“Yes, yes. You have found one?” My interest was aroused.
“No, not that, sir. But since then I’ve remembered what the young gentlemen”—John and Lawrence were still the “young gentlemen” to Dorcas—“call the ‘dressing-up box.’ It’s up in the front attic, sir. A great chest, full of old clothes and fancy dresses, and what not. And it came to me sudden like that there might be a green dress amongst them. So, if you’d tell the Belgian gentleman——”
“I will tell him, Dorcas,” I promised.
“Thank you very much, sir. A very nice gentleman he is, sir. And quite a different class from them two detectives from London, what goes prying about, and asking questions. I don’t hold with foreigners as a rule, but from what the newspapers say I make out as how these brave Belges isn’t the ordinary run of foreigners, and certainly he’s a most polite spoken gentleman.”
Dear old Dorcas! As she stood there, with her honest face upturned to mine, I thought what a fine specimen she was of the old-fashioned servant that is so fast dying out.
I thought I might as well go down to the village at once, and look up Poirot; but I met him half-way, coming up to the house, and at once gave him Dorcas’s message.
“Ah, the brave Dorcas! We will look at the chest, although—but no matter—we will examine it all the same.”
We entered the house by one of the windows. There was no one in the hall, and we went straight up to the attic.
Sure enough, there was the chest, a fine old piece, all studded with brass nails, and full to overflowing with every imaginable type of garment.
Poirot bundled everything out on the floor with scant ceremony. There were one or two green fabrics of varying shades; but Poirot shook his head over them all. He seemed somewhat apathetic in the search, as though he expected no great results from it. Suddenly he gave an exclamation.