"Did you find your mistress easy to get

on with ?"

The girl shrugged her shoulders.

"She had great moods. She wept and

laughed in turns. Sometimes she was so

despondent she would not speak or eat.

Sometimes she was wildly gay. They are

like that, these dancers. It is temperament."

"And Sir George ?"

The girl looked up alertly. An unpleasant

gleam came into her eyes.

"Ah, Sir George Sanderfield? You

would like to know about him? Perhaps

it is that you really want to know? The

other was only an excuse, eh? Ah, Sir

George, I could tell you some curious

things about him, I could tell you — "

Poirot interrupted:

"It is not necessary."

She stared at him, her mouth open.

Angry disappointment showed in her eyes.

VI

"I always say you know everything, Alexis

Pavlovitch."

122

Hercule Poirot murmured the words

with his most flattering intonation.

He was reflecting to himself that this

third Labour of Hercules had necessitated

more travelling and more interviews than

could have been imagined possible. This

little matter of a missing lady's-maid was

proving one of the longest and most

difficult problems he had ever tackled.

Every clue, when examined, led exactly

nowhere.

It had brought him this evening to the

Samovar Restaurant in Paris whose proprietor, Count Alexis Pavlovitch, prided himself on knowing everything that went

on in the artistic world.

He nodded now complacently:

"Yes, yes, my friend, I know --I always

know. You ask me where she is gone-the little Samoushenka, the exquisite dancer? Ah! she was the real thing, that

little one." He kissed his fingertips. "What

fire --what abandon! She would have gone

far--she would have been the Premiere

Ballerina of her day --and then suddenly

it all ends --she creeps away --to the end of the world --and soon, ah! so soon, they forget her." 123

"Where is she then ?" demanded Poirot.

"In Switzerland. At Vagray les Alpes.

It is there that they go, those who have

the little dry cough and who grow thinner

and thinner. She will die, yes, she

will die! She has a fatalistic nature. She

will surely die."

Poirot coughed to break the tragic

spell. He wanted information.

"You do not, by chance, remember a

maid she had? A maid called Nita

Valetta ?"

"Valetta? Valetta? I remember seeing

a maid once — at the station when I was

seeing Katrina off to London. She was an

Italian from Pisa, was she not ? Yes, I am

sure she was an Italian who came from

Pisa."

Hercule Poirot groaned.

"In that case," he said, "I must now

journey to Pisa."

VII

Hercule Poirot stood in the Campo Santo

at Pisa and looked down on a grave.

So it was here that his quest had come

to an end — here by this humble mound

of earth. Underneath it lay the joyous

124

creature who had stirred the heart and

imagination of a simple English mechanic.

Was this perhaps the best end to that sudden strange romance? Now the girl would live always in the young man's