Beer, “No one is to be arrested at the present time,
Constable. I do not believe, madame, that you would
keep these two keys if you had indeed committed
murder in rooms 121 and 317 of the Bloxham Hotel.
Why would you not dispose of them?”
“Quite. I would have disposed of them at the first
opportunity, wouldn’t I?”
“I shall call upon Mr. and Mrs. Wallace
immediately.”
“Actually,” said Nancy, “it’s Lord and Lady
Wallace you’ll be calling on. Louisa wouldn’t care,
but St. John won’t forgive you if you deprive him of
his title.”
NOT LONG AFTERWARD, POIROT was standing by the
side of Louisa Wallace as she stared, enraptured, at
Nancy Ducane’s portrait of her that hung on the wall
of her drawing room. “Isn’t it perfect?” she breathed.
“Neither flattering nor insulting. With high color and a
round face like mine, there is always a danger I shall
end up looking like a farmer’s wife, but I don’t. I
don’t look ravishing, but I do look quite nice, I think.
St. John used the word ‘voluptuous,’ a word he has
never used about me before — but the picture made
him think of it.” She laughed. “Isn’t it wonderful that
there are people in the world as talented as Nancy?”
Poirot was having trouble concentrating on the
painting. Louisa Wallace’s equivalent of Nancy
Ducane’s smartly starched maid Tabitha was a clumsy
girl named Dorcas who had dropped Poirot’s coat
twice so far, and once dropped and stood on his hat.
The Wallace home might have been beautiful under
a different regime, but as Poirot found it that day, it
left a lot to be desired. Apart from the heavier items
of furniture that stood sensibly against walls,
everything in the house looked as if it had been blown
about by a strong wind before falling in a random and
inconvenient place. Poirot couldn’t abide disorder; it
prevented him from thinking clearly.
Eventually, having scooped up his coat and
trodden-on hat, the maid Dorcas withdrew, and Poirot
was left alone with Louisa Wallace. Stanley Beer had
stayed at Nancy Ducane’s house to complete his
search of the rooms, and His Lordship was not at
home; he had apparently set off for the family’s
country estate that morning. Poirot had spotted a few
“dreary old leaves and chilly-eyed cods and
haddocks” on the walls, as Nancy had called them,
and he wondered if those pictures were the work of
St. John Wallace.
“I’m so sorry about Dorcas,” Louisa said. “She’s
very new and quite the most hopeless girl ever to
inflict herself upon us, but I won’t admit defeat. It has
only been three days. She will learn, with time and
patience. If only she wouldn’t worry so! I know that’s
what it is: she tells herself that she absolutely mustn’t
drop the important gentleman’s hat and coat, and that
puts the idea of dropping them into her mind, and then
it happens. It’s maddening!”
“Quite so,” Poirot agreed. “Lady Wallace, about
last Thursday . . .”
“Oh, yes, that’s where we’d got to—and then I
brought you in here to show you the portrait. Yes,
Nancy was here that evening.”
“From what time and until what time, madame?”
“I can’t recall precisely. I know we agreed that she
would come at six to bring the painting, and I don’t
remember noticing that she was late at all. I’m afraid I
don’t remember when she left. If I had to guess, I
would say ten o’clock or shortly thereafter.”
“And she was here that whole time—that is to say,
until she left? She did not, for instance, leave and then
return?”
“No.” Louisa Wallace looked puzzled. “She came
at six with the picture, and then we were together until
she left for good. What is this about?”
“Can you confirm that Mrs. Ducane left here no
earlier than half past eight?”
“Oh, gracious, yes. She left much later than that. At
half past eight we were still at the table.”
“Who is ‘we?’ ”
“Nancy, St. John and me.”
“Your husband, if I were to speak to him, would
confirm this?”
“Yes. I hope you’re not suggesting that I’m not
telling you the truth, Monsieur Poirot.”
“No, no. Pas du tout. ”
“Good,” said Louisa Wallace decisively. She
turned back to the picture of herself on the wall.
“Color’s her special talent, you know. Oh, she can
capture personality in a face, but her greatest strength
is her use of color. Look at the way the light falls on
my green dress.”
Poirot saw what she meant. The green seemed
brighter one moment, then darker the next. There was
not one consistent shade. The light seemed to change
as one regarded the picture; such was Nancy
Ducane’s skill. The portrait depicted Louisa Wallace
sitting in a chair, wearing a green low-necked dress,
with a blue jug and bowl set behind her on a wooden
table. Poirot walked up and down the room,
inspecting the picture from different angles and
positions.
“I wanted to pay Nancy her usual rate for a
portrait, but she wouldn’t hear of it,” said Louisa
Wallace. “I’m so lucky to have such a generous
friend. You know, I think my husband is a little
jealous of it—the painting, I mean. The whole house
is full of his pictures—we’ve barely a free wall left.
Only his pictures, until this one arrived. He and
Nancy have this silly rivalry between them. I take no
notice. They’re both brilliant in their different ways.”
So Nancy Ducane had given the painting to Louisa
Wallace as a gift, thought Poirot. Did she really want
nothing in return, or did she perhaps hope for an
alibi? Some loyal friends would be unable to resist if
asked to tell one small, harmless lie after being given
such a lavish present. Poirot wondered if he ought to
tell Louisa Wallace that he was here in connection
with a murder case. He had not yet done so.
He was distracted from his train of thought by the
sudden appearance of Dorcas the maid, who bounded
into the room with an air of urgency and anxiety.
“Excuse me, sir!”
“What is the matter?” Poirot half expected her to
say that she had accidentally set fire to his hat and
coat.
“Would you like a cup of tea or coffee, sir?”
“This is what you have come to ask me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“There is nothing else? Nothing has happened?”
“No, sir.” Dorcas sounded confused.
“Bon. In that case, yes, please, I will take a coffee.
Thank you.”
“Right you are, sir.”
“Did you see that?” Louisa Wallace grumbled as
the girl lolloped out of the room. “Can you credit it? I
thought she was about to announce that she had to
leave at once for her mother’s deathbed! She really is
the limit. I should dismiss her without further ado, but
even help that’s no help at all is better than none. It’s
impossible to find decent girls these days.”
Poirot made appropriate noises of concern. He did
not wish to discuss domestic servants. He was far
more interested in his own ideas, especially the one
that had struck him while Louisa Wallace had been
complaining about Dorcas and he had been staring at
a blue painted jug and bowl set.
“Madame, if I might take a little more of your time
. . . these other pictures here on the walls, they are by
your husband?”
“Yes.”
“As you say, he too is an excellent artist. I would
be honored, madame, if you would show me around
your beautiful house. I would very much like to look
at your husband’s paintings. You said they are on
every wall?”
“Yes. I’ll happily give you the St. John Wallace art
tour, and you will see that I wasn’t exaggerating.”
Louisa beamed and clapped her hands together. “What
fun! Though I do wish St. John were here—he would
be able to tell you so much more about the pictures
than I can. Still, I shall do my best. You would be
amazed, Monsieur Poirot, by the number of people
who come to the house and don’t look at the paintings
or ask about them or anything. Dorcas is a case in
point. There could be five hundred framed dishcloths
hanging on the walls and she wouldn’t notice the
difference. Let’s start in the hall, shall we?”
It was lucky, thought Poirot as he made the tour of
the house and had many species of spider, plant and
fish pointed out to him, that he was an appreciator of
art. As far as the rivalry between St. John Wallace
and Nancy Ducane went, he knew what he thought
about that. Wallace’s pictures were meticulous and
worthy, but they made one feel nothing. Nancy
Ducane’s was the greater talent. She had encapsulated
the essence of Louisa Wallace and made her live on
canvas as vividly as she lived in real life. Poirot
found himself wanting to look at the portrait again
before he left the house, and not only to check that he
was not mistaken about the important detail he thought
he had noticed.
Dorcas appeared on the upstairs landing. “Your
coffee, sir.” Poirot, who had been inside St. John
Wallace’s study, stepped forward to take the cup from
her hand. She lurched back as if she hadn’t expected
him to move toward her, and spilled most of the drink
on her white apron. “Oh, dear! I’m sorry, sir, I’m a
right old butterfingers. I’ll make you another cup.”
“No, no, please. There is no need.” Poirot seized
what was left of his coffee and ingested it in one gulp,
before any more of it could be spilled.
“This one is my favorite, I think,” said Louisa
Wallace, still in the study. She was pointing at a
painting that Poirot couldn’t see. “Blue Bindweed:
Solanum Dulcamara. The fourth of August last year,
you see? This was my wedding anniversary present
from St. John. Thirty years. Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like another cup of
coffee, sir?” said Dorcas.
“The fourth of . . . Sacré tonnerre,” Poirot
murmured to himself as a feeling of excitement started
to grow inside him. He returned to the study and
looked at the picture of blue bindweed.
“He has answered that question once, Dorcas. He
does not want more coffee.”
“It’s no trouble, ma’am, honest it isn’t. He wanted
coffee, and there was nothing left in the cup by the
time he got it.”
“If nothing is there, one sees nothing,” mused
Poirot cryptically. “One thinks of nothing. To notice a
nothing—that is a difficult thing, even for Poirot, until
one sees, somewhere else, the thing that should have
been there.” He took Dorcas’s hand and kissed it.
“My dear young lady, what you have brought to me is
more valuable than coffee!”
“Ooh.” Dorcas tilted her head and stared. “Your
eyes have gone all funny and green, sir.”
“Whatever can you mean, Monsieur Poirot?”
Louisa Wallace asked. “Dorcas, go and get on with
something useful.”
“Yes, madam.” The girl hurried away.
“I am indebted both to Dorcas and to you,
madame,” said Poirot. “When I arrived here only—
what is it?—half an hour ago, I did not see clearly. I
saw only confusion and puzzles. Now, I begin to put
things together . . . It is very important that I should
think without interruption.”
“Oh.” Louisa looked disappointed. “Well, if you
need to hurry off—”
“Oh, no, no, you misunderstand me. Pardon,
madame. The fault is mine: I did not make myself
clear. Of course we must finish the tour of the art.
There is much still to explore! After that, I shall
depart and do my thinking.”
“Are you sure?” Louisa regarded him with
something akin to alarm. “Well, all right, then, if it’s
not too much of a bore.” She recommenced her
enthusiastic commentary on her husband’s pictures as
Poirot and Louisa moved from room to room.
In one of the guest bedrooms, the last upstairs
room that they came to, there was a white jug and
bowl set with a red, green and white crest on it. There
was also a wooden table, and a chair; Poirot
recognized both from Nancy Ducane’s painting of
Louisa. He said, “Pardon, madame, but where is the
blue jug and bowl from the portrait?”
“The blue jug and bowl,” Louisa repeated,
seemingly confused.
“I think you posed for Nancy Ducane’s painting in
this room, n’est-ce pas?”
“Yes, I did. And . . . wait a minute! This jug and
bowl set is the one from the other guest bedroom!”
“And yet it is not there. It is here.”
“So it is. But . . . then where is the blue jug and
bowl?”
“I do not know, madame.”
“Well, it must be in a different bedroom. Mine,
perhaps. Dorcas must have swapped them around.”
She set off at a brisk pace in search of the missing
items.
Poirot followed. “There is no other jug and bowl
set in any of the bedrooms,” he said.
After a thorough check, Louisa Wallace said
through gritted teeth, “That useless girl! I’ll tell you
what’s happened, Monsieur Poirot. Dorcas has
broken it and she’s too scared to tell me. Let us go
and ask her, shall we? She will deny it, of course, but
it’s the only possible explanation. Jugs and bowls
don’t disappear, and they don’t move from room to
room on their own.”
“When did you last see the blue jug and bowl,
madame?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t noticed them in a long
while. I hardly ever go into the guest bedrooms.”
“Is it possible that Nancy Ducane removed the
blue jug and bowl when she left here on Thursday
night?”
“No. Why would she? That’s silly! I stood at the
door and said goodbye to her, and she was not
holding anything apart from her house key. Besides,
Nancy isn’t a thief. Dorcas, on the other hand . . . That
will be it! She hasn’t broken it, she has stolen it, I’m
sure—but how can I prove it? She’s bound to deny
it.”
“Madame, do me one favor: do not accuse Dorcas
of stealing or of anything else. I do not think she is
guilty.”
“Well, then where is my blue jug and bowl?”
“This is what I must think about,” said Poirot. “I
will leave you in peace in a moment, but first may I
take a last look at Nancy Ducane’s remarkable
portrait of you?”
“Yes, with pleasure.”
Together, Louisa Wallace and Hercule Poirot made
their way back down to the drawing room. They stood
in front of the painting. “Dratted girl,” muttered
Louisa. “All I can see when I look at it now is the
blue jug and bowl.”
“Oui. It stands out, does it not?”
