'd been wrong. And yet -'