"I thank you."
They sat down and the doctor gave the order.
Then he said slowly: "No, I have no patients now. I have retired."
"A sudden decision?"
"Not so very sudden."
He was silent as the drinks were set before them. Then, raising his glass, he said:
"It is a necessary decision.
I resign of my own free will before I am struck off the register." He went on speaking in a gentle far-away voice:
"There comes to everyone a turning point in their lives, M. Poirot.
They stand at the crossroads and have to decide.
My profession interests me enormously; it is a sorrow - a very great sorrow - to abandon it.
But there are other claims. There is, M. Poirot, the happiness of a human being."
Poirot did not speak. He waited.
"There is a lady - a patient of mine - I love her very dearly.
She has a husband who causes her infinite misery.
He takes drugs.
If you were a doctor you would know what that meant.
She has no money of her own, so she cannot leave him. "For some time I have been undecided, but now I have made up my mind.
She and I are now on our way to Kenya to begin a new life.
I hope that at last she may know a little happiness.
She has suffered so long."
Again he was silent. Then he said in a brisker tone:
"I tell you this, M. Poirot, because it will soon be public property, and the sooner you know the better."
"I understand," said Poirot. After a minute, he said, "You take your flute, I see."
Doctor Bryant smiled.
"My flute, M. Poirot, is my oldest companion. When everything else fails, music remains."
His hand ran lovingly over the flute case; then, with a bow, he rose.
Poirot rose also.
"My best wishes for your future, M. le docteur, and for that of madame," said Poirot.
When Fournier rejoined his friend, Poirot was at the desk making arrangements for a trunk call to Quebec.
Chapter 24
"What now?" cried Fournier. "You are still preoccupied with this girl who inherits?
Decidedly, it is the idee fixe you have there."
"Not at all - not at all," said Poirot. "But there must be in all things order and method.
One must finish with one thing before proceeding to the next."
He looked round.
"Here is Mademoiselle Jane. Suppose that you commence dejeuner. I will join you as soon as I can."
Fournier acquiesced and he and Jane went into the dining room.
"Well?" said Jane with curiosity. "What is she like?"
"She is a little over medium height, dark with a matte complexion, a pointed chin -"
"You're talking exactly like a passport," said Jane. "My passport description is simply insulting, I think.
It's composed of mediums and ordinary.
Nose, medium; mouth, ordinary. How do they expect you to describe a mouth? Forehead, ordinary, chin, ordinary."
"But not ordinary eyes," said Fournier.
"Even they are gray, which is not a very exciting color."
"And who has told you, mademoiselle, that it is not an exciting color?" said the Frenchman, leaning across the table.
Jane laughed.
"Your command of the English language," she said, "is highly efficient. Tell me more about Anne Morisot.
Is she pretty?"
"Assez bien," said Fournier cautiously. "And she is not Anne Morisot. She is Anne Richards.