I should not even ask you to attempt it."
If Poirot was trying to frighten me, he was going the wrong way to work, and so I told him.
Becoming less incoherent, he unfolded his plan.
It seemed that Ryland was looking for an English secretary, one with a good social manner and presence.
It was Poirot's suggestion that I should apply for the post.
"I would do it, myself, mon ami," he explained apologetically. "But, see you, it is almost impossible for me to disguise myself in the needful manner.
I speak the English very well - except when I am excited - but hardly so as to deceive the ear; and even though I were to sacrifice my moustaches, I doubt not but that I should still be recognisable as Hercule Poirot."
I doubted it also, and declared myself ready and willing to take up the part and penetrate into Ryland's household.
"Ten to one he won't engage me anyway," I remarked.
"Oh, yes, he will.
I will arrange for you such testimonials as shall make him lick his lips.
The Home Secretary himself shall recommend you."
This seemed to be carrying things a bit far, but Poirot waved aside my remonstrances.
"Oh, yes, he will do it.
I investigated for him a little matter which might have caused a grave scandal.
All was solved with discretion and delicacy, and now, as you would say, he perches upon my hand like the little bird and pecks the crumbs."
Our first step was to engage the services of an artist in "make-up."
He was a little man, with a quaint birdlike turn of the head, not unlike Poirot's own.
He considered me some time in silence, and then fell to work.
When I looked at myself in the glass half an hour afterwards, I was amazed.
Special shoes caused me to stand at least two inches taller, and the coat I wore was arranged so as to give me a long, lank, weedy look.
My eyebrows had been cunningly altered, giving a totally different expression to my face, I wore pads in my cheeks, and the deep tan of my face was a thing of the past.
My moustache had gone, and a gold tooth was prominent on one side of my mouth.
"Your name," said Poirot, "is Arthur Neville. God guard you, my friend - for I fear that you go into perilous places."
It was with a beating heart that I presented myself a the Savoy, at an hour named by Mr. Ryland, and asked to see the great man.
After being kept waiting a minute or two, I was shown upstairs to his suite.
Ryland was sitting at a table.
Spread out in front of him was a letter which I could see out of the tail of my eye was in the Home Secretary's handwriting.
It was my first sight of the American millionaire, and, in spite of myself, I was impressed.
He was tall and lean, with a jutting out chin and slightly hooked nose.
His eyes glittered cold and gray behind penthouse brows.
He had thick grizzled hair, and a long black cigar (without which, I learned later, he was never seen) protruded rakishly from the corner of his mouth.
"Siddown," he grunted.
I sat.
He tapped the letter in front of him.
"According to this piece here, you're the goods all right, and I don't need to look further.
Say, are you well up in the social matters?"
I said that I thought I could satisfy him in that respect.
"I mean to say, if I have a lot of dooks and earls and viscounts and such like down to the country place I've gotten, you'll be able to sort them out all right and place them where they should be round the dining table?"
"Oh! quite easily," I replied, smiling.
We exchanged a few more preliminaries, and then I found myself engaged.
What Mr. Ryland wanted was a secretary conversant with English society, as he already had an American secretary and a stenographer with him.
Two days later I went down to Hatton Chase, the seat of the Duke of Loamshire, which the American millionaire had rented for a period of six months.
My duties gave me no difficulty whatever.
At one period of my life I had been private secretary to a busy member of Parliament, so I was not called upon to assume a role unfamiliar to me.
Mr. Ryland usually entertained a large party over the week-end, but the middle of the week was comparatively quiet.
I saw very little of Mr. Appleby, the American secretary, but he seemed a pleasant, normal young American, very efficient in his work.
Of Miss Martin, the stenographer, I saw rather more.
She was a pretty girl of about twenty-three or four, with auburn hair and brown eyes that could look mischievous enough upon occasion, though they were usually cast demurely down.
I had an idea that she both disliked and distrusted her employer, though, of course, she was careful never to hint at anything of the kind, but the time came when I was unexpectedly taken into her confidence.