v

hercule poirot descended from his taxi, paid the man and rang the bell of 58, queen charlotte

street.

after a little delay it was opened by a boy in page boy’s uniform with a freckled face, red hair,

and an earnest manner.

hercule poirot said:

“mr. morley?”

there was in his heart a ridiculous hope that mr. morley might have been called away, might be

indisposed, might not be seeing patients today … all in vain. the page boy drew back, hercule

poirot stepped inside, and the door closed behind him with the quiet remorselessness of

unalterable doom.

the boy said: “name, please?”

poirot gave it to him, a door on the right of the hall was thrown open and he stepped into the

waiting room.

it was a room furnished in quiet good taste and, to hercule poirot, indescribably gloomy. on the

polished (reproduction) sheraton table were carefully arranged papers and periodicals. the

(reproduction) hepplewhite sideboard held two sheffield plated candlesticks and an épergne. the

mantelpiece held a bronze clock and two bronze vases. the windows were shrouded by curtains of

blue velvet. the chairs were upholstered in a jacobean design of red birds and flowers.

in one of them sat a military- looking gentleman with a fierce moustache and a yellow

complexion. he looked at poirot with an air of one considering some noxious insect. it was not so

much his gun he looked as though he wished he had with him, as his flit spray. poirot, eyeing him

with distaste, said to himself, “in verity, there are some englishmen who are altogether so

unpleasing and ridiculous that they should have been put out of their misery at birth.”

the military gentleman, after a prolonged glare, snatched up the times, turned his chair so as to

avoid seeing poirot, and settled down to read it.

poirot picked up punch.

he went through it meticulously, but failed to find any of the jokes funny.

the page boy came in and said, “colonel arrow-bumby?”—and the military gentleman was led

away.

poirot was speculating on the probabilities of there really being such a name, when the door

opened to admit a young man of about thirty.

as the young man stood by the table, restlessly flicking over the covers of magazines, poirot

looked at him sideways. an unpleasant and dangerous looking young man, he thought, and not

impossibly a murderer. at any rate he looked far more like a murderer than any of the murderers

hercule poirot had arrested in the course of his career.

the page boy opened the door and said to midair:

“mr. peerer.”

rightly construing this as a summons to himself, poirot rose. the boy led him to the back of the

hall and round the corner to a small lift in which he took him up to the second floor. here he led

him along a passage, opened a door which led into a little anteroom, tapped at a second door; and

without waiting for a reply opened it and stood back for poirot to enter.

poirot entered to a sound of running water and came round the back of the door to discover mr.

morley washing his hands with professional gusto at a basin on the wall.