Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Vol. 37, No. 6. Whole No. 211, June 1961

Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot in Hell[2]

Hercule Poirot, swaying to and fro in the tube train, thrown now against one body, now against another, thought to himself that there were too many people in the world! Certainly there were too many people in the underground world of London at this particular moment — 6:30 p.m. of the evening.

Hemmed in and pressed around by strangers — and on the whole, he thought distastefully, a plain and uninteresting lot of strangers. Humanity seen thus en masse was not attractive. How seldom did one see a face sparkling with intelligence, how seldom a femme bien mise!

And what was this passion that attacked women for knitting under the most unpropitious conditions? A woman did not look her best knitting; the absorption, the glassy eyes, the restless busy fingers! One needed the agility of a wildcat and the will power of a Napoleon to manage to knit in a crowded tube, but women managed it.

No repose, thought Poirot, no feminine grace! His elderly soul revolted from the stress and hurry of the modern world. All these young women who surrounded him — so alike, so devoid of charm, so lacking in rich, alluring femininity! He demanded a more flamboyant appeal. Ah, to see a femme du monde, chic, spirituelle — a woman with ample curves, a worn-an ridiculously and extravagantly dressed! Once there had been such women. But now — now—

The train stopped at a station; people surged out, forcing Poirot back onto the points of knitting needles; surged in, squeezing him into even more sardine-like proximity with his fellow passengers.

The train started off again with a jerk, Poirot was thrown against a stout woman with knobby parcels, said, “Pardon!” bounced off again into a long angular man whose attaché case caught him in the small of the back. He said, “Pardon!” again. He felt his mustaches becoming limp and uncurled. Quel enfer! Fortunately the next station was his.

It was also the station for about a hundred and fifty other people, since it happened to be Piccadilly Circus. Like a great tidal wave they flowed out onto the platform. Presently Poirot was again jammed tightly on an escalator, being carried upward toward the surface of the earth.

Up, thought Poirot, from the Infernal Regions…

At that moment a voice cried his name. Startled, he raised his eyes. On the opposite escalator, the one descending, his unbelieving eyes saw a vision from the past. A woman of full and flamboyant form; her luxuriant henna-red hair crowned with a small plastron of straw to-which was attached a positive platoon of brilliantly feathered little birds. Exotic-looking furs dripped from her shoulders.

Her crimson mouth opened wide, her rich foreign voice echoed resoundingly.

“It is!" she screamed. "But it is! Mon cher Hercule Poirot! We must meet again! I insist!”

But Fate itself is not more inexorable than the behavior of two escalators moving in opposite directions. Steadily, remorselessly, Hercule Poirot was borne upward, and the Countess Vera Rossakoff was borne downward.

Twisting himself sideways, leaning over the balustrade, Poirot cried despairingly, “Chère Madame, where then can I find you?”

Her reply came to him faintly from the depths. It was unexpected, yet seemed at the moment strangely apposite.

“In Hell.”

Hercule Poirot blinked. He blinked again. Suddenly he rocked on his feet. Unawares he had reached the top — and had neglected to step off properly.

The crowd spread out round him. A little to one side a dense crowd was pressing onto the downward escalator. Should he join them? Had that been the Countess’s meaning? No doubt that traveling in the bowels of the earth at the rush hour was hell. If that had been the Countess’s meaning, he could not agree with her more.

Resolutely Poirot crossed over, sandwiched himself into the descending crowd, and was borne back into the depths. At the foot of the escalator there was no sign of the Countess. Poirot was left with a choice of blue, amber, and other lights to follow.

Was the Countess patronizing the Bakerloo or the Piccadilly line? Poirot visited each platform in turn. He was swept about among surging crowds boarding or leaving trains — but nowhere did he espy that flamboyant Russian figure, the Countess Vera Rossakoff.

Weary, battered, and infinitely chagrined, Hercule Poirot once more ascended to ground level and stepped out into the hubbub of Piccadilly Circus. He reached home in a mood of pleasurable excitement.

It is the misfortune of small, precise men to hanker after large and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the fatal fascination the Countess held for him. Though it was something like twenty years since he had seen her last, the magic still held.

Granted that her make-up now resembled a scene painter’s sunset, to Hercule Poirot she still represented the sumptuous and the alluring. The little bourgeois was still thrilled by the aristocrat. The memory of the adroit way she stole jewelry roused the old admiration. He remembered the magnificent aplomb with which she had admitted the fact when taxed with it. A woman in a thousand — in a million! And he had met her again—

“In hell,” she had said. Surely his ears had not deceived him? She had said that?

Hercule Poirot was brought up short against bewilderment. What an intriguing, what an unpredictable woman! A lesser woman might have shrieked “The Ritz” or “Claridge’s.” But Vera Rossakoff had cried poignantly and impossibly, “Hell!”

Poirot sighed. But he was not defeated. In his perplexity he took the simplest and most straightforward course. On the following morning he asked his secretary, Miss Lemon.

Miss Lemon was unbelievably ugly and incredibly efficient. To her Poirot was nobody in particular — he was merely her employer. She gave him excellent service. Her private thoughts and dreams were concentrated on a new filing system which she was slowly perfecting in the recesses of her mind.

“Miss Lemon, may I ask you a question?”

“Of course, M. Poirot.” Miss Lemon took her fingers off the typewriter keys and waited attentively.

“If a friend asked you to meet her — or him — in hell, what would you do?”

Miss Lemon, as usual, did not pause.

“It would be advisable, I think, to ring up for a table,” she said.

Hercule Poirot stared at her in a stupefied fashion.

He said, staccato, “You — would — ring — up — for — a — table?”

Miss Lemon nodded and drew the telephone toward her.

“Tonight?” she asked, and taking assent for granted since he did not speak, she dialed briskly.

“Temple Bar 14578? Is that Hell? Will you please reserve a table for two. M. Hercule Poirot. Eleven o’clock.”

She replaced the receiver and her fingers hovered over the keys of her typewriter. A slight — a very slight look of impatience was discernible on her face. She had done her part, the look seemed to say; surely her employer could now leave her to get on with what she was doing?

But Hercule Poirot required explanations.

“What is it then, this Hell?" he demanded.

Miss Lemon looked slightly surprised.

“Oh, didn’t you know, M. Poirot? It’s a night club — quite new and very much the rage at present. Run by some Russian woman, I believe. I can fix up for you to become a member before this evening quite easily.”

Whereupon, having wasted (as she made obvious) quite enough time, Miss Lemon broke into a perfect fusillade of efficient typing.

At eleven that evening Hercule Poirot passed through a doorway over which a neon sign discreetly showed one letter at a time. A gentleman in red tails received him and took his coat.

A gesture directed him to a flight of wide, shallow stairs leading downward. On each step a phrase was written.

The first one ran: I meant well.

The second: Wipe the slate clean and start afresh.

The third: I can give it up any time I like.

“The good intentions that pave the way to hell,” Hercule Poirot murmured appreciatively. “C’est bien imagine, ça!”

He descended the stairs. At the foot was a tank of water with scarlet lilies. Spanning it was a bridge, shaped like a boat. Poirot crossed over.

On his left, in a kind of marble grotto, sat the largest and ugliest and blackest dog Poirot had ever seen! It sat up very straight and gaunt and immovable. It was perhaps, he thought (and hoped), not real. But at that moment the dog turned its ferocious and ugly head and from the depths of its black body a low, rumbling growl was emitted. It was a terrifying sound.

And then Poirot noticed a decorative basket of small round dog biscuits. They were labeled: A sop for Cerberus!

It was on them that the dog’s eyes were fixed. Once again the low rumbling growl was heard. Hastily Poirot picked up a biscuit and tossed it toward the great hound.

A cavernous red mouth yawned; then came a snap as the powerful jaws closed again. Poirot moved on through an open doorway.

The room was not a big one. It was dotted with little tables, a dancing floor in the middle. It was lighted with small red lamps; there were frescoes on the walls and at the far end was a vast grill at which officiated chefs dressed as devils with tails and horns.

All this Poirot took in before, with all the impulsiveness of her Russian nature, Countess Vera Rossakoff, resplendent in scarlet evening dress, bore down on him with outstretched hands.

“Ah, you have come! My dear — my very dear friend! What a joy to see you again! After such years — so — many — how many? No, we will not say how many! To me it seems but as yesterday. You have not changed — not in the least have you changed!”

“Nor you, сhère amie,” Poirot exclaimed, bowing over her hand.

Nevertheless, he was full conscious now that twenty years is twenty years. Countess Rossakoff might not uncharitably have been described as a ruin. But she was at least a spectacular ruin. The exuberance, the full-blooded enjoyment of life was still there, and she knew, none better, how to flatter a man.

She drew Poirot to a table at which two other people were sitting.

“My friend, my celebrated friend. M. Hercule Poirot,” she announced. “He who is the terror of evildoers! I was once afraid of him myself, but now I lead a life of the extreme, the most virtuous dullness. Is it not so?”

The tall, thin elderly man to whom she spoke said, “Never say dull, Countess.”

“The Professor Liskard,” the Countess announced. “He who knows everything about the past and who gave me the valuable hints for the decorations here.” The archeologist shuddered slightly.

“If I'd known what you meant to do!” he murmured. “The result is so appalling.”

Poirot observed the frescoes more closely. On the wall facing him, Orpheus and his jazz band played, while Eurydice looked hopefully toward the grill. On the opposite wall, Osiris and Isis seemed to be throwing an Egyptian underworld boating party. On the third wall some bright young people were enjoying mixed bathing in a state of nature.

“The Country of the Young,” explained the Countess and added in the same breath, completing her introductions, “And this is my little Alice.”

Poirot bowed to a second occupant of the table, a severe-looking girl in a check coat and skirt. She wore horn-rimmed glasses.

“She is very, very clever,” said Countess Rossakoff. “She has a degree and she is a psychologist and she knows all the reasons why lunatics are lunatics I It is not, as you might think, because they are mad! No, there are all sorts of other reasons. I find that very peculiar.”

The girl called Alice smiled kindly but a little disdainfully. She asked the Professor in a firm voice if he would like to dance. He appeared flattered but dubious.

“My dear young lady, I fear I only waltz.”

“This is a waltz,” said Alice patiently.

They got up and danced. They did not dance well.

The Countess Rossakoff sighed. Following out a train of thought of her own, she murmured, “And yet she is not really bad-looking…"

“She does not make the most of herself,” said Poirot judicially.

“Frankly,” cried the Countess, “I cannot understand the young people of nowadays. They do not try any more to please — always, in my youth, I tried — the colors that suited me — a little padding in the frocks — the corset laced tight round the waist — the hair, perhaps, a more interesting shade—”

She pushed back the heavy Titian tresses from her forehead — it was undeniable that she, at least, was still trying and trying hard!

“To be content with what nature has given you, that — that is stupid! It is also arrogant! The little Alice she writes pages of long words about sex, but how often, I ask you, does a man suggest to her that they should go to Brighton for the week-end? It is all long words and work, and the welfare of the workers, and the future of the world. It is very worthy, but I ask you, is it gay? And look, I ask you, how drab these young people have made the world! It is all regulations and prohibitions! Not so when I was young.”

“That reminds me, how is your son, Madame?” At the last moment he substituted “son,” for “little boy,” remembering that twenty years had passed.

The Countess’s face lit up with enthusiastic motherhood.

“The beloved angel! So big now. such shoulders, so handsome! He is in America. He builds there — bridges, banks, hotels, department stores, railways, anything the Americans want!”

Poirot looked slightly puzzled.

“He is then an engineer? Or an architect?”

“What does it matter?” demanded the Countess. “He is adorable! He is wrapped up in iron girders, and machinery, and things called stresses. The kind of things that I have never understood in the least. But we adore each other — always we adore each other! And so for his sake I adore the little Alice. But, yes, they are engaged. They meet on a plane or a boat or a train, and they fall in love, all in the midst of talking about the welfare of the workers. And when she comes to London she comes to see me and I take her to my heart.”

The Countess clasped her arms across her vast bosom, “And I say, ‘You and Niki love each other — so I too love you — but if you love him why do you leave him in America?’ And she talks about her ‘job’ and the book she is writing and her career, and frankly I do not understand, but I have always said one must be tolerant.” She added all in one breath, “And what do you think, cher ami, of all this that I have imagined here?”

“It is very well imagined,” said Poirot, looking round him approvingly. “It is chic!”

The place was full and it had that unmistakable air of success which cannot be counterfeited. There were languid couples in full evening dress, Bohemians in corduroy trousers, stout gentlemen in business suits. The band, dressed as devils, dispensed hot music. No doubt about it, the night club called Hell had caught on,

“We have all kinds here,” said the Countess. “That is as it should be, is it not? The gates of hell are open to all?”

“Except, possibly, to the poor?” Poirot suggested.

The Countess laughed.

“Are we not told that it is difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? Naturally, then, he should have priority in hell.”

The Professor and Alice were returning to the table. The Countess got up.

“I must speak to Aristide.”

She exchanged some words with the head waiter, a lean Mephistopheles, then went round from table to table, speaking to the guests.

The Professor, wiping his forehead and sipping a glass of wine, remarked, “She is a personality, is she not? People feel it.”

He excused himself as he went over to speak to someone at another table. Poirot, left alone with the severe Alice, felt slightly embarrassed as he met the cold blue of her eyes. He recognized that she was actually quite good-looking, but he found her distinctly alarming.

“I do not yet know your last name,” he murmured.

“Cunningham. Doctor Alice Cunningham. You have known Vera in past days, I understand?”

“Twenty years ago it must be."

“I find her a very interesting study,” said Dr. Alice Cunningham. “Naturally I am interested in her as the mother of the man I am going to marry, but I am interested in her from the professional standpoint as well.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. I am writing a book on criminal psychology. I find the night life of this place very illuminating. We have several criminal types who come here regularly. I have discussed their early life with some of them. Of course, you know all about Vera’s criminal tendencies — I mean that she steals?”

“Why, yes — I know that,” said Poirot, slightly taken aback.

“I call it the Magpie complex myself. She takes, you know, always glittering things. Never money. Always jewels. I find that as a child she was petted and indulged but very much shielded. Life was unendurably dull for her — dull and safe. Her nature demanded drama — it craved for punishment. That is at the root of her indulgence in theft. She wants the importance, the notoriety of being punished!”

Poirot objected, “Her life can surely not have been safe and dull as a member of the ancien régime in Russia during the Revolution?”

A look of faint amusement showed in Miss Cunningham’s pale blue eyes.

“Ah,” she said. “A member of the ancien règime? She has told you that?”

“She is undeniably an aristocrat,” said Poirot staunchly, fighting back certain uneasy memories of the wildly varying accounts of her early life told him by the Countess herself.

“One believes what one wishes to believe,” remarked Miss Cunningham, casting a professional eye on him.

Poirot felt alarmed. In a moment, he felt, he would be told what was his complex. He decided to carry the war into the enemy’s camp. He enjoyed the Countess Rossakoff’s society partly because of her aristocratic provenance, and he was not going to have his enjoyment spoiled by a spectacled little girl with boiled gooseberry eyes and a degree in psychology!

“Do you know what I find astonishing me?” he asked.

Alice Cunningham did not admit in so many words that she did not know. She contented herself with looking bored but indulgent.

Poirot went on, “It amazes me that you — who are young, and who could look pretty if you took the trouble — well, it amazes me that you do not take the trouble! You wear the heavy coat and skirt with the big pockets as though you were going to play the game of golf. But it is not here, the golf links, it is the underground cellar and your nose it is hot and shines, but you do not powder it, and the lipstick you put it on your mouth without interest, without emphasizing the curve of the lips! You are a woman, but you do not draw attention to the fact of being a woman. And I say to you, ‘Why Not’? It is a pity!”

For a moment he had the satisfaction of seeing Alice Cunningham look human. He even saw a spark of anger in her eyes. Then she regained her smiling contempt.

“My dear M. Poirot,” she said, “I’m afraid you’re out of touch with the modern ideology. It is fundamentals that matter — not the trappings.”

She looked up as a dark and very beautiful young man came toward them.

“This is a most interesting type,” she murmured with zest. “Paul Varesco! Lives on women and has strange depraved cravings! I want him to tell me more about a nursery governess who looked after him when he was three years old.”

A moment or two later she was dancing with the young man. He danced divinely. As they drifted near Poirot’s table, Poirot heard her say, “And after the summer at Bog-nor she gave you a toy crane? A crane — yes, that’s very suggestive.”

For a moment Poirot allowed himself to toy with the speculation that Miss Cunningham’s interest in criminal types might lead one day to her mutilated body being found in a lonely wood. He did not like Alice Cunningham, but he was honest enough to realize that the reason for his dislike was the fact that she was so palpably unimpressed by Hercule Poirot!

Then he saw something that momentarily put Alice Cunningham out of his head.

At a table on the opposite side of the floor sat a fair-haired young man. He wore evening dress, his hair shone, his mustache was such as the Guards affect, his whole demeanor was that of one who lived a life of case and pleasure. Opposite him sat the right kind of expensive girl.

He was gazing at her in a fatuous and foolish manner. Anyone seeing them might have murmured: The idle rich! Nevertheless Poirot knew very well that the young man was neither rich nor idle.

He was, in fact, Detective-Inspector Charles Stevens, and it seemed probable to Poirot that Detective-Inspector Stevens was here on business.

On the following morning Poirot paid a visit to Scotland Yard to his old friend, Chief Inspector Japp.

Japp’s reception of his tentative inquiries was unexpected.

“You old fox!” said Japp affectionately. “How you get on to these things beats me!”

“But I assure you I know nothing — nothing at all. It is just idle curiosity.”

Japp said that Poirot could tell that to the Marines.

“You want to know all about this place Hell? Well, on the surface it's just another of these things. It’s caught on. They must be making a lot of money, though of course the expenses are pretty high. There’s a Russian woman ostensibly running it, calls herself the Countess Something or other—"

“I am acquainted with Countess Rossakoff," said Poirot. “We are old friends.”

“But she’s just a dummy,” Japp went on. “She didn’t put up the money. It might be the head waiter chap, Aristide Paaopolous — he’s got an interest in it — but we don’t believe it’s really his show either. In fact, we don’t know whose show it is!”

“And Inspector Stevens goes there to find out?”

“Oh, you saw Stevens, did you? Lucky young dog, landing a job like that at the taxpayers’ expense! A fat lot he’s found out so far!”

“What do you suspect?”

“Dope! Drug racket on a large scale. And the dope’s being paid > for not in money, M. Poirot, but in precious stones.”

“Aha?”

“This is how it goes. Lady Blank — or the Countess of Whatnot — finds it hard to get hold of cash. And in any case she doesn’t want to draw large sums out of the bank. But she’s got jewels — family heirlooms. They’re taken along to a place for ‘cleaning’ or ‘resetting’ — there the stones are taken out of their settings and replaced with paste. The unset stones are sold over here or on the Continent. It's all plain sailing — there’s been no robbery, no hue and cry after them. Say sooner or later it’s discovered that a certain tiara or necklace is a fake? Lady Blank is all innocence and dismay — can’t imagine how or when the substitution can have taken place — necklace has never been out of her possession! Sends the poor perspiring police off on wild goose chases after dismissed maids or doubtful butlers.

“But we’re not quite so dumb as these social birds think! We had several eases come up one after another. And we found a common factor — all the women showed signs of dope — nerves, irritability, twitching, pupils of eyes dilated. Question was: Where were they getting the dope from and who was running the racket?”

“And the answer, you think, is this place Hell?”

“We believe it’s the headquarters of the whole racket. We’ve discovered where the work on the jewelry is done — a place called Golconda. Limited — respectable enough on the surface, high-class imitation jewelry. There’s a nasty bit of work called Paul Varesco — ah, I see you know him?”

“I have seen him — in Hell.”

“That’s where I’d like to see him — in the real place! He’s as bad as they make ’em — but women, even decent women, eat out of his hand. He’s got some kind of connection with Golconda, and I’m pretty sure he’s the man behind Hell. It’s ideal for his purpose — everyone goes there, society women, professional crooks — it’s the perfect meeting place.”

“You think the exchange — jewels for dope — takes place there?”

“Yes. We know the Golconda side of it — we want the other, the dope side. We want to know who’s supplying the stuff and where it’s coming from.”

“And so far you have no idea?”

“I think it’s the Russian woman — but we’ve no evidence. A few weeks ago we thought we were getting somewhere. Varesco went to the Golconda place, picked up some stones there, and went straight from there to Hell. Stevens was watching him, but he didn’t actually see him pass the stuff. When Varesco left we picked him up — the stones weren’t on him. We raided the club, rounded up everybody. Result: no stones, no dope!"

“A fiasco, in fact?”

Japp winced. “You’re telling me! Might have got in a bit of a jam, but luckily in the roundup we got Peverel — you know, the Battersea murderer. Pure luck — he was supposed to have got away to Scotland. One of our smart sergeants spotted him from his photos. So all’s well that ends well — kudos for us — terrific publicity for the club — it’s been more packed than ever since!”

Poirot said, “But it does not advance the dope inquiry. There is, perhaps, a place of concealment on the premises?”

“Must be. But we couldn’t find it. Went over the place with a tooth-comb. And between you and me, there’s been an unofficial search as well.” He winked. “Strictly on the Q.T. Spot of breaking and entering. Not a success; our ‘unofficial’ man nearly got torn to pieces by that ruddy great dog! It sleeps on the premises.”

“Aha, Cerberus?”

“Yes. Silly name for a dog. Suppose you try your hand at it, Poirot. It’s a pretty problem and worth doing. I hate the drug racket — destroys people body and soul. That really is hell, if you like!”

Poirot murmured meditatively, “It would round off things — yes… Do you know what the twelfth labor of Hercules was?”

“No idea.”

“The Capture of Cerberus. It is appropriate, is it not?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, old man, but remember, Dog eats man is news.” And Japp leaned back roaring with laughter.

“I wish to speak to you with the utmost seriousness,” said Poirot.

The hour was early, the club as yet nearly empty. The Countess and Poirot sat at a small table near the doorway.

“But I do not feel serious,” she protested. "La petite Alice, she is always serious and, entre nous, I find it very boring. My poor Niki, what fun will he have? None.”

“I entertain for you much affection,” continued Poirot, steadily. “And I do not want to see you in what is called the jam.”

“But it is absurd, what you say! I am on the top of the world, the money it rolls in!”

“You own this place?”

The Countess’s eye became slightly evasive.

“Certainly,” she replied.

“But you have a partner?”

“Who told you that?”

“Is your partner Paul Varesco?”

“Oh! Paul Varesco! What an idea!”

“He has a criminal record. Do you realize that you have criminals frequenting this place?”

The Countess burst out laughing.

“There speaks the bon bourgeois! Naturally I realize! Do you not see that that is half the attraction of this place? These young people from Mayfair — they get tired of seeing their own kind round them in the West End. They come here, they see the criminals; the thief, the blackmailer, the confidence trickster — perhaps, even, the murderer — the man who will be in the Sunday papers next week! It is exciting, that — they think they are seeing life! So does the prosperous man who all the week sells the stockings, the shoes! What a change from his respectable life and his respectable friends! And then, a further thrill — there at a table, stroking his mustache, is the Inspector from Scotland Yard — an Inspector in tails!”

“So you knew that?” said Poirot softly.

Her eyes met his and she smiled.

"Mon cher ami, I am not so simple as you seem to suppose!”

“Do you also deal in drugs here?”

“Ah, çа non!” The Countess spoke sharply. “That would be an abomination!”

Poirot sighed.

“I believe you,” he said. “But in that case it is all the more necessary that you tell me who really owns this place.”

“I own it,” she snapped.

“On paper, yes. But there is someone behind you.”

“Do you know, тon ami, I find you altogether too curious. Is he not much too curious, Dou-dou?”

Her voice dropped to a coo as she spoke the last words and she threw the duck bone from her plate to the big black hound who caught it with a ferocious snap of the jaws.

“What is that you call that animal?” asked Poirot.

"C’est mon petit Dou-dou!”

“But it is ridiculous, a name like that!”

“But he is adorable! He is a police dog! He can do anything — anything— Wait!”

She rose, looked round her, and suddenly snatched up a plate with a large succulent steak which had just been deposited before a diner at a nearby table. She crossed to the marble niche and put the plate down in front of the dog, uttering a few words in Russian.

Cerberus gazed in front of him. The steak might not have existed.

“You see? And it is not just a matter of minutes! No. he will remain like that for hours if need be!”

Then she murmured a word and Cerberus bent his long neck and the steak disappeared as though by magic.

Vera Rossakoff flung her arms around the dog’s neck and embraced him passionately, rising on tiptoe to do so.

“See how gentle he can be!” she cried. “For me, for Alice, for his friends — they can do what they like! But one has but to give him the word and presto! I can assure you he would tear a — police inspector, for instance — into little pieces!”

She burst out laughing.

“I would have but to say the word—”

Poirot interrupted hastily. He mistrusted the Countess’s sense of humor. Inspector Stevens might be in real danger.

“Professor Liskard wants to speak to you.”

The Professor was standing reproachfully at her elbow.

“You took my steak,” he complained. “Why did you take my steak? It was a good steak!”

“Thursday night, old man,” said Japp. “That’s when the balloon goes up. It’s Andrews’ pigeon, of course — Narcotic Squad — but he’ll be delighted to have you horn in. No, thanks, I won’t have any of your fancy sirops. I have to take care of my stomach. Is that whiskey I see over there? That’s more the ticket!”

Setting his glass down, he went on, “We’ve solved the problem, I think. There’s another way out of that club — and we’ve found it!”

“Where?”

“Behind the grill. Part of it swings round.”

“But surely you would see—”

“No, old boy. When the raid started, the lights went out — switched off at the main — and it took us a minute or two to get them turned on again. Nobody got out the front way because it was being watched, but it’s clear now that somebody could have nipped out by the secret way with the doings. We’ve been examining the house behind the club — and that’s how we tumbled to the trick.”

“And you proposed to do — what?”

Japp winked. “Let it go according to plan — the police appear, the lights go out — and somebody’s waiting on the other side of that secret door to see who comes through. This time we’ve got ’em!”

“Why Thursday?”

Again Japp winked. “We’ve got the Golconda pretty well taped now. There will be stuff going out of there on Thursday. Lady Carrington’s emeralds.”

“You permit,” said Poirot, “that I, too, make one or two little arrangements?”

Sitting at his usual small table near the entrance on Thursday night, Poirot studied his surroundings.

The Countess was even more flamboyantly made up than usual, very Russian tonight, clapping her hands and screaming with laughter. Paul Varesco had arrived. Sometimes he wore faultless evening dress, sometimes, as tonight, he chose to present himself in a kind of apache get-up, tightly buttoned coat, scarf round the neck. He looked vicious and attractive. Detaching himself from a stout middle-aged woman plastered with diamonds, he leaned over Alice Cunningham, who was sitting at a table writing busily in a little notebook, and asked her to dance. The stout woman scowled at Alice and eyed Varesco adoringly.

There was no adoration in Miss Cunningham’s eyes. They gleamed with pure scientific interest, and Poirot caught fragments of their conversation as they danced past him. She had progressed beyond the nursery governess and was now seeking information about the matron at Paul’s preparatory school.

When the music stopped, she sat down by Poirot, looking happy and excited.

“Most interesting,” she said. "Varesco will be one of the most important cases in my book. The symbolism is unmistakable. Trouble about the vests, for instance — for vest read hair shirt with all its associations — and the whole thing becomes quite plain. He’s a definitely criminal type but a cure can be effected—”

“That she can reform a rake,” said Poirot, “has always been one of woman’s dearest illusions!”

Alice Cunningham looked at him coldly.

“There is nothing personal about this, M. Poirot.”

“There never is,” said Poirot. "It is always pure disinterested altruism — but the object of it is usually an attractive member of the opposite sex. Are you interested, for instance, in where I went to school, or what was the attitude of the matron to me?”

“You are not a criminal type,” said Miss Cunningham.

“Do you know' a criminal type when you see one?”

“Certainly I do.”

Professor Liskard joined them He sat down by Poirot.

"Are you talking about criminals? You should study the criminal code of Hammurabi, M. Poirot 1800 b.c. Most interesting. The man who is caught stealing during a fire shall be thrown into the fire.”

He stared pleasurably ahead of him toward the electric grill.

“And there are older, Summerian laws. If a wife hateth her husband and saith unto him ‘Thou are not my husband,’ they shall throw her into the river. Cheaper and easier than the divorce court. But if a husband says that to his wife he only has to pay her a certain measure of silver. Nobody throws him in the river.”

“The same old story,” said Alice Cunningham. "One law for the man and one for the woman.”

"Women, of course, have a greater appreciation of monetary value,” said the Professor thoughtfully. “You know,” he added, “I like this place. I come here most evenings. I don’t have to pay. The Countess arranged that — very nice of her — in consideration of my having advised her about the decorations, she says. Not that they’re anything to do with me really — I’d no idea what she was asking me questions for — and naturally she and the artist have got everything quite wrong. I hope nobody will ever know I had the remotest connection with the dreadful things. I should never live it down. But she’s a wonderful woman — rather like a Babylonian, I always think. The Babylonians were good women of business, you know—”

The Professor’s words were drowned in a sudden chorus. The word “Police” was heard — women rose to their feet and there was a babel of sound. The lights went out and so did the electric grill.

As an undertone to the turmoil, the Professor’s voice went on tranquilly reciting various excerpts from the laws of Hammurabi.

When the lights went on again, Hercule Poirot was halfway up the wide, shallow steps. The police officers by the door saluted him, and he passed out into the street and strolled to the corner. Just around the corner, pressed against the wall, was a small man with a red nose. He spoke in an anxious, husky whisper.

“I’m ’ere, guv’nor. Time for me to do my stuff?”

“Yes. Go on.”

“There’s an awful lot of coppers about!”

“That is all right. They’ve been told about you.”

“I ’ope they won’t interfere, that’s all?”

“They will not interfere. You’re sure you can accomplish what you have set out to do? The animal in question is both large and fierce.”

“ ’E won’t be fierce to me,” said the little man confidently. “Not with what I’ve got ’ere! Any dog’ll follow me to hell for it!”

“In this case,” murmured Hercule Poirot, “he has to follow you out of Hell!”

In the small hours of the morning the telephone rang. Poirot picked up the receiver.

Japp’s voice said, “You asked me to ring you.”

“Yes, indeed. Eh bien?”

“No dope — but we got the emeralds.”

“Where?”

“In Professor Liskard’s pocket.”

“Professor Liskard?”

“Surprises you, too? Frankly I don’t know what to think. He looked as astonished as a baby, stared at them, said he hadn’t the faintest idea how they got in his pocket, and dammit, I believe he was speaking the truth! Varesco could have slipped them into his pocket easily enough in the blackout. I can’t see a man like old Liskard being mixed up in this sort of business. He belongs to all these highfalutin’ societies. Why, he’s even connected with the British Museum! The only thing he ever spends money on is books, and musty old second-hand books at that. No, he doesn’t fit. I’m beginning to think we’re wrong about the whole thing — there never has been any dope in that club.”

“Oh, yes, there has, my friend. It was there tonight. Tell me, did no one come out through your secret way?”

“Yes, Prince Henry of Scandenberg and his equerry — he only arrived in England yesterday. Vitamian Evans, the Cabinet Minister, and Lady Beatrice Viner was the last — she’s getting married the day after tomorrow to the priggish young Duke of Leominster. I don’t believe any of that lot was mixed up in this.”

“You believe rightly. Nevertheless, the dope was in the club and someone took it out of the club.”

“Who did?”

“I did, mon ami," said Poirot softly.

He replaced the receiver, cutting off Japp’s spluttering noises, as a bell trilled out. He went and opened the front door. The Countess Rossakoff sailed in.

“If it were not that we are, alas, too old, how compromising this would be!” she exclaimed. “You see, I have come, as you told me to do in your note. There is, Г think, a policeman behind me, but he can stay in the street. And now, my friend, what is it?”

Poirot gallantly relieved her of her furs.

“Why did you put those emeralds in Professor Liskard’s pocket?” he demanded. “Ce n’est pas gentille, ce que vous avez fait la!”

The Countess’s eyes opened wide.

“Naturally, it was in your pocket I meant to put the emeralds!”

“Oh, in my pocket?”

“Certainly. I cross hurriedly to the table where you usually sit — but the lights they are out and I suppose, by inadvertence, I put them in the Professor’s pocket.”

“And why did you wish to put stolen emeralds in my pocket?”

“It seemed to me — I had to think quickly, you understand — the best thing to do!”

“Really, Vera, you are impayable!”

“But, dear friend, consider! The police arrive, the lights go out — our little private arrangement for the patrons who must not be embarrassed — and a hand takes^- my bag off the table. I snatch it back, but I feel through the velvet something hard inside. I slip my hand in, I find what I know by touch to be jewels, and I comprehend at once who has put them there!”

“Oh, you do?”

“Of course I do! It is that lizard, that monster, that double-faced, double-crossing squiriming adder of a pig’s son, Paul Varesco.”

“The man who is your partner in Hell?”

“Yes, yes, it is he who owns the place, who put up the money. Until now I do not betray him — I can keep faith, me! But now that he double-crosses me, that he tries to embroil me with the police — ah! now I will spit his name out — yes, spit it out!”

“Calm yourself,” said Poirot, “and come with me into the next room.”

He opened the door. It was a small room and seemed for a moment to be completely filled with a dog. Cerberus had looked outsized even in the spacious premises of Hell. In the tiny dining-room of Poirot’s service flat.there seemed nothing else but Cerberus in the room. There was also, however, the small man with a red nose.

“We’ve turned up here according to plan, guv’nor,” said the little man in a husky voice.

“Dou-dou!” screamed the Countess. “My angel Dou-dou!” Cerberus beat the floor with his tail — but he did not move.

“Let me introduce you to Mr. William Higgs,” shouted Poirot, above the thunder of Cerberus’s tail. “A master in his profession. During the brouhaha tonight,” went on Poirot, “Mr. Higgs induced Cerberus to follow him up out of Hell.”

"You induced him?” The Countess stared incredulously at the small ratlike figure. “But how? How?”

Mr. Higgs dropped his eyes bashfully.

“ ’Ardly like to say afore a lady. But there’s things no dogs won’t resist. Follow me anywhere a dog will if I want ’im to.”

The Countess Rossakoff turned on Poirot.

“But why? Why?”

Poirot said slowly, “A dog trained for the purpose will carry an article in his mouth until he is commanded to loose it. He will carry it if need be for hours. Will you now tell your dog to drop what he holds?”

Vera Rossakoff stared, turned, and uttered two crisp words.

The great jaws of Cerberus opened. Poirot stepped forward. He picked up a small package encased in pink spongebag rubber. He unwrapped it. Inside it was a packet of white powder.

“What is it?” the Countess demanded sharply.

Poirot said softly, “Cocaine. Such a small quantity, it would seem — but enough to be worth thousands of pounds to those willing to pay for it. Enough to bring ruin and misery to several hundred people.”

She caught her breath. “And you think that I — but it is not so! I swear to you it is not so! In the past I have amused myself with the jewels, the bibelots, the little curiosities — it all helps one to live, you understand. And what I feel is, why not? Why should one person own a thing more than another?"

“Just what I feel about dogs,” Mr. Higgs chimed in.

“You have no sense of right or wrong,” said Poirot sadly to the Countess.

She went on, “But drugs — that, no! For there one causes misery, pain, degeneration! I had no idea — no faintest idea — that my so charming, so innocent, so delightful little Hell was being used for that purpose!”

“I agrees with you about dope,” said Mr. Higgs. “Doping of greyhounds — that’s dirty, that is! I wouldn’t never have nothing to do with anything like that.”

“But say you believe me, my friend,” implored the Countess.

“But of course I believe you! Have I not taken time and trouble to convict the real organizer of the dope racket. Have I not performed the twelfth Labor of Hercules and brought Cerberus up from Hell to prove my case? For I tell you this, I do not like to see my friends framed — yes, framed — for it was you who were intended to take the rap if things went wrong! It was in your handbag the emeralds would have been found and if anyone had been clever enough to suspect a hiding place in the mouth of a savage dog — eh bien, he is your dog, is he not? Even if he has accepted la petite Alice to the point of obeying her orders also!

“Yes, you may well open your eyes! From the first I did not like that young lady with her scientific jargon and her coat and skirt with the big pockets. Yes, pockets. Unnatural that any woman should be so disdainful of her appearance! And what does she say to me — that it is fundamentals that count! Aha, what is fundamental is pockets. Pockets, in which she can carry drugs and take away jewels — a little exchange easily made while she is dancing with her accomplice whom she pretends to regard as a psychological case.

“Aha, but what a cover! No one suspects the earnest, the scientific psychologist with a medical degree and spectacles. She can smuggle in drugs, and induce her rich patients to form the habit, and put up the money for a night club and arrange that it shall be run by someone with — shall we say, a little weakness in her past! But she despises Hercule Poirot, she thinks she can deceive him with her talk of nursery governesses and vests!

"Eh bien, I am ready for her. The lights go off. Quickly I rise from my table and go to stand by Cerberus. In the darkness I hear her come. She opens his mouth and forces in the package, and I — delicately, unfelt by her, I snip with a tiny pair of scissors a little piece of her sleeve.”

Dramatically he produced a sliver of material.

“You observe — the identical checked tweed — and I will give it to Japp to fit it back where it belongs — and make the arrest — and say how clever once more has been Scotland Yard.”

The Countess Rossakoff stared at him. Suddenly she let out a wail like a foghorn.

“But my Niki — my Niki. This will be terrible for him—” She paused. “Or do you think not?”

“There are a lot of other girls in America,” said Hercule Poirot.

“And but for you his mother would be in prison — in prison — with her hair cut off — sitting in a cell — and smelling of disinfectant! Ah, but you are wonderful — wonderful.”

Surging forward, she clasped Poirot in her arms.

A week later Miss Lemon brought a bill for the flowers to her employer.

“Excuse me, Monsieur Poirot. Is it in order for me to pay this? ‘Leonora, Florist. Red roses. Eleven pounds, eight shillings. Sent to Countess Vera Rossakoff, Hell.”

As the hue of red roses so were the cheeks of Hercule Poirot.

“Perfectly in order, Miss Lemon. A little — er — tribute to an occasion. The Countess’s son has just become engaged in America — to the daughter of his employer, a steel magnate. Red roses are — I seem to remember — her favorite flower.”

“Quite,” said Miss Lemon. “They’re very expensive tins time of year.”

Hercule Poirot drew himself up. “There are moments," he said, “when one does not economize.”

Humming a little tune, he went out of the door. His step was light, almost sprightly. Miss Lemon stared after him. Her filing system was forgotten. All her feminine instincts were aroused.

"Good gracious," she murmured. “I wonder… Really — at his age!”