Introduction
CARLA LEMARCHANT
Hercule Poirot looked with interest and appreciation at the young woman who was being ushered into the room.
There had been nothing distinctive in the letter she had written. It had been a mere request for an appointment, with no hint of what lay behind that request. It had been brief and businesslike. Only the firmness of the handwriting had indicated that Carla Lemarchant was a young woman.
And now here she was in the flesh—a tall, slender young woman in the early twenties. The kind of young woman that one definitely looked at twice. Her clothes were good, an expensive well-cut coat and skirt and luxurious furs. Her head was well poised on her shoulders, she had a square brow, a sensitively cut nose and a determined chin. She looked very much alive. It was her aliveness, more than her beauty, which struck the predominant note.
Before her entrance, Hercule Poirot had been feeling old—now he felt rejuvenated—alive—keen!
As he came forward to greet her, he was aware of her dark grey eyes studying him attentively. She was very earnest in that scrutiny.
She sat down and accepted the cigarette that he offered her. After it was lit she sat for a minute or two smoking, still looking at him with that earnest, thoughtful gaze.
Poirot said gently:
“Yes, it has to be decided, does it not?”
She started. “I beg your pardon?”
Her voice was attractive, with a faint, agreeable huskiness in it.
“You are making up your mind, are you not, whether I am a mere mountebank, or the man you need?”
She smiled. She said:
“Well, yes—something of that kind. You see, Mr. Poirot, you—you don’t look exactly the way I pictured you.”
“And I am old, am I not? Older than you imagined?”
“Yes, that too.” She hesitated. “I’m being frank, you see. I want—I’ve got to have—the best.”
“Rest assured,” said Hercule Poirot. “I am the best!”
Carla said: “You’re not modest…All the same, I’m inclined to take you at your word.”
Poirot said placidly:
“One does not, you know, employ merely the muscles. I do not need to bend and measure the footprints and pick up the cigarette ends and examine the bent blades of grass. It is enough for me to sit back in my chair and think. It is this”—he tapped his egg-shaped head—“this that functions!”
“I know,” said Carla Lemarchant. “That’s why I’ve come to you. I want you, you see, to do something fantastic!”
“That,” said Hercule Poirot, “promises well!”