‘And a fine actress too.’

‘Possibly.’

‘You don’t seem convinced.’

‘I think it would depend on the setting, my friend. If she is the centre of the play, if all revolves round her – yes, then she could play her part. I doubt if she could play a small part adequately or even what is called a character part. The play must be written about her and for her. She appears to me of the type of women who are interested only in themselves.’ He paused and then added rather unexpectedly: ‘Such people go through life in great danger.’

‘Danger?’ I said, surprised.

‘I have used a word that surprises you, I see, mon ami. Yes, danger. Because, you see, a woman like that sees only one thing – herself. Such women see nothing of the dangers and hazards that surround them – the million conflicting interests and relationships of life. No, they see only their own forward path. And so – sooner or later – disaster.’

I was interested. I confessed to myself that such a point of view would not have struck me.

‘And the other?’ I asked. 

‘Miss Adams?’

His gaze swept to her table.

‘Well?’ he said, smiling. ‘What do you want me to say about her?’

‘Only how she strikes you.’

‘Mon cher, am I tonight the fortune-teller who reads the palm and tells the character?’

‘You could do it better than most,’ I rejoined.

‘It is a very pretty faith that you have in me, Hastings. It touches me. Do you not know, my friend, that each one of us is a dark mystery, a maze of conflicting passions and desires and attitudes? Mais oui, c’est vrai. One makes one’s little judgments – but nine times out of ten one is wrong.’

‘Not Hercule Poirot,’ I said, smiling.

‘Even Hercule Poirot! Oh! I know very well that you have always a little idea that I am conceited, but, indeed, I assure you, I am really a very humble person.’

I laughed.

‘You – humble!’

‘It is so. Except – I confess it – that I am a little proud of my moustaches. Nowhere in London have I observed anything to compare with them.’

‘You are quite safe,’ I said dryly. ‘You won’t. So you are not going to risk judgment on Carlotta Adams?’

‘Elle est artiste!’ said Poirot simply. ‘That covers nearly all, does it not?’ 

‘Anyway, you don’t consider that she walks through life in peril?’

‘We all do that, my friend,’ said Poirot gravely. ‘Misfortune may always be waiting to rush out upon us. But as to your question, Miss Adams, I think, will succeed. She is shrewd and she is something more. You observed without doubt that she is a Jewess?’

I had not. But now that he mentioned it, I saw the faint traces of Semitic ancestry. Poirot nodded.

‘It makes for success – that. Though there is still one avenue of danger – since it is of danger we are talking.’

‘You mean?’

‘Love of money. Love of money might lead such a one from the prudent and cautious path.’

‘It might do that to all of us,’ I said.

‘That is true, but at any rate you or I would see the danger involved. We could weigh the pros and cons. If you care for money too much, it is only the money you see, everything else is in shadow.’

I laughed at his serious manner.

‘Esmeralda, the gipsy queen, is in good form,’ I remarked teasingly.

‘The psychology of character is interesting,’ returned Poirot unmoved. ‘One cannot be interested in crime without being interested in psychology. It is not the mere act of killing, it is what lies behind it that appeals to the expert. You follow me, Hastings?’ 

I said that I followed him perfectly.

‘I have noticed that when we work on a case together, you are always urging me on to physical action, Hastings. You wish me to measure footprints, to analyse cigarette-ash, to prostrate myself on my stomach for the examination of detail. You never realize that by lying back in an arm-chair with the eyes closed one can come nearer to the solution of any problem. One sees then with the eyes of the mind.’

‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘When I lie back in an arm-chair with my eyes closed one thing happens to me and one thing only!’

‘I have noticed it!’ said Poirot. ‘It is strange. At such moments the brain should be working feverishly, not sinking into sluggish repose. The mental activity, it is so interesting, so stimulating! The employment of the little grey cells is a mental pleasure. They and they only can be trusted to lead one through fog to the truth…’

I am afraid that I have got into the habit of averting my attention whenever Poirot mentions his little grey cells. I have heard it all so often before.

In this instance my attention wandered to the four people sitting at the next table. When Poirot’s monologue drew to a close I remarked with a chuckle:

‘You have made a hit, Poirot. The fair Lady Edgware can hardly take her eyes off you.’ 

‘Doubtless she has been informed of my identity,’ said Poirot, trying to look modest and failing.

‘I think it is the famous moustaches,’ I said. ‘She is carried away by their beauty.’

Poirot caressed them surreptitiously.

‘It is true that they are unique,’ he admitted. ‘Oh, my friend, the “tooth-brush” as you call it, that you wear – it is a horror – an atrocity – a wilful stunting of the bounties of nature. Abandon it, my friend, I pray of you.’

‘By Jove,’ I said, disregarding Poirot’s appeal. ‘The lady’s getting up. I believe she’s coming to speak to us. Bryan Martin is protesting, but she won’t listen to him.’

Sure enough, Jane Wilkinson swept impetuously from her seat and came over to our table. Poirot rose to his feet bowing, and I rose also.

‘M. Hercule Poirot, isn’t it?’ said the soft husky voice.

‘At your service.’

‘M. Poirot, I want to talk to you. I must talk to you.’

‘But certainly, Madame, will you not sit down?’

‘No, no, not here. I want to talk to you privately. We’ll go right upstairs to my suite.’

Bryan Martin had joined her, he spoke now with a deprecating laugh. 

‘You must wait a little, Jane. We’re in the middle of supper. So is M. Poirot.’

But Jane Wilkinson was not so easily turned from her purpose.

‘Why, Bryan, what does that matter? We’ll have supper sent up to the suite. Speak to them about it, will you? And, Bryan–’

She went after him as he was turning away and appeared to urge some course upon him. He stood out about it, I gathered, shaking his head and frowning. But she spoke even more emphatically and finally with a shrug of the shoulders he gave way.

Once or twice during her speech to him she had glanced at the table where Carlotta Adams sat, and I wondered if what she were suggesting had anything to do with the American girl.

Her point gained, Jane came back, radiant.

‘We’ll go right up now,’ she said, and included me in a dazzling smile.

The question of our agreeing or not agreeing to her plan didn’t seem to occur to her mind. She swept us off without a shade of apology.

‘It’s the greatest luck just seeing you here this evening, M. Poirot,’ she said as she led the way to the lift. ‘It’s wonderful how everything seems to turn out right for me. I’d just been thinking and wondering what on earth I was going to do and I looked up and there you were at the next table, and I said to myself: “M. Poirot will tell me what to do.”’

She broke off to say ‘Second Floor’ to the lift-boy.

‘If I can be of aid to you–’ began Poirot.

‘I’m sure you can. I’ve heard you’re just the most marvellous man that ever existed. Somebody’s got to get me out of the tangle I’m in and I feel you’re just the man to do it.’

We got out at the second floor and she led the way along the corridor, paused at a door and entered one of the most opulent of the Savoy suites.

Casting her white fur wrap on one chair, and her small jewelled bag on the table, the actress sank on to a chair and exclaimed: