you have Sir George Stubbs. What is thought locally of him?’
‘Us understands,’ said the old man, ‘that he be powerful rich.’
His tone sounded dry and almost amused.
‘And his wife?’
‘Ah, she’s a fine lady from London, she is. No use for gardens, not her. They du say, tu, as her du be wanting up here.’
He tapped his temple significantly.
‘Not as her isn’t always very nice spoken and friendly. Just over a year they’ve been here. Bought the place and had it all done up like new. I remember as though ’twere yesterday them arriving. Arrived in the evening, they did, day after the worst gale as I ever remember. Trees down right and left – one down across the drive and us had to get it sawn away in a hurry to get the drive clear for the car. And the big oak up along, that come down and brought a lot of others down with it, made a rare mess, it did.’
‘Ah, yes, where the Folly stands now?’
The old man turned aside and spat disgustedly.
‘Folly ’tis called and Folly ’tis – new-fangled nonsense. Never was no Folly in the old Folliats’ time. Her ladyship’s idea that Folly was. Put up not three weeks after they first come, and I’ve no doubt she talked Sir George into it. Rare silly it looks stuck up there among the trees, like a heathen temple. A nice summer-house now, made rustic like with stained glass. I’d have nothing against that.’
Poirot smiled faintly.
‘The London ladies,’ he said, ‘they must have their fancies. It is sad that the day of the Folliats is over.’
‘Don’t ee never believe that, sir.’ The old man gave a wheezy chuckle. ‘Always be Folliats at Nasse.’
‘But the house belongs to Sir George Stubbs.’
‘That’s as may be – but there’s still a Folliat here. Ah! Rare and cunning the Folliats are!’
‘What do you mean?’
The old man gave him a sly sideways glance.
‘Mrs Folliat be living up tu Lodge, bain’t she?’ he demanded.
‘Yes,’ said Poirot slowly. ‘Mrs Folliat is living at the Lodge and the world is very wicked, and all the people in it are very wicked.’
The old man stared at him.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Yu’ve got something there, maybe.’
He shuffled away again.
‘But what have I got?’ Poirot asked himself with irritation as he slowly walked up the hill back to the house.
II
Hercule Poirot made a meticulous toilet, applying a scented pomade to his moustaches and twirling them to a ferocious couple of points. He stood back from the mirror and was satisfied with what he saw.
The sound of a gong resounded through the house, and he descended the stairs.
The butler, having finished a most artistic performance, crescendo, forte, diminuendo, rallentando, was just replacing the gong stick on its hook. His dark melancholy face showed pleasure.
Poirot thought to himself: ‘A blackmailing letter from the housekeeper – or it may be the butler…’ This butler looked as though blackmailing letters would be well within his scope. Poirot wondered if Mrs Oliver took her characters from life.
Miss Brewis crossed the hall in an unbecoming flowered chiffon dress and he caught up with her, asking as he did so:
‘You have a housekeeper here?’
‘Oh, no, M. Poirot. I’m afraid one doesn’t run to niceties of that kind nowadays, except in a really large establishment, of course. Oh, no, I’m the housekeeper – more housekeeper than secretary, sometimes, in this house.’
She gave a short acid laugh.
‘So you are the housekeeper?’ Poirot considered her thoughtfully.
He could not see Miss Brewis writing a blackmailing letter. Now, an anonymous letter – that would be a different thing. He had known anonymous letters written by women not unlike Miss Brewis – solid, dependable women, totally unsuspected by those around them.
‘What is your butler’s name?’ he asked.
‘Henden.’ Miss Brewis looked a little astonished.
Poirot recollected himself and explained quickly:
‘I ask because I had a fancy I had seen him somewhere before.’
‘Very likely,’ said Miss Brewis. ‘None of these people ever seem to stay in any place more than four months. They must soon have done the round of all the available situations in England. After all, it’s not many people who can afford butlers and cooks nowadays.’
They came into the drawing-room, where Sir George, looking somehow rather unnatural in a dinner-jacket, was proffering sherry. Mrs Oliver, in iron-grey satin, was looking like an obsolete battleship, and Lady Stubbs’ smooth black head was bent down as she studied the fashions in Vogue.
Alec and Sally Legge were dining and also Jim Warburton.
‘We’ve a heavy evening ahead of us,’ he warned them. ‘No bridge tonight. All hands to the pumps. There are any amount of notices to print, and the big card for the Fortune Telling. What name shall we have? Madame Zuleika? Esmeralda? Or Romany Leigh, the Gipsy Queen?’
‘The Eastern touch,’ said Sally. ‘Everyone in agricultural districts hates gipsies. Zuleika sounds all right. I brought my paint box over and I thought Michael could do us a curling snake to ornament the notice.’
‘Cleopatra rather than Zuleika, then?’
Henden appeared at the door.
‘Dinner is served, my lady.’
They went in. There were candles on the long table. The room was full of shadows.
Warburton and Alec Legge sat on either side of their hostess. Poirot was between Mrs Oliver and Miss Brewis. The latter was engaged in brisk general conversation about further details of preparation for tomorrow.
Mrs Oliver sat in brooding abstraction and hardly spoke.
When she did at last break her silence, it was with a somewhat contradictory explanation.
‘Don’t bother about me,’ she said to Poirot. ‘I’m just remembering if there’s anything I’ve forgotten.’
Sir George laughed heartily.
‘The fatal flaw, eh?’ he remarked.
‘That’s just it,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘There always is one. Sometimes one doesn’t realize it until a book’s actually in print. And then it’s agony!’ Her face reflected this emotion. She sighed. ‘The curious thing is that most people never notice it. I say to myself, “But of course the cook would have been bound to notice that two cutlets hadn’t been eaten.” But nobody else thinks of it at all.’
‘You fascinate me.’ Michael Weyman leant across the table. ‘The Mystery of the Second Cutlet. Please, please never explain. I shall wonder about it in my bath.’
Mrs Oliver gave him an abstracted smile and relapsed into her preoccupations.
Lady Stubbs was also silent. Now and again she yawned. Warburton, Alec Legge and Miss Brewis talked across her.
As they came out of the dining-room, Lady Stubbs stopped by the stairs.
‘I’m going to bed,’ she announced. ‘I’m very sleepy.’
‘Oh, Lady Stubbs,’ exclaimed Miss Brewis, ‘there’s so much to be done. We’ve been counting on you to help us.’
‘Yes,