牙医谋杀案21

VI

On the following morning, Poirot went to the Holborn Palace Hotel and asked for Mr. HowardRaikes.

By this time it would hardly have surprised him to hear that Mr. Howard Raikes, too, hadstepped out one evening and had never returned.

Mr. Howard Raikes, however, was still at the Holborn Palace and was said to be breakfasting.

The apparition¹ of Hercule Poirot at the breakfast table seemed to give Mr. Howard Raikesdoubtful pleasure.

Though not looking so murderous as in Poirot’s disordered recollection of him, his scowl² wasstill formidable—he stared at his uninvited guest and said ungraciously:

“What the hell?”

“You permit?”

Hercule Poirot drew a chair from another table.

Mr. Raikes said:

“Don’t mind me! Sit down and make yourself at home!”

Poirot smiling availed himself of the permission.

Mr. Raikes said ungraciously:

“Well, what do you want?”

“Do you remember me at all, Mr. Raikes?”

“Never set eyes on you in my life.”

“There you are wrong. You sat in the same room with me for at least five minutes not more thanthree days ago.”

“I can’t remember every one I meet at some Goddamned party or other.”

“It was not a party,” said Poirot. “It was a dentist’s waiting room.”

Some swift emotion flashed into the young man’s eyes and died again at once. His mannerchanged. It was no longer impatient and casual. It became suddenly wary³. He looked across atPoirot and said:

“Well!”

Poirot studied him carefully before replying. He felt, quite positively⁴, that this was indeed adangerous young man. A lean hungry face, an aggressive jaw⁵, the eyes of a fanatic⁶. It was a face,though, that women might find attractive. He was untidily, even shabbily dressed, and he ate witha careless voraciousness⁷ that was, so the man watching him thought, significant.

Poirot summed him up to himself.

“It is a wolf with ideas….”

Raikes said harshly:

“What the hell do you mean—coming here like this?”

“My visit is disagreeable to you?”

“I don’t even know who you are.”

“I apologize.”

Dexterously⁸ Poirot whipped out his card case. He extracted a card and passed it across the table.

Again that emotion that he could not quite define showed upon Mr. Raikes’ lean face. It was notfear—it was more aggressive than fear. After it, quite unquestionably, came anger.

He tossed the card back.

“So that’s who you are, is it? I’ve heard of you.”

“Most people have,” said Hercule Poirot modestly.

“You’re a private dick, aren’t you? The expensive kind. The kind people hire when money is noobject—when it’s worth paying anything in order to save their miserable⁹ skins!”

“If you do not drink your coffee,” said Hercule Poirot, “it will get cold.”

He spoke¹⁰ kindly¹¹ and with authority.

Raikes stared at him.

“Say, just what kind of an insect are you?”

“The coffee in this country is very bad anyway—” said Poirot.

“I’ll say it is,” agreed Mr. Raikes with fervour.

“But if you allow it to get cold it is practically undrinkable.”

The young man leant forward.

“What are you getting at? What’s the big idea in coming round here?”

Poirot shrugged¹² his shoulders.

“I wanted to—see you.”

“Oh yes?” said Mr. Raikes sceptically.

His eyes narrowed.

“If it’s the money you’re after, you’ve come to the wrong man! The people I’m in with can’tafford to buy what they want. Better go back to the man who pays your salary.”

Poirot said, sighing:

“Nobody has paid me anything—yet.”

“You’re telling me,” said Mr. Raikes.

“It is the truth,” said Hercule Poirot. “I am wasting a good deal of valuable time for norecompense whatsoever¹³. Simply, shall we say, to assuage¹⁴ my curiosity.”

“And I suppose,” said Mr. Raikes, “you were just assuaging¹⁵ your curiosity at that darneddentist’s the other day.”

Poirot shook his head. He said:

“You seem to overlook the most ordinary reason for being in a dentist’s waiting room—whichis that one is waiting to have one’s teeth attended to.”

“So that’s what you were doing?” Mr. Raikes’ tone expressed contemptuous unbelief. “Waitingto have your teeth seen to?”

“Certainly.”

“You’ll excuse me if I say I don’t believe it.”

“May I ask then, Mr. Raikes, what you were doing there?”

Mr. Raikes grinned suddenly. He said:

“Got you there! I was waiting to have my teeth seen to also.”

“You had perhaps the toothache?”

“That’s right, big boy.”

“But all the same, you went away without having your teeth attended to?”

“What if I did? That’s my business.”

He paused—then he said, with a quick savagery¹⁶ of tone: “Oh, what the hell’s the use of all thisslick talking? You were there to look after your big shot. Well, he’s all right, isn’t he? Nothinghappened to your precious Mr. Alistair Blunt. You’ve nothing on me.”

Poirot said:

“Where did you go when you went so abruptly¹⁷ out of the waiting room?”

“Left the house, of course.”

“Ah!” Poirot looked up at the ceiling.

“But nobody saw you leave, Mr. Raikes.”

“Does that matter?”

“It might. Somebody died in that house not long afterwards, remember.”

Raikes said carelessly:

“Oh, you mean the dentist fellow.”

Poirot’s tone was hard as he said:

“Yes, I mean the dentist fellow.”

Raikes stared. He said:

“You trying to pin that on me? Is that the game? Well, you can’t do it. I’ve just read the accountof the inquest yesterday. The poor devil shot himself because he’d made a mistake with a localanesthetic and one of his patients died.”

Poirot went on unmoved: “Can you prove that you left the house when you say you did? Is thereanyone who can say definitely where you were between twelve and one?”

The other’s eyes narrowed.

“So you are trying to pin it on me? I suppose Blunt put you up to this?”

Poirot sighed. He said:

“You will pardon me, but it seems an obsession¹⁸ with you—this persistent¹⁹ harping²⁰ on Mr.

Alistair Blunt. I am not employed by him, I never have been employed by him. I am concerned,not with his safety, but with the death of a man who did good work in his chosen profession.”

Raikes shook his head.

“Sorry,” he said, “I don’t believe you. You’re Blunt’s private dick all right.” His face darkenedas he leaned across the table. “But you can’t save him, you know. He’s got to go—he andeverything he stands for! There’s got to be a new deal—the old corrupt²¹ system of finance has gotto go—this cursed net of bankers all over the world like a spider’s web. They’ve got to be sweptaway. I’ve nothing against Blunt personally—but he’s the type of man I hate. He’s mediocre—he’s smug. He’s the sort you can’t move unless you use dynamite²². He’s the sort of man who says,‘You can’t disrupt the foundations of civilization.’ Can’t you, though? Let him wait and see! He’san obstruction²³ in the way of Progress and he’s got to be removed. There’s no room in the worldtoday for men like Blunt—men who hark back to the past—men who want to live as their fatherslived or even as their grandfathers lived! You’ve got a lot of them here in England—crusted olddiehards—useless, worn-out symbols of a decayed era. And, my God, they’ve got to go! There’sgot to be a new world. Do you get me—a new world, see?”

Poirot sighed and rose. He said:

“I see, Mr. Raikes, that you are an idealist.”

“What if I am?”

“Too much of an idealist to care about the death of a dentist.”

Mr. Raikes said scornfully:

“What does the death of one miserable dentist matter?”

Hercule Poirot said:

“It does not matter to you. It matters to me. That is the difference between us.”

 

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