Again, just for a moment, the mockery showed in her eyes.
Hercule Poirot thought:
“It is very clear that you are not afraid of the police, my lady. You know very well that they are not going to be called in.”
And from that followed—what?
He said soberly:
“You comprehend, madame, it is an affair of the most discreet.”
“Why, naturally, M.—Poirot—isn’t it?—I shouldn’t dream of breathing a word. I’m much too great an admirer of dear Lord Mayfield’s to do anything to cause him the least little bit of worry.”
She crossed her knees. A highly-polished slipper of brown leather dangled on the tip of her silk-shod foot.
She smiled, a warm, compelling smile of perfect health and deep satisfaction.
“Do tell me if there’s anything at all I can do?”
“I thank you, madame. You played bridge in the drawing room last night?”
“Yes.”
“I understand that then all the ladies went up to bed?”
“That is right.”
“But someone came back to fetch a book. That was you, was it not, Mrs. Vanderlyn?”
“I was the first one to come back—yes.”
“What do you mean—the first one?” said Poirot sharply.
“I came back right away,” explained Mrs. Vanderlyn. “Then I went up and rang for my maid. She was a long time in coming. I rang again. Then I went out on the landing. I heard her voice and I called her. After she had brushed my hair I sent her away, she was in a nervous, upset state and tangled the brush in my hair once or twice. It was then, just as I sent her away, that I saw Lady Julia coming up the stairs. She told me she had been down again for a book, too. Curious, wasn’t it?”
Mrs. Vanderlyn smiled as she finished, a wide, rather feline smile. Hercule Poirot thought to himself that Mrs. Vanderlyn did not like Lady Julia Carrington.
“As you say, madame. Tell me, did you hear your maid scream?”
“Why, yes, I did hear something of that kind.”
“Did you ask her about it?”
“Yes. She told me she thought she had seen a floating figure in white—such nonsense!”
“What was Lady Julia wearing last night?”
“Oh, you think perhaps—Yes, I see. She was wearing a white evening dress. Of course, that explains it. She must have caught sight of her in the darkness just as a white figure. These girls are so superstitious.”
“Your maid has been with you a long time, madame?”
“Oh, no.” Mrs. Vanderlyn opened her eyes rather wide. “Only about five months.”
“I should like to see her presently, if you do not mind, madame.”
Mrs. Vanderlyn raised her eyebrows.
“Oh, certainly,” she said rather coldly.