As for Mary, she seems all right. Never looks at anything but a rose bush as far as I can make out. There's a gardener but he's eighty-three and has lived in the village all his life, and there are a couple of women always dodging about the house making a noise with Hoovers, but I can't see them in the role of spies either. So you see it's got to be an outsider. Of course Mary wears a wig," went on Sir Roderick rather inconsequently.

"I mean it might make you think she was a spy because she wore a wig, but that's not the case. She lost her hair in a fever when she was eighteen. Pretty bad luck for a young woman. I'd no idea she wore a wig to begin with but a rose bush caught in her hair one day and whisked it sideways. Yes, very bad luck." "I thought there was something a little odd about the way she had arranged her hair," said Poirot.

"Anyway, the best secret agents never wear wigs," Sir Roderick informed him.

"Poor devils have to go to plastic surgeons and get their faces altered. But someone's been mucking about with my private papers." "You don't think that you may perhaps have placed them in some different container - in a drawer or a different file.

When did you see them last?" "I handled these things about a year ago. I remember I thought then, they'd make rather good copy, and I noted those particular letters. Now they're gone. Somebody's taken them." "You do not suspect your nephew Andrew, his wife or the domestic staff.

What about the daughter?" "Norma? Well Norma's a bit off her onion, I'd say. I mean she might be one of those kleptomaniacs who take people's things without knowing they're taking them but I don't see her fumbling about among my papers." "Then what do you think?" "Well, you've been in the house. You saw what the house is like. Anyone can walk in and out any time they like.

We don't lock our doors. We never have." "Do you lock the door of your own room-if you go up to London, for instance?" "I never thought of it as necessary. I do now of course, but what's the use of that?

Too late. Anyway, I've only an ordinary key, fits any of the doors. Someone must have come in from outside. Why nowadays that's how all the burglaries take place.

People walk in in the middle of the day, stump up the stairs, go into any room they like, rifle the jewel box, go out again, and nobody sees them or cares who they are.

They probably look like mods or rockers or beatniks or whatever they call these chaps nowadays with the long hair and the dirty nails. I've seen more than one of them prowling about. One doesn't like to say 'Who the devil are you?' You never know which sex they are, which is embarrassing.

The place crawls with them. I suppose they're Norma's friends. Wouldn't have been allowed in in the old days. But you turn them out of the house, and then you find out it's Viscount Endersleigh or Lady Charlotte Marjoribanks. Don't know where you are nowadays," He paused. "If anyone can get to the bottom of it, you can, Poirot." He swallowed the last mouthful of whisky and got up.

"Well, that's that. It's up to you. You'll take it on, won't you?" "I will do my best," said Poirot.

The front-door bell rang.

"That's the little girl," said Sir Roderick.

"Punctual to the minute. Wonderful, isn't it? Couldn't go about London without her, you know. Blind as a bat. Can't see to cross the road." "Can you not have glasses?" "I've got some somewhere, but they're always falling off my nose or else I lose them. Besides, I don't like glasses. I've never had glasses. When I was sixty-five I could see to read without glasses and that's pretty good." "Nothing," said Hercule Poirot, "lasts for ever." George ushered in Sonia. She was looking extremely pretty. Her slightly shy manner became her very well, Poirot thought. He moved forward with Gallic empressement.

"Enchante, Mademoiselle," he said, bowing over her hand.

"I'm not late, am I, Sir Roderick," she said, looking past him. "I have not kept you waiting. Please I hope not." "Exact to the minute, little girl," said Sir Roderick. "All ship-shape and Bristol fashion," he added.

Sonia looked slightly perplexed.

"Made a good tea, I hope," Sir Roderick went on. "I told you, you know, to have a good tea, buy yourself some buns or eclairs or whatever it is young ladies like nowadays, eh? You obeyed orders, I hope." "No, not exactly. I took the time to buy a pair of shoes. Look, they are pretty, are they not?" She stuck out a foot.

It was certainly a very pretty foot. Sir Roderick beamed at it.

"Well, we must go and catch our train," he said. "I may be old-fashioned but I'm all for trains. Start to time and get there on time, or they should do. But these cars, they get in a queue in the rush hour and you may idle the time away for about an hour and a half more than you need. Cars!

Pah!" "Shall I ask George to get you a taxi," asked Hercule Poirot. "It will be no trouble, I assure you." "I have a taxi already waiting," said Sonia.

"There you are," said Sir Roderick, "you see, she thinks of everything." He patted her on the shoulder. She looked at him in a way that Hercule Poirot fully appreciated.

Poirot accompanied them to the hall door and took a polite leave of them. Mr.

Goby had come out of the kitchen and was standing in the hall giving, it could be said, an excellent performance of a man who had come to see about the gas.

George shut the hall door as soon as they had disappeared into the lift, and turned to meet Poirot's gaze.

"And what is your opinion of that young lady, Georges, may I ask?" said Poirot.

It was sometimes his habit to seek information from George. On certain points he always said George was infallible.

"Well, sir," said George, "if I might put it that way, if you'll allow me, I would say he'd got it badly, sir. All over her as you might say." "I think you are right," said Hercule Poirot.

"It's not unusual of course with gentlemen of that age. I remember Lord Mountbryan.

He'd had a lot of experience in his life and you'd say he was as fly as anyone.

But you'd be surprised. A young woman came to give him a massage. You'd be surprised at what he gave her. An evening frock, and a pretty bracelet. Forget-menots, it was. Turquoise and diamonds.

Not too expensive but costing quite a pretty penny all the same. Then a fur wrap - not mink, Russian ermine, and a petty point evening bag. After that her brother got into trouble, debt or something, though whether she ever had a brother I sometimes wondered.

Lord Mountbryan gave her the money to square it - she was so upset about it! All platonic, mind you, too.

Gentlemen seem to lose their sense that way when they get to that age. It's the clinging ones they go for, not the bold type.3' "I have no doubt that you are quite right, Georges," said Poirot. "It is all the same not a complete answer to my question.

I asked what you thought of the young lady." "Oh, the young lady… Well, sir, I wouldn't like to say definitely, but she's quite a definite type. There's never anything that you could put your finger on.

But they know what they're doing, I'd say." Poirot entered his sitting-room and Mr.

Goby followed him, obeying Poirot's gesture. Mr. Goby sat down on an upright chair in his usual attitude. Knees together, toes turned in. He took a rather dog-eared little notebook from his pocket, opened it carefully and then proceeded to survey the soda water siphon severely.

"Re the backgrounds you asked me to look up.

"Restarick family, perfectly respectable and of good standing. No scandal. The father, James Patrick Restarick, said to be a sharp man over a bargain. Business has been in the family three generations.

Grandfather founded it, father enlarged it, Simon Restarick kept it going. Simon Restarick had coronary trouble two years ago, health declined. Died of coronary thrombosis, about a year ago.