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V
Marie Hellin looked swiftly at Poirot out of small intelligent eyes and as swiftly looked away
again. She said in smooth, even tones:
“But I remember perfectly, Monsieur. I was engaged by Madame Samoushenka the last week
in June. Her former maid had departed in a hurry.”
“Did you ever hear why that maid left?”
“She went—suddenly—that is all I know! It may have been illness—something of that kind.
Madame did not say.”
Poirot said:
“Did you find your mistress easy to get on with?”
The girl shrugged her shoulders.
“She had great moods. She wept and laughed in turns. Sometimes she was so despondent she
would not speak or eat. Sometimes she was wildly gay. They are like that, these dancers. It is
temperament.”
“And Sir George?”
The girl looked up alertly. An unpleasant gleam came into her eyes.
“Ah, Sir George Sanderfield? You would like to know about him? Perhaps it is that that you
really want to know? The other was only an excuse, eh? Ah, Sir George, I could tell you some
curious things about him, I could tell you—”
Poirot interrupted:
“It is not necessary.”
She stared at him, her mouth open. Angry disappointment showed in her eyes.
VI
“I always say you know everything, Alexis Pavlovitch.”
Hercule Poirot murmured the words with his most flattering intonation.
He was reflecting to himself that his third Labor of Hercules had necessitated more travelling
and more interviews than could have been imagined possible. This little matter of a missing lady’s
maid was proving one of the longest and most difficult problems he had ever tackled. Every clue,
when examined, led exactly nowhere.
It had brought him this evening to the Samovar Restaurant in Paris whose proprietor, Count
Alexis Pavlovitch, prided himself on knowing everything that went on in the artistic world.
He nodded now complacently:
“Yes, yes, my friend, I know—I always know. You ask me where she is gone—the little
Samoushenka, the exquisite dancer? Ah! she was the real thing, that little one.” He kissed his
fingertips. “What fire—what abandon! She would have gone far—she would have been the
Première Ballerina of her day—and then suddenly it all ends—she creeps away—to the end of the
world—and soon, ah! so soon, they forget her.”
“Where is she then?” demanded Poirot.
“In Switzerland. At Vagray les Alpes. It is there that they go, those who have the little dry
cough and who grow thinner and thinner. She will die, yes, she will die! She has a fatalistic nature.
She will surely die.”
Poirot coughed to break the tragic spell. He wanted information.
“You do not, by chance, remember a maid she had? A maid called Nita Valetta?”
“Valetta? Valetta? I remember seeing a maid once—at the station when I was seeing Katrina
off to London. She was an Italian from Pisa, was she not? Yes, I am sure she was an Italian who
came from Pisa.”
Hercule Poirot groaned.
“In that case,” he said, “I must now journey to Pisa.”
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