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IV
The day passed without incident. Fortunately the hotel was well provisioned. The manager
explained that there need be no anxiety. Supplies were assured.
Hercule Poirot endeavoured to get into conversation with Dr. Karl Lutz and was rebuffed.
The doctor intimated plainly that psychology was his professional preoccupation and that he was
not going to discuss it with amateurs. He sat in a corner reading a large German tome on the
subconscious and making copious notes and annotations.
Hercule Poirot went outside and wandered aimlessly round to the kitchen premises. There he
entered into conversation with the old man Jacques, who was surly and suspicious. His wife, the
cook, was more forthcoming. Fortunately, she explained to Poirot, there was a large reserve of
tinned food—but she herself thought little of food in tins. It was wickedly expensive and what
nourishment could there be in it? The good God had never intended people to live out of tins.
The conversation came round to the subject of the hotel staff. Early in July the chambermaids
and the extra waiters arrived. But for the next three weeks, there would be nobody or next to
nobody. Mostly people who came up and had lunch and then went back again. She and Jacques
and one waiter could manage that easily.
Poirot asked:
“There was already a waiter here before Gustave came, was there not?”
“But yes, indeed, a poor kind of a waiter. No skill, no experience. No class at all.”
“How long was he here before Gustave replaced him?”
“A few days only—the inside of a week. Naturally he was dismissed. We were not surprised.
It was bound to come.”
Poirot murmured:
“He did not complain unduly?”
“Ah no, he went quietly enough. After all, what could he expect? This is a hotel of good
class. One must have proper service here.”
Poirot nodded. He asked:
“Where did he go?”
“That Robert, you mean?” She shrugged her shoulders. “Doubtless back to the obscure café
he came from.”
“He went down in the funicular?”
She looked at him curiously.
“Naturally, Monsieur. What other way is there to go?”
Poirot asked:
“Did anyone see him go?”
They both stared at him.
“Ah! do you think it likely that one goes to see off an animal like that—that one gives him the
grand farewell? One has one’s own affairs to occupy one.”
“Precisely,” said Hercule Poirot.
He walked slowly away, staring up as he did so at the building above him. A large hotel—
with only one wing open at present. In the other wings were many rooms, closed and shuttered
where no one was likely to enter. . . .
He came round the corner of the hotel and nearly ran into one of the three card-playing men.
It was the one with the pasty face and pale eyes. The eyes looked at Poirot without expression.
Only the lips curled back a little showing the teeth like a vicious horse.
Poirot passed him and went on. There was a figure ahead of him—the tall graceful figure of
Madame Grandier.
He hastened his pace a little and caught her up. He said:
“This accident to the funicular, it is distressing. I hope, Madame, that it has not
inconvenienced you?”
She said:
“It is a matter of indifference to me.”
Her voice was very deep—a full contralto. She did not look at Poirot. She swerved aside and
went into the hotel by a small side door.
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