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After which piece of moralizing, he resumed his search. A small purple despatch-case, with a key in the lock, on the writing-table, engaged his attention for some time. He took out the key from the lock, and passed it to me to inspect. I saw nothing peculiar, however. It was an ordinary key of the Yale type, with a bit of twisted wire through the handle.
Those of us who saw him walking briskly across Palace Yard that afternoon in company with Mr. Winston Churchill little thought that the small brown despatch-case held plans which within three years were to alter vitally the constitution of the United Kingdom as it had existed for eight hundred years. The national financial position was known in the morning before Lloyd George made his speech.
But she stood where she was, looking at him with large, tragic eyes; laid down a leather despatch-case she was carrying, and seized the edge of the table as if for support. "I'd rather not sit down yet," she said.
He would have dallied all through the summer, looking feebly for an opportunity to ravish a despatch-case which always accompanied Madame and which had become the inseparable and ostentatious "gooseberry" at their meetings. Madame declared that it was stuffed with papers the most secret. "The English Government would be desolated if they passed for one moment out of my hands."
No, come here and aid me in my search. I will put down my little case until I need it." He did so, on the round table by the window, but it was an ill-advised proceeding; for, the top of it being loose, it tilted up, and precipitated the despatch-case on the floor. "Eh voila une table!" cried Poirot. "Ah, my friend, one may live in a big house and yet have no comfort."
As he fell asleep smiling at these happy reflections, Desiree, far away in Dantzig, was locking in her bureau the letter which had been lost and found again; while, on the deck of his ship, lifting gently to the tideway where the Vistula sweeps out into the Dantziger Bucht, Louis d'Arragon stood fingering reflectively in his jacket-pocket the unread papers which had fallen from the same despatch-case.
He picked up the bunch of keys from the floor, and twirling them round in his fingers finally selected one, very bright and shining, which he tried in the lock of the purple despatch-case. It fitted, and he opened the box, but after a moment's hesitation, closed and relocked it, and slipped the bunch of keys, as well as the key that had originally stood in the lock, into his own pocket.
The lawyer went straight to the desk, and John followed him. "My mother kept most of her important papers in this despatch-case, I believe," he said. Poirot drew out the small bunch of keys. "Permit me. I locked it, out of precaution, this morning." "But it's not locked now." "Impossible!" "See." And John lifted the lid as he spoke. "Milles tonnerres!" cried Poirot, dumfounded.
"And, anyway, I don't see " "You do not see? But it is of the first importance." "I can't see why," I said, rather nettled. "As far as I can remember, she didn't eat much. She was obviously upset, and it had taken her appetite away. That was only natural." "Yes," said Poirot thoughtfully, "it was only natural." He opened a drawer, and took out a small despatch-case, then turned to me.
The King's Messenger thrust a bundle of sealed envelopes into his black leather despatch-case and closed the lock with a snap. "Any orders?" he asked. "I go North at eleven to-night." The civilian clerk seated at the desk in the dusty Whitehall office leaned back in his chair and passed his hand over his face. He looked tired and pallid with overwork and lack of exercise.
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