Fourteen DR. WILLOUGHBY
Hercule Poirot got out of the taxi, paid the fare and a tip, verified the fact that the address he hadcome to was the address corresponding to that written down in his little notebook, took carefully aletter from his pocket addressed to Dr. Willoughby, mounted the steps to the house and pressed thebell. The door was opened by a manservant. On reception of Poirot’s name he was told that Dr.
Willoughby was expecting him.
He was shown into a small, comfortable room with bookshelves up the side of it, there were twoarmchairs drawn¹ to the fire and a tray with glasses on it and two decanters. Dr. Willoughby rose togreet him. He was a man between fifty and sixty with a lean, thin body, a high forehead, dark-haired and with very piercing grey eyes. He shook hands and motioned him to a seat. Poirotproduced the letter from his pocket.
“Ah, yes.”
The doctor took it from him, opened it, read it and then, placing it beside him, looked at Poirotwith some interest.
“I had already heard,” he said, “from Superintendent² Garroway and also, I may say, from afriend of mine in the Home Office, who also begged me to do what I can for you in the matter thatinterests you.”
“It is a rather serious favour to ask, I know,” said Poirot, “but there are reasons which make itimportant for me.”
“Important for you after this number of years?”
“Yes. Of course I shall quite understand if those particular events have passed out of your mindaltogether.”
“I can’t say they’ve done that. I am interested, as you may have heard, in special branches ofmy profession, and have been for many years.”
“Your father, I know, was a very celebrated³ authority on them.”
“Yes, he was. It was a great interest in his life. He had a lot of theories, some of themtriumphantly proved right and some of them which proved disappointing. It is, I gather, a mentalcase you are interested in?”
“A woman. Her name was Dorothea Preston-Grey.”
“Yes. I was quite a young man at the time. I was already interested in my father’s line ofthought although my theories and his did not always agree. The work he did was interesting andthe work I did in collaboration⁴ interested me very much. I don’t know what your particular interestwas in Dorothea Preston-Grey, as she was at the time, Mrs. Jarrow later.”

分享到：