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III
Major Porter had the first floor of a small shabby house. They were admitted by a cheerful blowsy-
looking woman who took them up. It was a square room with bookshelves round it and some
rather bad sporting prints. There were two rugs on the floor—good rugs with lovely dim colour but
very worn. Poirot noticed that the centre of the floor was covered with a new heavy varnish
whereas the varnish round the edge was old and rubbed. He realized then that there had been other
better rugs until recently—rugs that were worth good money in these days. He looked up at the
man standing erect by the fireplace in his well-cut shabby suit. Poirot guessed that for Major
Porter, retired Army officer, life was lived very near the bone. Taxation and increased cost of
living struck hardest at the old war-horses. Some things, he guessed, Major Porter would cling to
until the end. His club subscription, for instance.
Major Porter was speaking jerkily.
“’Fraid I don’t remember meeting you, M. Poirot. At the club, you say? Couple of years
ago? Know your name of course.”
“This,” said Poirot, “is Mr. Rowland Cloade.”
Major Porter jerked his head in honour of the introduction.
“How d’ye do?” he said. “’Fraid I can’t ask you to have a glass of sherry. Matter of
fact my wine merchant has lost his stock in the Blitz. Got some gin. Filthy stuff, I always think. Or
what about some beer?”
They accepted beer. Major Porter produced a cigarette case. “Smoke?” Poirot accepted a
cigarette. The Major struck a match and lighted Poirot’s cigarette.
“You don’t, I know,” said the Major to Rowley: “Mind if I light my pipe?” He did so
with a good deal of sucking and blowing.
“Now then,” he said when all these preliminaries had been accomplished. “What’s all this
about?”
He looked from one to the other of them.
Poirot said: “You may have read in the paper of the death of a man at Warmsley Vale?”
Porter shook his head.
“May have. Don’t think so.”
“His name was Arden. Enoch Arden?”
Porter still shook his head.
“He was found at the Stag Inn with the back of his head smashed in.”
Porter frowned.
“Let me see—yes, did see something about it, I believe—some days ago.”
“Yes. I have here a photograph—it is a press photograph and not very clear, I’m afraid!
What we should like to know, Major Porter, is whether you have ever seen this man before?”
He handed over the best reproduction of the dead man’s face he had been able to find.
Major Porter took it and frowned at it.
“Wait a sec.” The Major took out his spectacles, adjusted them on his nose and studied the
photograph more closely—then he gave a sudden start.
“God bless my soul!” he said. “Well, I’m damned!”
“You know the man, Major?”
“Of course I know him. It’s Underhay—Robert Underhay.”
“You’re sure of that?” There was triumph in Rowley’s voice.
“Of course I’m sure. Robert Underhay! I’d swear to it anywhere.”
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