Poirot Investigates
the letters she received?”
Lady Yardly shook her head regretfully. “I’m afraid I don’t. It is
stupid of me. But, you see, I never dreamt of taking them
seriously.”
“You’ll stay the night?” said Lord Yardly.
“Oh, _milord_, I fear to incommode you. We have left our bags at
the inn.”
“That’s all right.” Lord Yardly had his cue. “We’ll send down for
them. No, no—no trouble, I assure you.”
Poirot permitted himself to be persuaded, and sitting down by Lady
Yardly, began to make friends with the children. In a short time
they were all romping together, and had dragged me into the game.
“_Vous êtes bonne mère_,” said Poirot, with a gallant little bow,
as the children were removed reluctantly by a stern nurse.
Lady Yardly smoothed her ruffled hair.
“I adore them,” she said with a little catch in her voice.
“And they you—with reason!” Poirot bowed again.
A dressing-gong sounded, and we rose to go up to our rooms. At that
moment the butler entered with a telegram on a salver which he
handed to Lord Yardly. The latter tore it open with a brief word
of apology. As he read it he stiffened visibly.
With an ejaculation, he handed it to his wife. Then he glanced at
my friend.
“Just a minute, Monsieur Poirot. I feel you ought to know about
this. It’s from Hoffberg. He thinks he’s found a customer for the
diamond—an American, sailing for the States to-morrow. They’re
sending down a chap to-night to vet the stone. By Jove, though, if
this goes through——” Words failed him.
Lady Yardly had turned away. She still held the telegram in her
hand.
“I wish you wouldn’t sell it, George,” she said, in a low voice.
“It’s been in the family so long.” She waited, as though for a
reply, but when none came her face hardened. She shrugged her
shoulders. “I must go and dress. I suppose I had better display
‘the goods.’” She turned to Poirot with a slight grimace. “It’s
one of the most hideous necklaces that was ever designed! George
has always promised to have the stones reset for me, but it’s never
been done.” She left the room.
Half an hour later, we three were assembled in the great drawing-room
awaiting the lady. It was already a few minutes past the dinner
hour.
Suddenly there was a low rustle, and Lady Yardly appeared framed
in the doorway, a radiant figure in a long white shimmering dress.
Round the column of her neck was a rivulet of fire. She stood there
with one hand just touching the necklace.
“Behold the sacrifice,” she said gaily. Her ill-humour seemed to
have vanished. “Wait while I turn the big light on and you shall
feast your eyes on the ugliest necklace in England.”
The switches were just outside the door. As she stretched out her
hand to them, the incredible thing happened. Suddenly without any
warning, every light was extinguished, the door banged, and from
the other side of it came a long-drawn piercing woman’s scream.
“My God!” cried Lord Yardly. “That was Maude’s voice! What has
happened?”
We rushed blindly for the door, cannoning into each other in the
darkness. It was some minutes before we could find it. What a sight
met our eyes! Lady Yardly lay senseless on the marble floor, a
crimson mark on her white throat where the necklace had been
wrenched from her neck.
As we bent over her, uncertain for the moment whether she were dead
or alive, her eyelids opened.
“The Chinaman,” she whispered painfully. “The Chinaman—the side
door.”
Lord Yardly sprang up with an oath. I accompanied him, my heart
beating wildly. The Chinaman again! The side door in question was
a small one in the angle of the wall, not more than a dozen yards
from the scene of the tragedy. As we reached it, I gave a cry.
There, just short of the threshold, lay the glittering necklace,
evidently dropped by the thief in the panic of his flight. I
swooped joyously down on it. Then I uttered another cry which Lord
Yardly echoed. For in the middle of the necklace was a great gap.
The Star of the East was missing!
“That settles it,” I breathed. “These were no ordinary thieves.
This one stone was all they wanted.”
“But how did the fellow get in?”
“Through this door.”
“But it’s always locked.”
I shook my head. “It’s not locked now. See.” I pulled it open as
I spoke.
As I did so something fluttered to the ground. I picked it up. It
was a piece of silk, and the embroidery was unmistakable. It had
been torn from a Chinaman’s robe.
“In his haste it caught in the door,” I explained. “Come, hurry.
He cannot have gone far as yet.”
But in vain we hunted and searched. In the pitch darkness of the
night, the thief had found it easy to make his getaway. We returned
reluctantly, and Lord Yardly sent off one of the footmen post-haste
to fetch the police.
Lady Yardly, aptly ministered to by Poirot, who is as good as a
woman in these matters, was sufficiently recovered to be able to
tell her story.
“I was just going to turn on the other light,” she said, “when a
man sprang on me from behind. He tore my necklace from my neck with
such force that I fell headlong to the floor. As I fell I saw him
disappearing through the side door. Then I realized by the pig-tail
and the embroidered robe that he was a Chinaman.” She stopped with
a shudder.
The butler reappeared. He spoke in a low voice to Lord Yardly.
“A gentleman from Mr. Hoffberg’s, m’lord. He says you expect him.”
“Good heavens!” cried the distracted nobleman. “I must see him, I
suppose. No, not here, Mullings, in the library.”
I drew Poirot aside.
“Look here, my dear fellow, hadn’t we better get back to London?”
“You think so, Hastings? Why?”
“Well”—I coughed delicately—“things haven’t gone very well, have
they? I mean, you tell Lord Yardly to place himself in your hands
and all will be well—and then the diamond vanishes from under your
very nose!”
“True,” said Poirot, rather crestfallen. “It was not one of my most
striking triumphs.”
This way of describing events almost caused me to smile, but I
stuck to my guns.
“So, having—pardon the expression—rather made a mess of things,
don’t you think it would be more graceful to leave immediately?”
“And the dinner, the without doubt excellent dinner, that the
_chef_ of Lord Yardly has prepared?”
“Oh, what’s dinner!” I said impatiently.
Poirot held up his hands in horror.
“_Mon Dieu!_ It is that in this country you treat the affairs
gastronomic with a criminal indifference.”
“There’s another reason why we should get back to London as soon
as possible,” I continued.
“What is that, my friend?”
“The other diamond,” I said, lowering my voice. “Miss Marvell’s.”
“_Eh bien_, what of it?”
“Don’t you see?” His unusual obtuseness annoyed me. What had
happened to his usually keen wits? “They’ve got one, now they’ll
go for the other.”
“_Tiens!_” cried Poirot, stepping back a pace and regarding me with
admiration. “But your brain marches to a marvel, my friend! Figure
to yourself that for the moment I had not thought of that! But
there is plenty of time. The full of the moon, it is not until
Friday.”
I shook my head dubiously. The full of the moon theory left me
entirely cold. I had my way with Poirot, however, and we departed
immediately, leaving behind us a note of explanation and apology
for Lord Yardly.
My idea was to go at once to the _Magnificent_, and relate to Miss
Marvell what had occurred, but Poirot vetoed the plan, and insisted
that the morning would be time enough. I gave in rather grudgingly.
In the morning Poirot seemed strangely disinclined to stir out. I
began to suspect that, having made a mistake to start with, he was
singularly loath to proceed with the case. In answer to my
persuasions, he pointed out, with admirable common sense, that as
the details of the affair at Yardly Chase were already in the
morning papers the Rolfs would know quite as much as we could tell
them. I gave way unwillingly.
Events proved my forebodings to be justified. About two o’clock,
the telephone rang. Poirot answered it. He listened for some
moments, then with a brief “_Bien, j’y serai_” he rang off, and
turned to me.
“What do you think, _mon ami_?” He looked half ashamed, half
excited. “The diamond of Miss Marvell, it has been stolen.”
“What?” I cried, springing up. “And what about the ‘full of the
moon’ now?” Poirot hung his head. “When did this happen?”
“This morning, I understand.”
I shook my head sadly. “If only you had listened to me. You see I
was right.”
“It appears so, _mon ami_,” said Poirot cautiously. “Appearances
are deceptive, they say, but it certainly appears so.”
As we hurried in a taxi to the _Magnificent_, I puzzled out the
true inwardness of the scheme.
“That ‘full of the moon’ idea was clever. The whole point of it
was to get us to concentrate on the Friday, and so be off our guard
beforehand. It is a pity you did not realize that.”
“_Ma foi!_” said Poirot airily, his nonchalance quite restored
after its brief eclipse. “One cannot think of everything!”
I felt sorry for him. He did so hate failure of any kind.
“Cheer up,” I said consolingly. “Better luck next time.”
At the _Magnificent_, we were ushered at once into the manager’s
office. Gregory Rolf was there with two men from Scotland Yard. A
pale-faced clerk sat opposite them.
Rolf nodded to us as we entered.
“We’re getting to the bottom of it,” he said. “But it’s almost
unbelievable. How the guy had the nerve I can’t think.”
A very few minutes sufficed to give us the facts. Mr. Rolf had gone
out of the hotel at 11.15. At 11.30, a gentleman, so like him in
appearance as to pass muster, entered the hotel and demanded the
jewel-case from the safe deposit. He duly signed the receipt,
remarking carelessly as he did so: “Looks a bit different from my
ordinary one, but I hurt my hand getting out of the taxi.” The
clerk merely smiled and remarked that he saw very little difference.
Rolf laughed and said: “Well, don’t run me in as a crook this time,
anyway. I’ve been getting threatening letters from a Chinaman, and
the worst of it is I look rather like a Chink myself—it’s something
about the eyes.”
“I looked at him,” said the clerk who was telling us this, “and I
saw at once what he meant. The eyes slanted up at the corners like
an Oriental’s. I’d never noticed it before.”
“Darn it all, man,” roared Gregory Rolf, leaning forward, “do you
notice it now?”
The man looked up at him and started.
“No, sir,” he said. “I can’t say I do.” And indeed there was
nothing even remotely Oriental about the frank brown eyes that
looked into ours.
The Scotland Yard man grunted. “Bold customer. Thought the eyes
might be noticed, and took the bull by the horns to disarm
suspicion. He must have watched you out of the hotel, sir, and
nipped in as soon as you were well away.”
“What about the jewel-case?” I asked.
“It was found in a corridor of the hotel. Only one thing had been
taken—‘the Western Star.’”
We stared at each other—the whole thing was so bizarre, so unreal.
Poirot hopped briskly to his feet. “I have not been of much use,
I fear,” he said regretfully. “Is it permitted to see Madame?”
“I guess she’s prostrated with the shock,” explained Rolf.
“Then perhaps I might have a few words alone with you, monsieur?”
“Certainly.”
In about five minutes Poirot reappeared.
“Now, my friend,” he said gaily. “To a post office. I have to send
a telegram.”
“Who to?”
“Lord Yardly.” He discounted further inquiries by slipping his arm
through mine. “Come, come, _mon ami_. I know all that you feel
about this miserable business. I have not distinguished myself!
You, in my place, might have distinguished yourself! _Bien!_ All
is admitted. Let us forget it and have lunch.”
It was about four o’clock when we entered Poirot’s rooms. A figure