The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories

cabin he tapped on the door of Madeleine's. "How are you, my dear? All right? Our young friend has been along. The usual slight attack of Madeleinitis. He'll get over it in a day or two, but you are rather distracting."

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Yellow Iris

106 Agatha Christie

Smiling at the pleasing conceit, he lifted the receiver.

Immediately a voice spoke--a soft husky woman's voice with a kind of desperate urgency about it.

"Is that M. Hercule Poirot? Is that M. Hercule

Poirot ?" "Hercule Poirot speaks."

"M. Poirot--can you come at once--at once-

I'm in danger--in great danger--I know it "

Poirot said sharply, "Who are you? Where are you speaking from?"

The voice came more faintly but with an even greater urgency. "At once.., it's life or death .... The Jarclin des Cygnes. . . at once . . . table with yellow irises.... " There was a pause--a queer kind of gasp--the line went dead. Hercule Poirot hung up. His face was puzzled. He murmured between his teeth: "There

is something here very curious."

In the doorway of the Jardin des Cygnes, fat Luigi hurried forward. "Buona sera, M. Poirot. You desire a table--yes?" "No, no, my good Luigi. I seek here for some friends. I will look round--perhaps they are not here yet. Ah, let me see, that table there in the cor-ner with the yellow irises--a little question by the way, if it is not indiscreet. On all the other tables there are tulips--pink tulips--why on that one

YELLOW IRIS 107

table do you have yellow iris?"

Luigi shrugged his expressive shoulders.

"A command, Monsieur! A. special order!

Without doubt, the favorite flowers of one of the ladies. That table, it is the table of Mr. Barton Russell--an American--immensely rich."

"Aha, one must study the whims of the ladies, must one not, Luigi?"

"Monsieur has said it," said LLfigi.

"I see at that table an acquaintance of mine. I must go and speak to him."

Poirot skirted his way delicately round the dancing floor on which couples were revolving. The table in question was set for six, but it had at the moment only one occupant, a young man who was thoughtfully, and it seemed pessimistically, drinking champagne.

He was not at all the person that Poirot had ex-pected to see. It seemed impossible to associate the idea of danger or melodrama with any party of which Tony Chapell was a member.

Poirot paused delicately by the table.

"Ah, it is, is it not, my friend Anthony Chap-ell?"

"By all that's wonderful--Poirot the police hound!" cried the young man. "Not Anthony, my

dear fellow--Tony to friends!"

He drew out a chair.

"Come, sit with me. Let us discourse of crime! Let us go further and drink to crime." He poured champagne into an empty glass. "But what are you doing in this haunt of song and dance and merriment, my dear Poirot? We have no bodies here, positively not a single body to offer you."

108 Agatha Christie

Poirot sipped the champagne. "You seem very gay, man cher?" "Gay? I am steeped in miserymwallowing in gloom. Tell me, you hear this tune they are playing.

You recognize it?"

Poirot lazarded cautiously: "Something perhaps to do with your baby having left you?" "Not a bad guess," said the young man, "but wrong for once. 'There's nothing like love for making you miserable!' That's what it's called." "Aha?" "My favorite tune,." said Tony Chapell mournfully. "And my favorite restaurant and my favorite band--and my favorite girl's here and she's dancing it with somebody else." "Hence the melancholy?" said Poirot. "Exactly. Pauline and I, you see, have had what the vulgar call words. That is to say, she's had ninety-five words to five of mine out of every hundred. My five are: 'But darling--I can explain.' --Then she starts in on her ninety-five again and we get no further. I think," added Tony sadly, "that I shall poison myself." "Pauline?" murmured Poirot. "Pauline Weatherby. Barton Russell's young sister-in-law. Young, lovely, disgustingly rich. Tonight Barton Russell gives a party. You know him? Big Business, clean-shaven American--full of pep and personality. His wife was Pauline's sister."

"And who else is there at this party?"

"You'll meet 'em in a minute when the music stops. There's Lola Valdez--you know, the South

YELLOW IRIS 109

American dancer in the new show at the Metro-pole, and there's Stephen Carter. D'you know Carter--he's in the diplomatic service. Very hush-hush. Known as silent Stephen. Sort of man who says, 'I am not at liberty to state, etc., etc.' Hullo, here they come."

Poirot rose. He was introduced to Barton Russell, to Stephen Carter, to Sefiora Lola Valdez, a dark and luscious creature, and to Pauline Weatherby, very young, very fair, with eyes like cornflowers.

Barton Russell said:

"What, is this the great M. Hercule Poirot? I

am indeed pleased to meet you, sir. Won't you sit

down and join us? That is, unless--"

Tony Chapell broke in.

"He's got an appointment with a body, I be-lieve, or is it an absconding financier, or the Rajah of Borrioboolagah's great ruby?"