Poirot shook his head in a slightly dissatisfied manner. For a moment or two he remained lost in thought, then he went to the desk, pulled open a drawer and took out a little pile of invitation cards.
His face brightened.
“A la bonne heure! Exactly my affair! He will certainly be there.”
II
A duchess greeted M. Hercule Poirot in fulsome tones.
“So you could manage to come after all, M. Poirot! Why, that’s splendid.”
“The pleasure is mine, madame,” murmured Poirot, bowing.
He escaped from several important and splendid beings—a famous diplomat, an equally famous actress and a well-known sporting peer—and found at last the person he had come to seek, that invariably “also present” guest, Mr. Satterthwaite.
Mr. Satterthwaite twittered amiably.
“The dear duchess—I always enjoy her parties . . . Such a personality, if you know what I mean. I saw a lot of her in Corsica some years ago. . . .”
Mr. Satterthwaite’s conversation was apt to be unduly burdened by mentions of his titled acquaintances. It is possible that he may sometimes have found pleasure in the company of Messrs. Jones, Brown or Robinson, but, if so, he did not mention the fact. And yet, to describe Mr. Satterthwaite as a mere snob and leave it at that would have been to do him an injustice. He was a keen observer of human nature, and if it is true that the looker-on knows most of the game, Mr. Satterthwaite knew a
good deal.
“You know, my dear fellow, it is really ages since I saw you. I always feel myself privileged to have seen you work at close quarters in the Crow’s Nest business. I feel since then that I am in the know, so to speak. I saw Lady Mary only last week, by the way. A charming creature—pot pourri and lavender!”
After passing lightly on one or two scandals of the moment—the indiscretions of an earl’s daughter, and the lamentable conduct of a viscount—Poirot succeeded in introducing the name of Gervase Chevenix-Gore.
Mr. Satterthwaite responded immediately.
“Ah, now, there is a character, if you like! The Last of the Baronets—that’s his nickname.”
“Pardon, I do not quite comprehend.”
Mr. Satterthwaite unbent indulgently to the lower comprehension of a foreigner.
“It’s a joke, you know—a joke. Naturally, he’s not really the last baronet in England—but he does represent the end of an era. The Bold Bad Baronet—the mad harum-scarum baronet so popular in the novels of the last century—the kind of fellow who laid impossible wagers and won ’em.”
He went on to expound what he meant in more detail. In younger years, Gervase Chevenix-Gore had sailed round the world in a windjammer. He had been on an expedition to the Pole. He had challenged a racing peer to a duel. For a wager he had ridden his favourite mare up the staircase of a ducal house. He had once leapt from a box to the stage and carried off a well-known actress in the middle of her rôle.
The anecdotes of him were innumerable.
“It’s an old family,” went on Mr. Satterthwaite. “Sir Guy de Chevenix went on the first crusade. Now, alas, the line looks like it’s coming to an end. Old Gervase is the last Chevenix-Gore.”
“The estate, it is impoverished?”
“Not a bit of it. Gervase is fabulously wealthy. Owns valuable house property—coalfields—and in addition he staked out a claim to some mine in Peru or somewhere in South America, when he was a young man, which has yielded him a fortune. An amazing man. Always lucky in everything he’s undertaken.”
“He is now an elderly man, of course?”
“Yes, poor old Gervase.” Mr. Satterthwaite sighed, shook his head. “Most people would describe him to you as mad as a hatter. It’s true, in a way. He is mad—not in the sense of being certifiable or having delusions—but mad in the sense of being abnormal. He’s always been a man of great originality of character.”
“And originality becomes eccentricity as the years go by?” suggested Poirot.
“Very true. That’s exactly what’s happened to poor old Gervase.”
“He has perhaps, a swollen idea of his own importance?”
“Absolutely. I should imagine that, in Gervase’s mind, the world has always been divided into two parts—there are the Chevenix-Gores, and the other people!”