Hickory Dickory Dock

"You think Celia stole that diamond deliberately?" Poirot shook his head.

"No," he said. "I think you stole it, Mademoiselle." Valerie Hobhouse caught her breath sharply.

"Well, really!" she exclaimed. "That seems to me pretty thick. You've no earthly evidence of any kind." "But yes," Poirot interrupted her. "I have evidence. The ring was returned in a plate of soup.

Now me, I dined here one evening. I noticed the way the soup was served. It was served from a tureen on the side table. Therefore, if anyone found a ring in their soup plate it could only have been placed there either by the person who was serving the soup (in this case Geronimo) or by the person whose soup plate it was. You! I do not think it was Geronimo. I think that you staged the return of the ring in the soup that way because it amused you. You have, if I may make the criticism, rather too humorous a sense of the dramatic. To hold up the ring! To exclaim! I think you indulged your sense of humour there, Mademoiselle, and did not realise that you betrayed yourself in so doing." "Is that all?" Valerie spoke scornfully.

"Oh, no, it is by no means all. You see, when Celia confessed that evening to having been responsible for the thefts here, I noticed several small points. For instance, in speaking of this ring she said, "I didn't realise how valuable it was.

As soon as I knew, I managed to return it." How did she know, Miss Valerie?

Who told her how valuable the ring was? And then again in speaking of the cut scarf, little Miss Celia said something like, 'That didn't matter.

Valerie didn't mind…" Why did you not mind if a good quality silk scarf belonging to you was cut to shreds? I formed the impression then and there that the whole campaign of stealing things, of making herself out to be a kleptomaniac, and so attracting the attention of Colin Meationabb had been thought out for Celia by someone else. Someone with far more intelligence than Celia Austin had andwitha good working knowledge of psychology. You told her the ring was valuable; you took it from her and arranged for its return. Inthe same way it was at your suggestion that she slashed a scarf of yours to pieces." "These are all theories," said Valerie, "and rather far-fetched theories at that. The Inspector has already suggested to me that I put Celia up to doing these tricks." "And what did you say to him?" "I said it was nonsense," said Valerie.

"And what do you say to me?" Valerie looked at him searchingly for a moment or two. Then she gave a short laugh, stubbed out her cigarette, leaned back thrusting a cushion behind her back and said: "You're quite right. I put her up to it." "May I ask you why?" Valerie said impatiently, "Oh, sheer foolish good nature. Benevolent interfering. There Celia was, mooning about like a little ghost, yearning over Colin who never looked at her.

It all seemed so silly. Colin's one of those conceited, opinionated young men wrapped up in psychology and complexes and emotional blocks and all the rest of it, and I thought really it would be rather fun to egg him on and make a fool of him.

Anyway I hated to see Celia look so miserable, so I got hold of her, gave her a talking-to, explained in outline the whole scheme, and urged her on to it. She was a bit nervous, I think, about it all, but rather thrilled at the same time. Then, of course, one of the first things the little idiot does is to find Pat's ring left in the bathroom and pinch that coma really valuable piece of jewelry about which there'd be a lot of hoo-ha and the police would be called in and the whole thing might take a serious turn. So I grabbed the ring off her, told her I'd return it somehow, and urged her in the future to stick to costume jewelry and cosmetics and a little wilful damage to something of mine which wouldn't land her in trouble." Poirot drew a deep breath.

"That was exactly what I thought," he said.

"I wish that I hadn't done it now," said Valerie sombrely. "But I really did mean well. That's an atrocious thing to say and just like Jean Tomlinson, but there it is." "And now," said Poirot, "we come to this business of Patricia's ring. Celia gave it to you. You were to find it somewhere and return it to Patricia. But before returning it to Patricia," he paused. "What happened?" He watched her fingers nervously plaitidg and unplaiting the end of a fringed scarf that she was wearing round her neck. He went on, in an even more persuasive voide, "You were hard up, eh, was that it?" Without looking up at him she gave a short nod of the head.