LITMIR.BIZ

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boy, had passed through various villages, apparently making for London. At one place they had stopped, and it was noticed that the child was crying and obviously afraid of his companion. When Inspector McNeil announced that the car had been stopped and the man and boy detained, I was almost ill with relief. You know the sequel. The boy was not Johnnie, and the man was an ardent motorist, fond of children, who had picked up a small child playing in the streets of Edenswell, a village about fifteen miles from us, and was kindly giving him a ride. Thanks to the cocksure blundering of the police, all traces have disappeared. Had they not persistently followed the wrong car, they might by now have found the boy.’

      ‘Calm yourself, monsieur. The police are a brave and intelligent force of men. Their mistake was a very natural one. And altogether it was a clever scheme. As to the man they caught in the grounds, I understand that his defence has consisted all along of a persistent denial. He declared that the note and parcel were given to him to deliver at Waverly Court. The man who gave them to him handed him a ten-shilling note and promised him another if it were delivered at exactly ten minutes to twelve. He was to approach the house through the grounds and knock at the side door.’

      ‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ declared Mrs Waverly hotly. ‘It’s all a parcel of lies.’

      ‘En verité, it is a thin story,’ said Poirot reflectively. ‘But so far they have not shaken it. I understand, also, that he made a certain accusation?’

      His glance interrogated Mr Waverly. The latter got rather red again.

      ‘The fellow had the impertinence to pretend that he recognized in Tredwell the man who gave him the parcel. “Only the bloke has shaved off his moustache.” Tredwell, who was born on the estate!’

      Poirot smiled a little at the country gentleman’s indignation. ‘Yet you yourself suspect an inmate of the house to have been accessory to the abduction.’

      ‘Yes, but not Tredwell.’

      ‘And you, madame?’ asked Poirot, suddenly turning to her.

      ‘It could not have been Tredwell who gave this tramp the letter and parcel—if anybody ever did, which I don’t believe. It was given him at ten o’clock, he says. At ten o’clock Tredwell was with my husband in the smoking-room.’

      ‘Were you able to see the face of the man in the car, monsieur? Did it resemble that of Tredwell in any way?’

      ‘It was too far away for me to see his face.’

      ‘Has Tredwell a brother, do you know?’

      ‘He had several, but they are all dead. The last one was killed in the war.’

      ‘I am not yet clear as to the grounds of Waverly Court. The car was heading for the south lodge. Is there another entrance?’

      ‘Yes, what we call the east lodge. It can be seen from the other side of the house.’

      ‘It seems to me strange that nobody saw the car entering the grounds.’

      ‘There is a right of way through, and access to a small chapel. A good many cars pass through. The man must have stopped the car in a convenient place and run up to the house just as the alarm was given and attention attracted elsewhere.’

      ‘Unless he was already inside the house,’ mused Poirot. ‘Is there any place where he could have hidden?’

      ‘Well, we certainly didn’t make a thorough search of the house beforehand. There seemed no need. I suppose he might have hidden himself somewhere, but who would have let him in?’

      ‘We shall come to that later. One thing at a time—let us be methodical. There is no special hiding-place in the house? Waverly Court is an old place, and there are sometimes “priests’ holes”, as they call them.’

      ‘By gad, there is a priest’s hole. It opens from one of the panels in the hall.’

      ‘Near the council chamber?’

      ‘Just outside the door.’

      ‘Voilà!’

      ‘But nobody knows of its existence except my wife and myself.’

      ‘Tredwell?’

      ‘Well—he might have heard of it.’

      ‘Miss Collins?’

      ‘I have never mentioned it to her.’

      Poirot reflected for a minute.

      ‘Well, monsieur, the next thing is for me to come down to Waverly Court. If I arrive this afternoon, will it suit you?’

      ‘Oh, as soon as possible, please, Monsieur Poirot!’ cried Mrs Waverly. ‘Read this once more.’

      She thrust into his hands the last missive from the enemy which had reached the Waverlys that morning and which had sent her post-haste to Poirot. It gave clever and explicit directions for the paying over of the money, and ended with a threat that the boy’s life would pay for any treachery. It was clear that a love of money warred with the essential mother love of Mrs Waverly, and that the latter was at last gaining the day.

      Poirot detained Mrs Waverly for a minute behind her husband.

      ‘Madame, the truth, if you please. Do you share your husband’s faith in the butler, Tredwell?’

      ‘I have nothing against him, Monsieur Poirot, I cannot see how he can have been concerned in this, but—well, I have never liked him—never!’

      ‘One other thing, madame, can you give me the address of the child’s nurse?’

      ‘149 Netherall Road, Hammersmith. You don’t imagine—’

      ‘Never do I imagine. Only—I employ the little grey cells. And sometimes, just sometimes, I have a little idea.’

      Poirot came back to me as the door closed.

      ‘So madame has never liked the butler. It is interesting, that, eh, Hastings?’

      I refused to be drawn. Poirot has deceived me so often that I now go warily. There is always a catch somewhere.

      After completing an elaborate outdoor toilet, we set off for Netherall Road. We were fortunate enough to find Miss Jessie Withers at home. She was a pleasant-faced woman of thirty-five, capable and superior. I could not believe that she could be mixed up in the affair. She was bitterly resentful of the way she had been dismissed, but admitted that she had been in the wrong. She was engaged to be married to a painter and decorator who happened to be in the neighbourhood, and she had run out to meet him. The thing seemed natural enough. I could not quite understand Poirot. All his questions seemed to me quite irrelevant. They were concerned mainly with the daily routine of her life at Waverly Court. I was frankly bored and glad when Poirot took his departure.

      ‘Kidnapping is an easy job, mon ami,’ he observed, as he hailed a taxi in the Hammersmith Road and ordered it to drive to Waterloo. ‘That child could have been abducted with the greatest ease any day for the last three years.’

      ‘I don’t see that that advances us much,’ I remarked coldly.

      ‘Au contraire, it advances us enormously, but enormously! If you must wear a tie pin, Hastings, at least let it be in the exact centre of your tie. At present it is at least a sixteenth of an inch too much to the right.’

      Waverly Court was a fine old place and had recently been restored with taste and care. Mr Waverly showed us the council chamber, the terrace, and all the various spots connected with the case. Finally, at Poirot’s request, he pressed a spring in the wall, a panel slid aside, and a short passage led us into the priest’s hole.

      ‘You see,’ said Waverly. ‘There is nothing here.’

      The tiny room was bare enough, there was not even the mark of a footstep on the floor. I joined Poirot where he was bending attentively over a mark in the corner.

      ‘What do you make of this, my friend?’

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