Jane Olivera came running along the path. Her hair streamlined back behind her. Her eyes were wide with fear. She gasped: "Howard?"
Howard Raikes said lightly: "Hallo, Jane. I"ve just been saving your uncle"s life."
"Oh!" She stopped. "Youhave?"
"Your arrival certainly seems to have been very opportune, Mr-er-" Blunt hesitated.
"This is Howard Raikes, Uncle Alistair. He"s a friend of mine."
Blunt looked at Raikes-he smiled.
"Oh!" he said. "So you are Jane"s young man! I must thank you."
With a puffing noise as of a steam engine at high pressure Julia Olivera appeared on the scene. She panted out: "I heard a shot. Is Alistair-Why-" She stared blankly at Howard Raikes. "You? Why, why, howdare you?"
Jane said in an icy voice: "Howard has just saved Uncle Alistair"s life, mother."
"What? I-I-"
"This man tried to shoot Uncle Alistair and Howard grabbed him and took the pistol away from him."
Frank Carter said violently: "You"re b.l.o.o.d.y liars, all of you."
Mrs Olivera, her jaw dropping, said blankly: "Oh!" It took her a minute or two to readjust her poise. She turned first to Blunt.
"My dear Alistair! Howawful ! Thank G.o.d you"re safe. But it must have been a frightful shock. I-I feel quite faint myself. I wonder-do you think I could have just alittle brandy?"
Blunt said quickly: "Of course. Come back to the house."
She took his arm, leaning on it heavily.
Blunt looked over his shoulder at Poirot and Howard Raikes.
"Can you bring that fellow along?" he asked. "We"ll ring up the police and hand him over."
Frank Carter opened his mouth, but no words came. He was dead white, and his knees were wilting. Howard Raikes hauled him along with an unsympathetic hand.
"Come on,you ," he said.
Frank Carter murmured hoa.r.s.ely and unconvincingly: "It"s all a lie..."
Howard Raikes looked at Poirot.
"You"ve got precious little to say for yourself for a high-toned sleuth! Why don"t you throw your weight about a bit?"
"I am reflecting, Mr Raikes."
"I guess you"ll need to reflect! I should say you"ll lose your job over this! It isn"t thanks toyou that Alistair Blunt is still alive at this minute."
"This is your second good deed of the kind, is it not, Mr Raikes?"
"What the h.e.l.l do you mean?"
"It was only yesterday, was it not, that you caught and held the man whom you believed to have shot at Mr Blunt and the Prime Minister?"
Howard Raikes said: "Er-yes. I seem to be making a kind of habit of it."
"But there is a difference," Hercule Poirot pointed out. "Yesterday, the man you caught and held wasnot the man who fired the shot in question. You made a mistake."
Frank Carter said sullenly: "He"s made a mistake now."
"Quiet, you," said Raikes.
Hercule Poirot murmured to himself: "I wonder..."
IV.
Dressing for dinner, adjusting his tie to an exact symmetry, Hercule Poirot frowned at his reflection in the mirror.
He was dissatisfied-but he would have been at a loss to explain why. For the case, as he owned to himself, was so very clear. Frank Carter had indeed been caught red-handed. It was not as though he had any particular belief in, or liking for, Frank Carter. Carter, he thought dispa.s.sionately, was definitely what the English call a "wrong "un". He was an unpleasant young bully of the kind that appeals to women, so that they are reluctant to believe the worst, however plain the evidence.
And Carter"s whole story was weak in the extreme. This tale of having been approached by agents of the "Secret Service"-and offered a plummy job. To take the post of gardener and report on the conversations and actions of the other gardeners. It was a story that was disproved easily enough-there was no foundation for it.
A particularly weak invention-the kind of thing, Poirot reflected, that a man like Carterwould invent. And on Carter"s side, there was nothing at all to be said. He could offer no explanation, except that somebody else must have shot off the revolver. He kept repeating that. It was a frame-up. No, there was nothing to be said for Carter except, perhaps, that it seemed an odd coincidence that Howard Raikes should have been present two days running at the moment when a bullet had just missed Alistair Blunt.
But presumably there wasn"t anything in that. Raikes certainly hadn"t fired the shot in Downing Street. And his presence down here was fully accounted for-he had come down to be near his girl. No, there was nothing definitely improbable inhis story.
It had turned out, of course, very fortunately for Howard Raikes. When a man has just saved you from a bullet, you cannot forbid him the house. The least you can do is to show friendliness and extend hospitality. Mrs Olivera didn"t like it, obviously, but even she saw that there was nothing to be done about it.
Jane"s undesirable young man had got his foot in and he meant to keep it there!
Poirot watched him speculatively during the evening.
He was playing his part with a good deal of astuteness. He did not air any subversive views, he kept off politics. He told amusing stories of his. .h.i.tch-hikes and tramps in wild places.
"He is no longer the wolf," thought Poirot. "No, he has put on the sheep"s clothing. But underneath? I wonder..."
As Poirot was preparing for bed that night, there was a rap on the door. Poirot called, "Come in," and Howard Raikes entered.
He laughed at Poirot"s expression.
"Surprised to see me? I"ve had my eye on you all evening. I didn"t like the way you were looking. Kind of thoughtful."
"Why should that worry you, my friend?"
"I don"t know why, but it did. I thought maybe that you were finding certain things just a bit hard to swallow."
"Eh bien? And if so?"
"Well, I decided that I"d best come clean. About yesterday, I mean. That was a fake show all right! You see, I was watching his lordship come out of 10, Downing Street and I saw Ram Lal fire at him. I know Ram Lal. He"s a nice kid. A bit excitable but he feels the wrongs of India very keenly. Well, there was no harm done, that precious pair of stuffed shirts weren"t harmed-the bullet had missed "em both by miles-so I decided to put up a show and hope the Indian kid would get clear. I grabbed hold of a shabby little guy just by me and called out that I"d got the villain and hoped Ram Lal was beating it all right. But the d.i.c.ks were too smart. They were on to him in a flash. That"s just how it was. See?"
Hercule Poirot said: "And today?"
"That"s different. There weren"t any Ram Lals about today. Carter was the only man on the spot.He fired that pistol all right! It was still in his hand when I jumped on him. He was going to try a second shot, I expect."
Poirot said: "You were very anxious to preserve the safety of M. Blunt?"
Raikes grinned-an engaging grin.
"A bit odd, you think, after all I"ve said? Oh, I admit it. I think Blunt is a guy whoought to be shot-for the sake of Progress and Humanity-I don"t mean personally-he"s a nice enough old boy in his British way. I think that, and yet when I saw someone taking a pot-shot at him I leap in and interfere. That shows you how illogical the human animal is. It"s crazy, isn"t it?"
"The gap between theory and practice is a wide one."
"I"ll say it is!" Mr Raikes got up from the bed where he had been sitting. His smile was easy and confiding.
"I just thought," he said, "that I"d come along and explain the thing to you."
He went out shutting the door carefully behind him.
V.
"Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man: and preserve me from the wicked man," sang Mrs Olivera in a firm voice, slightly off the note.
There was a relentlessness about her enunciation of the sentiment which made Hercule Poirot deduce that Mr Howard Raikes was the wicked man immediately in her mind. Hercule Poirot had accompanied his host and the family to the morning service in the village church. Howard Raikes had said with a faint sneer: "So you always go to church, Mr Blunt?"
And Alistair had murmured vaguely something about it being expected of you in the country-can"t let the parson down, you know-which typically English sentiment had merely bewildered the young man, and had made Hercule Poirot smile comprehendingly.
Mrs Olivera had tactfully accompanied her host and commanded Jane to do likewise.
"They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent," sang the choir boys in shrill treble, "adder"s poison is under their lips."
The tenors and ba.s.ses demanded with gusto: "Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the unG.o.dly. Preserve me from the wicked men who are purposed to overthrow my goings."
Hercule Poirot essayed in a hesitant baritone.
"The proud have laid a snare for me," he sang,"and spread a net with cords: yea, and set traps in my way..."
His mouth remained open.
He saw it-saw clearly the trap into which he had so nearly fallen!
Like a man in a trance Hercule Poirot remained, mouth open, staring into s.p.a.ce. He remained there as the congregation seated themselves with a rustle; until Jane Olivera tugged at his arm and murmured a sharp, "Sit down."
Hercule Poirot sat down. An aged clergyman with a beard intoned: "Here beginneth the fifteenth chapter of the First Book of Samuel," and began to read.
But Poirot heard nothing of the smiting of the Amalekites.
A snare cunningly laid-a net with cords-a pit open at his feet-dug carefully so that he should fall into it.
He was in a daze-a glorious daze where isolated facts spun wildly round before settling neatly into their appointed places.
It was like a kaleidoscope-shoe buckles, 10-inch stockings, a damaged face, the low tastes in literature of Alfred the page-boy, the activities of Mr Amberiotis, and the part played by the late Mr Morley, all rose up and whirled and settled themselves down into a coherent pattern. For the first time, Hercule Poirot was looking at the casethe right way up .
"For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubborness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord he hath also rejected thee from being king. Here endeth the first lesson,"
quavered the aged clergyman all in one breath.
As one in a dream, Hercule Poirot rose to praise the Lord in the Te Deum. Thirteen, Fourteen,
Maids are Courting
I.
"M. Reilly, is it not?"
The young Irishman started as the voice spoke at his elbow.
He turned.
Standing next to him at the counter of the Shipping Co. was a small man with large moustaches and an egg-shaped head.
"You do not remember me, perhaps?"
"You do yourself an injustice, M. Poirot. You"re not a man that"s easily forgotten."
He turned back to speak to the clerk behind the counter who was waiting. The voice at his elbow murmured: "You are going abroad for a holiday?"
"It"s not a holiday I"m taking. And you yourself, M. Poirot? You"re not turning your back on this country, I hope?"
"Sometimes," said Hercule Poirot, "I return for a short while to my own country-Belgium."
"I"m going farther than that," said Reilly. "It"s America for me." He added: "And I don"t think I"ll be coming back, either."
"I"m sorry to hear that, Mr Reilly. You are, then, abandoning your practice in Queen Charlotte Street."
"If you"d say it was abandoning me, you"d be nearer the mark."
"Indeed? That is very sad."
"It doesn"t worry me. When I think of the debts I shall leave behind me unpaid, I"m a happy man."