“Ta-ta-ta. I will manage M. Renauld. By the way, I seem to know the name?”
“There’s a well-known South American millionaire. His name’s Renauld, though he’s English, I think. I don’t know whether it could be the same.”
“But without doubt. That explains the mention of Santiago. Santiago is in Chile, and Chile it is in South America! Ah, but we progress finely.”
“Dear me, Poirot,” I said, my excitement rising, “I smell some goodly shekels in this. If we succeed, we shall make our fortunes!”
“Do not be too sure of that, my friend. A rich man and his money are not so easily parted. Me, I have seen a well-known millionaire turn out a tramful of people to seek for a dropped halfpenny.”
I acknowledged the wisdom of this.
“In any case,” continued Poirot, “it is not the money which attracts me here. Certainly it will be pleasant to have carte blanche in our investigations, one can be sure that way of wasting no time, but it is something a little bizarre in this problem which arouses my interest. You remarked the postscript? How did it strike you?”
I considered. “Clearly he wrote the letter keeping himself well in hand, but at the end his self-control snapped and, on the impulse of the moment, he scrawled those four desperate words.”
But my friend shook his head energetically.
“You are in error. See you not that while the ink of the signature is nearly black, that of the postscript is quite pale?”
“Well?” I said puzzled.
“Mon Dieu, mon ami, but use your little gray cells! Is it not obvious? M. Renauld wrote his letter. Without blotting it, he reread it carefully. Then, not on impulse, but deliberately, he added those last words, and blotted the sheet.”
“But why?”
“Parbleu! so that it should produce the effect upon me that it has upon you.”
“What?”
10
