[adapted]

by
Agatha Christie

“Poirot,” I said, “a change of air will be good for you.”
“You think so, my friend?”
“I am sure of it.”
“Eh — eh?” said my friend, smiling. “Is it all arranged, then?”

“Will you come?”
“Where do you plan to take me?”
“Brighton. In fact, a friend of mine in the city told me about a very good thing, and — well, I have a lot of money to spend, as people say. I think a week-end at the Grand Metropolitan would be very good for all of us.”

“Thank you, I accept it very gladly. You have a kind heart to think of an old man. And a kind heart is, in the end, worth more than all the little grey cells. Yes, yes, I who am speaking to you am in danger of forgetting that sometimes.”

I did not really like what that meant. I think that Poirot sometimes thinks I am not very clever at all. But he was so clearly happy that I put my small annoyance aside.
“Then, that’s all right,” I said quickly.

On Saturday evening, we were having dinner at the Grand Metropolitan, right in the middle of a happy crowd all around us. It seemed that almost everyone and their partner was at Brighton. The dresses were wonderful, and the jewels — sometimes worn more for show than with good taste — were really very beautiful.

“Eh, it is a sight, this!” said Poirot. “This is the home of the Profiteer, isn’t it, Hastings?”
“Supposed to be,” I replied. “But we will hope they are not all called Profiteers by everyone here.”

Poirot looked around him calmly.

“The sight of so many jewels makes me wish I had turned my brains to crime, instead of to catching criminals. What a great chance for a very skilled thief! Look, Hastings, at that fat woman by the pillar. She is, as you would say, covered with jewels.”

I looked where he was looking.
“Why,” I said, “it’s Mrs. Opalsen.”
“Do you know her?”
“A little. Her husband is a rich man who buys and sells shares, and he made a lot of money not long ago in the oil boom.”

After dinner, we met the Opalsens in the lounge, and I introduced Poirot to them. We talked for a few minutes, and in the end we had our coffee together.

Poirot said a few nice words about some of the more expensive jewels shown on the lady’s large chest, and she smiled at once.

“It is my favorite hobby, Mr. Poirot. I just love jewellery. Ed knows this weakness, and every time things go well, he brings me something new. Are you interested in precious stones?”
“I have had a lot to do with them many times, madame. My job has let me work with some of the most famous jewels in the world.”

He continued to tell, using careful fake names, the story of the old, famous jewels of a royal family, and Mrs. Opalsen listened, holding her breath.

“There now!” she said when he finished. “It is just like a play! You know, I have some pearls of my own that have a story with them. I think it is supposed to be one of the finest necklaces in the world — the pearls match so well and are so perfect in colour. I say I really must run up and get it!”
“Oh, madame,” said Poirot, “you are too kind. Please do not trouble yourself!”
“Oh, but I would like to show it to you.”

The plump lady walked with short steps across to the lift quickly enough. Her husband, who had been talking to me, looked at Poirot as if to ask a question.

“Madame, your wife is so kind that she really wants to show me her pearl necklace,” he explained.
“Oh, the pearls!” Opalsen smiled happily. “Well, they are worth seeing. They cost a lot of money too! Still, the money is there all right; I could get back what I paid for them any day — maybe more. I may have to, too, if things go on as they are now. Money is very tight in the City. All this awful E.P.D.”

He kept talking on and on, starting to explain difficult details that I could not understand. He was interrupted by a small page-boy who came up and whispered something in his ear.
“Eh — what? I’ll come at once. She is not ill, is she? Excuse me, gentlemen.”

He left us suddenly. Poirot leaned back and lit one of his small Russian cigarettes. Then, very carefully, he put the empty coffee cups in a neat row, and smiled happily at the result.

The minutes passed. The Opalsens did not come back.

“This is strange,” I said after a while. “I wonder when they will come back.”

Poirot watched the rising curls of smoke, and then said slowly, thinking: “They will not come back.”
“Why?”
“Because, my friend, something has happened.”
“What kind of thing? How do you know that?” I asked with interest.

Poirot smiled.

“A few moments ago, the manager came quickly out of his office and ran upstairs. He was very upset. The lift boy is talking a lot with one of the page boys. The lift bell has rung three times, but he does not answer it. Third, even the waiters are very distracted; and to make a waiter distracted — ” Poirot shook his head in a firm way. “This matter must indeed be very important. Ah, it is as I thought! Here come the police.”

Two men had just come into the hotel — one in a uniform, the other in ordinary clothes. They talked to a page boy, and were taken upstairs at once. A few minutes later, the same boy came down and walked to where we were sitting.
“Mr. Opalsen sends his compliments, and would you please come upstairs.”

Poirot jumped up to his feet quickly. It looked like he was waiting for the call. I followed just as quickly.

The Opalsens’ rooms were on the first floor. After he knocked on the door, the page-boy went away, and we went in when we heard, “Come in!” We saw a strange scene. The room was Mrs. Opalsen’s bedroom, and in the middle of it, lying back in an armchair, was the lady herself, crying very hard. She looked very strange, with the tears making big lines in the powder that covered her face thickly. Mr. Opalsen was walking up and down angrily. The two police officers stood in the middle of the room, one with a notebook in his hand. A hotel chambermaid, looking terrified, stood by the fireplace; and on the other side of the room a Frenchwoman, clearly Mrs. Opalsen’s maid, was crying and wringing her hands, with a sadness as strong as that of her mistress.

Into this noise and confusion stepped Poirot, neat and smiling. Immediately, with surprising energy for one of her size, Mrs. Opalsen jumped up from her chair and went towards him.
“There now; Ed can say what he wants, but I believe in luck. It was meant that I should meet you as I did this evening, and I feel that if you cannot get my pearls back for me, nobody can.”
“Please, calm yourself, madame.” Poirot patted her hand to comfort her. “Do not worry. All will be well. Hercule Poirot will help you!”

Mr. Opalsen turned to the police inspector. “There is no problem with me — um — calling in this gentleman, I suppose?”
“None at all, sir,” the man answered politely, but he did not care at all. “Perhaps now your lady is feeling better she will just tell us the facts?”

Mrs. Opalsen looked at Poirot, not knowing what to do.
He took her back to her chair. “Please sit down, ma’am, and tell us the whole story without getting upset.”

After being urged like this, Mrs. Opalsen carefully dried her eyes, and began.
“I came upstairs after dinner to get my pearls for Mr. Poirot here to see. The chambermaid and Célestine were both in the room as usual—”
“Excuse me, madame, but what do you mean by ‘as usual’?”

Mr. Opalsen explained. “I have a rule: no one may come into this room unless Célestine, the maid, is here too. The chambermaid cleans the room in the morning while Célestine is here, and after dinner she comes to turn down the beds, again only when Célestine is here. At other times, she never comes into the room.”

“Well, as I was saying,” said Mrs. Opalsen, “I came upstairs. I went to the drawer here,” — she pointed to the bottom right drawer of the dressing table — “took out my jewel box and opened it. It looked normal — but the pearls were not there!”

The inspector was busy with his notebook. “When did you last see them?” he asked.
“They were there when I went down to dinner.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure. I was not sure whether to wear them or not, but in the end I chose the emeralds, and put them back in the jewel case.”

“Who locked up the jewel box?”
“I did. I wear the key on a chain around my neck.” She held it up as she spoke.

The inspector looked at it carefully, and shrugged his shoulders.
“The thief must have had a spare key. It was not hard to do. The lock is very simple. What did you do after you locked the jewel case?”
“I put it back in the bottom drawer, where I always keep it.”
“You did not lock the drawer?”
“No, I never do. My maid stays in the room until I come up, so there is no need.”

The inspector’s face became more serious.
“Do I understand that the jewels were there when you went down to have dinner, and that since then the maid has not left the room?”

Suddenly, as if the horror of her own situation came to her for the first time, Célestine gave a loud, sharp scream, and, throwing herself on Poirot, poured out a flood of confused French. The suggestion was terrible! That she should be suspected of stealing from Madam! The police were well known to be very stupid! But Sir, who was a Frenchman — “A Belgian,” said Poirot, but Célestine did not listen to the correction.

Sir would not stand by and see her accused wrongly, while that very bad maid was allowed to go free without punishment. She had never liked her — a bold, red-faced woman — a born thief. She had said from the beginning that she was not honest. And she had kept a close watch on her too, when she was cleaning Madam’s room! Let those stupid policemen search her, and if they did not find Madam’s pearls on her it would be very surprising!

Even though this angry speech was spoken in fast and harsh French, Célestine had mixed it with many gestures, and the chambermaid understood at least part of what she meant. Her face turned red with anger.
“If that foreign woman says I took the pearls, it is a lie!” she said hotly. “I did not even see them.”

“Search her!” shouted the other woman. “You will see I am right.”
“You are a liar — do you hear?” said the chambermaid, moving toward her. “You stole them yourself, and you want to blame me. Why, I was only in the room for about three minutes before the lady came up, and then you were sitting here the whole time, as you always do, like a cat watching a mouse.”

The inspector looked across at Célestine with a question. “Is that true? Did you leave the room at all?”
“I did not really leave her alone,” said Célestine, not happy to say it, “but I went into my own room through this door two times — once to get a reel of cotton thread, and once for my scissors. She must have done it then.”

“You weren’t gone a minute,” said the chambermaid angrily. “You just went out and came back in. I would be glad if the police would search me. I have nothing to be afraid of.”

At that moment, someone knocked on the door. The inspector went to the door. His face looked happy when he saw who it was.
“Ah!” he said. “That is very lucky. I sent for one of our female searchers, and she has just arrived. Perhaps you would not mind going into the room next door.”

He looked at the maid, who stepped through the doorway with a quick lift of her head, with the person searching following her close behind.

The French girl sat down in a chair and cried. Poirot was looking around the room, and I have shown its main parts in a drawing.

“Where does that door go?” he asked, nodding his head toward the one by the window.
“To the next apartment, I think,” said the inspector. “It is locked with a bolt on this side, anyway.”

Poirot walked over to it, tried it, then pulled back the bolt and tried it again.
“And on the other side as well,” he said. “Well, that seems to show that this is not possible.”

He walked over to the windows, looking at each one in turn.
“And again — nothing. Not even a balcony outside.”
“Even if there was one,” said the inspector in an impatient voice,
“I don’t see how that would help us, if the maid never left the room.”
“Of course,” said Poirot, still calm. “As the young lady is sure she did not leave the room — ”

He was stopped by the return of the chambermaid and the police searcher.
“Nothing,” said the police searcher in a few words.
“I should hope not, indeed,” said the chambermaid in a very proper way. “And that French woman should be ashamed of herself for taking away an honest girl’s good name!”

“There, there, my girl; it’s all right,” said the inspector, opening the door. “No one thinks you did it. Go now and do your work.”
The chambermaid went, but she did not want to. “Are you going to search her?” she asked, pointing at Célestine.
“Yes, yes!” He closed the door on her and turned the key.

Célestine went with the searcher into the small room when it was her turn. A few minutes later, she came back too. They did not find anything on her.

The inspector’s face became more serious. “I’m afraid I must ask you to come with me anyway, miss.”
He turned to Mrs. Opalsen. “I’m sorry, madam, but all the clues point that way. If she does not have them with her, they are hidden somewhere in the room.”

Célestine gave a sharp scream, and held on to Poirot’s arm. He bent down and whispered something in the girl’s ear. She looked up at him with doubt. “Yes, yes, my child — I promise you it is better not to fight.” Then he turned to the inspector. “Do you allow it, sir? A small test — only to please myself.”

“It depends on what it is,” said the police officer without saying yes or no.