One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (Hercule Poirot 23)

Raikes said harshly:

“What the hell do you mean—coming here like this?”

“My visit is disagreeable to you?”

“I don’t even know who you are.”

“I apologize.”

Dexterously Poirot whipped out his card case. He extracted a card and passed it across the table.

Again that emotion that he could not quite define showed upon Mr. Raikes’ lean face. It was not fear—it was more aggressive than fear. After it, quite unquestionably, came anger.

He tossed the card back.

“So that’s who you are, is it? I’ve heard of you.”

“Most people have,” said Hercule Poirot modestly.

“You’re a private dick, aren’t you? The expensive kind. The kind people hire when money is no object—when it’s worth paying anything in order to save their miserable skins!”

“If you do not drink your coffee,” said Hercule Poirot, “it will get cold.”

He spoke kindly and with authority.

Raikes stared at him.

“Say, just what kind of an insect are you?”

“The coffee in this country is very bad anyway—” said Poirot.

“I’ll say it is,” agreed Mr. Raikes with fervour.

“But if you allow it to get cold it is practically undrinkable.”

The young man leant forward.

“What are you getting at? What’s the big idea in coming round here?”

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

“I wanted to—see you.”

“Oh yes?” said Mr. Raikes sceptically.

His eyes narrowed.

“If it’s the money you’re after, you’ve come to the wrong man! The people I’m in with can’t afford to buy what they want. Better go back to the man who pays your salary.”

Poirot said, sighing:

“Nobody has paid me anything—yet.”

“You’re telling me,” said Mr. Raikes.

“It is the truth,” said Hercule Poirot. “I am wasting a good deal of valuable time for no recompense whatsoever. Simply, shall we say, to assuage my curiosity.”

“And I suppose,” said Mr. Raikes, “you were just assuaging your curiosity at that darned dentist’s the other day.”