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Chapter Nineteen
I
“But it is beautiful, my friend,” said Hercule Poirot with admiration. “So clear—so beautifully
clear.”
“You sound as if you were talking about soup,” grumbled the inspector. “It may be Consommé
to you—but to me there’s a good deal of thick Mock Turtle about it still.”
“Not now. Everything fits in in its appointed place.”
“Even these?”
As he had done to Mrs. Hubbard, Inspector Sharpe produced his exhibit of two red hairs.
Poirot’s answer was almost in the same words as Sharpe had used.
“Ah—yes,” he said. “What do you call it on the radio? The one deliberate mistake.”
The eyes of the two men met.
“No one,” said Hercule Poirot, “is as clever as they think they are.”
Inspector Sharpe was greatly tempted to say:
“Not even Hercule Poirot?” but he restrained himself.
“For the other, my friend, it is all fixed?”
“Yes, the balloon goes up tomorrow.”
“You go yourself?”
“No. I’m scheduled to appear at 26 Hickory Road. Cobb will be in charge.”
“We will wish him good luck.”
Gravely, Hercule Poirot raised his glass. It contained crème de menthe.
Inspector Sharpe raised his whisky glass.
“Here’s hoping,” he said.
II
“They do think up things, these places,” said Sergeant Cobb.
He was looking with grudging admiration at the display window of SABRINA FAIR. Framed
and enclosed in an expensive illustration of the glassmaker’s art—the “glassy green translucent
wave”—Sabrina was displayed, recumbent, clad in brief and exquisite panties and happily
surrounded with every variety of deliciously packaged cosmetics. Besides the panties she wore
various examples of barbaric costume jewellery.
Detective-Constable McCrae gave a snort of deep disapproval.
“Blasphemy, I call it. Sabrina Fair, that’s Milton, that is.”
“Well, Milton isn’t the Bible, my lad.”
“You’ll not deny that Paradise Lost is about Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden and all the
devils of hell and if that’s not religion, what is?”
Sergeant Cobb did not enter on these controversial matters. He marched boldly into the
establishment, the dour constable at his heels. In the shell pink interior of Sabrina Fair the sergeant
and his satellite looked as out of place as the traditional bull in a china shop.
An exquisite creature in delicate salmon pink swam up to them, her feet hardly seeming to
touch the floor.
Sergeant Cobb said, “Good morning, madam,” and produced his credentials. The lovely
creature withdrew in a flutter. An equally lovely but slightly older creature appeared. She in turn
gave way to a superb and resplendent duchess whose blue grey hair and smooth cheeks set age and
wrinkles at nought. Appraising steel grey eyes met the steady gaze of Sergeant Cobb.
“This is most unusual,” said the duchess severely. “Please come this way.”
She led him through a square salon with a centre table where magazines and periodicals were
heaped carelessly. All round the walls were curtained recesses where glimpses could be obtained
of recumbent women supine under the ministrant hands of pink robed priestesses.
The duchess led the police officers into a small businesslike apartment with a big roll top desk,
severe chairs, and no softening of the harsh northern light.
“I am Mrs. Lucas, the proprietress of this establishment,” she said. “My partner, Miss
Hobhouse, is not here today.”
“No, madam,” said Sergeant Cobb, to whom this was no news.
“This search warrant of yours seems to be most high-handed,” said Mrs. Lucas. “This is Miss
Hobhouse’s private office. I sincerely hope that it will not be necessary for you to—er—upset our
clients in any way.”
“I don’t think you need to worry unduly on that score,” said Cobb. “What we’re after isn’t
likely to be in the public rooms.”
He waited politely until she unwillingly withdrew. Then he looked round Valerie Hobhouse’s
office. The narrow window gave a view of the back premises of the other Mayfair firms. The walls
were panelled in pale grey and there were two good Persian rugs on the floor. His eyes went from
the small wall safe to the big desk.
“Won’t be in the safe,” said Cobb. “Too obvious.”
A quarter of an hour later, the safe and the drawers of the desk had yielded up their secrets.
“Looks like it’s maybe a mare’s nest,” said McCrae, who was by nature both gloomy and
disapproving.
“We’re only beginning,” said Cobb.
Having emptied the drawers of their contents and arranged the latter neatly in piles, he now
proceeded to take the drawers out and turn them upside down.
He uttered an ejaculation of pleasure.
“Here we are, my lad,” he said.
Fastened to the underneath side of the bottom drawer with adhesive tape were a half-dozen
small dark blue books with gilt lettering.
“Passports,” said Sergeant Cobb. “Issued by Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs, God bless his trusting heart.”
McCrae bent over with interest as Cobb opened the passports and compared the affixed
photographs.
“Hardly think it was the same woman, would you?” said McCrae.
The passports were those of Mrs. da Silva, Miss Irene French, Mrs. Olga Kohn, Miss Nina Le
Mesurier, Mrs. Gladys Thomas, and Miss Moira O’Neele. They represented a dark young woman
whose age varied between twenty-five and forty.
“It’s the different hairdo every time that does it,” said Cobb. “Pompadour, curls, straight cut,
page boy bob, etc. She’s done something to her nose for Olga Kohn, plumpers in her cheeks for
Mrs. Thomas. Here are two more—foreign passports—Madame Mahmoudi, Algerian. Sheila
Donovan, Eire. I’ll say she’s got bank accounts in all these different names.”
“Bit complicated, isn’t that?”
“It has to be complicated, my lad. Inland Revenue always snooping round asking embarrassing
questions. It’s not so difficult to make money by smuggling goods—but it’s hell and all to account
for money when you’ve got it! I bet this little gambling club in Mayfair was started by the lady for
just that reason. Winning money by gambling is about the only thing an income tax inspector can’t
check up on. A good part of the loot, I should say, is cached around in Algerian and French banks
and in Eire. The whole thing’s a thoroughly well thought out businesslike setup. And then, one
day, she must have had one of these fake passports lying about at Hickory Road and that poor little
devil Celia saw it.”
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