MAJOR DESPARD
“Quelle femme,” murmured Hercule Poirot. “Ce pauvre Despard! Ce qu’il a dû souffrir! Quel voyage épouvantable!”
Suddenly he began to laugh.
He was now walking along the Brompton Road. He paused, took out his watch, and made a calculation.
“But yes, I have the time. In any case to wait will do him no harm. I can now attend to the other little matter. What was it that my friend in the English police force used to sing—how many years—forty years ago? ‘A little piece of sugar for the bird.’”
Humming a long-forgotten tune, Hercule Poirot entered a sumptuous-looking shop mainly devoted to the clothing and general embellishment of women and made his way to the stocking counter.
Selecting a sympathetic-looking and not too haughty damsel he made known his requirements.
“Silk stockings? Oh, yes, we have a very nice line here. Guaranteed pure silk.”
Poirot waved them away. He waxed eloquent once more.
“French silk stockings? With the duty, you know, they are very expensive.”
A fresh lot of boxes was produced.
“Very nice, mademoiselle, but I had something of a finer texture in mind.”
“These are a hundred gauge. Of course, we have some extra fine, but I’m afraid they come out at about thirty-five shillings a pair. And no durability, of course. Just like cobwebs.”
“C’est ça. C’est ça, exactement.”
A prolonged absence of the young lady this time.
She returned at last.
“I’m afraid they are actually thirty-seven and sixpence a pair. But beautiful, aren’t they?”
She slid them tenderly from a gauzy envelope—the finest, gauziest wisps of stockings.
“Enfin—that is it exactly!”
“Lovely, aren’t they? How many pairs, sir?”
“I want—let me see, nineteen pairs.”
The young lady very nearly fell down behind the counter, but long training in scornfulness just kept her erect.
“There would be a reduction on two dozen,” she said faintly.
“No, I want nineteen pairs. Of slightly different colours, please.”
The girl sorted them out obediently, packed them up and made out the bill.
As Poirot departed with his purchase, the next girl at the counter said:
“Wonder who the lucky girl is? Must be a nasty old man. Oh, well, she seems to be stringing him along good and proper. Stockings at thirty-seven and sixpence indeed!”
Unaware of the low estimate formed by the young ladies of Messrs Harvey Robinson’s upon his character, Poirot was trotting homewards.
He had been in for about half an hour when he heard the doorbell ring. A few minutes later Major Despard entered the room.
He was obviously keeping his temper with difficulty.