“Well, yes, it was, in a way! Of course, Frank has lost a good many jobs and he hasn’t been, perhaps, what most people would call very steady. But it will be different now. I think one can do so much by influence, don’t you, M. Poirot? If a man feels a woman expects a lot of him, he tries to live up to her ideal of him.”
Poirot sighed. But he did not argue. He had heard many hundreds of women produce that same argument, with the same blithe belief in the redeeming power of a woman’s love. Once in a thousand times, he supposed, cynically, it might be true.
He merely said:
“I should like to meet this friend of yours.”
“I’d love to have you meet him, M. Poirot. But just at present Sunday is his only free day. He’s away in the country all the week, you see.”
“Ah, on the new job. What is the job, by the way?”
“Well, I don’t exactly know, M. Poirot. Something in the secretarial line, I imagine. Or some government department. I know I have to send letters to Frank’s London address and they get forwarded.”
“That is a little odd, is it not?”
“Well, I thought so—but Frank says it is often done nowadays.”
Poirot looked at her for a moment or two without speaking.
Then he said deliberately:
“Tomorrow is Sunday, is it not? Perhaps you would both give me the pleasure of lunching with me—at Logan’s Corner House? I should like to discuss this sad business with you both.”
“Well—thank you, M. Poirot. I—yes, I’m sure we’d like to lunch with you very much.”
VIII
Frank Carter was a fair young man of medium height. His appearance was cheaply smart. He talked readily and fluently. His eyes were set rather close together and t
hey had a way of shifting uneasily from side to side when he was embarrassed.
He was inclined to be suspicious and slightly hostile.
“I’d no idea we were to have the pleasure of lunching with you, M. Poirot. Gladys didn’t tell me anything about it.”
He shot her a rather annoyed glance as he spoke.
“It was only arranged yesterday,” said Poirot, smiling. “Miss Nevill is very upset by the circumstances of Mr. Morley’s death and I wondered if we put our heads together—”
Frank Carter interrupted him rudely.
“Morley’s death? I’m sick of Morley’s death! Why can’t you forget him, Gladys? There wasn’t anything so wonderful about him that I can see.”
“Oh, Frank, I don’t think you ought to say that. Why, he left me a hundred pounds. I got the letter about it last night.”
“That’s all right,” admitted Frank grudgingly. “But after all, why shouldn’t he? He worked you like a nigger—and who pocketed all the fat fees? Why, he did!”
“Well, of course he did—he paid me a very good salary.”
“Not according to my ideas! You’re too humble altogether, Gladys, my girl, you let yourself be put upon, you know. I sized Morley up all right. You know as well as I do that he tried his best to get you to give me the chuck.”
“He didn’t understand.”
“He understood all right. The man’s dead now—otherwise I can tell you I’d have given him a piece of my mind.”
“You actually came round to do so on the morning of his death, did you not?” Hercule Poirot inquired gently.
Frank Carter said angrily: