Ten

Nurse O’Brien tossed her red head and smiled widely across the tea table at the little man oppositeher.

She thought to herself:

“It’s the funny little fellow he is—and his eyes green like any cat’s, and with all that Dr. Lordsaying he’s the clever one!”

Hercule Poirot said:

“It is a pleasure to meet someone so full of health and vitality¹. Your patients, I am sure, must allrecover.”

Nurse O’Brien said:

“I’m not one for pulling a long face, and not many of my patients die on me, I’m thankful tosay.”

Poirot said:

“Of course, in Mrs. Welman’s case, it was a merciful release.”

“Ah! It was that, the poor dear.” Her eyes were shrewd as she looked at Poirot and asked:

“Is it about that you want to talk to me? I was after hearing that they’re digging her up.”

Poirot said:

“You yourself had no suspicion at the time?”

“Not the least in the world, though indeed I might have had, with the face Dr. Lord had on himthat morning, and him sending me here, there and everywhere for things he didn’t need! But hesigned the certificate, for all that.”

Poirot began, “He had his reasons—” but she took the words out of his mouth.

“Indeed and he was right. It does a doctor no good to think things and offend the family, andthen if he’s wrong it’s the end of him, and no one would be wishing to call him in any more. Adoctor’s got to be sure!”

Poirot said:

“There is a suggestion that Mrs. Welman might have committed suicide.”

“She? And her lying there helpless? Just lift one hand, that was all she could do!”

“Someone might have helped her?”

“Ah! I see now what you’re meaning. Miss Carlisle, or Mr. Welman, or maybe Mary Gerrard?”

“It would be possible, would it not?”

Nurse O’Brien shook her head. She said:

“They’d not dare—any of them!”

Poirot said slowly:

“Perhaps not.”

Then he said:

“When was it Nurse Hopkins missed the tube of morphine?”

“It was that very morning. ‘I’m sure I had it here,’ she said. Very sure she was at first; but youknow how it is, after a while your mind gets confused, and in the end she made sure she’d left it athome.”

Poirot murmured:

“And even then you had no suspicion?”

“Not the least in the world! Sure, it never entered my head for a moment that things weren’t asthey should be. And even now ’tis only a suspicion they have.”

“The thought of that missing tube never caused either you or Nurse Hopkins an uneasymoment?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that… I do remember that it came into my head — and into NurseHopkins’ head, too, I believe—in the Blue Tit Café, we were at the time. And I saw the thoughtpass into her mind from mine. ‘It couldn’t be any other way than that I left it on the mantelpieceand it fell into the dustbin, could it?’ she says. And ‘No, indeed, that was the way of it,’ I said toher; and neither of us saying what was in our minds and the fear that was on us.”

Hercule Poirot asked:

“And what do you think now?”

Nurse O’Brien said:

“If they find morphine in her there’ll be little doubt who took that tube, nor what it was used for—though I’ll not be believing she sent the old lady the same road till it’s proved there’s morphinein her.”

Poirot said:

“You have no doubt at all that Elinor Carlisle killed Mary Gerrard?”

“There’s no question of it at all, in my opinion! Who else had the reason or the wish to do it?”

“That is the question,” said Poirot.

Nurse O’Brien went on dramatically:

“Wasn’t I there that night when the old lady was trying to speak, and Miss Elinor promising² herthat everything should be done decently and according to her wishes? And didn’t I see her facelooking after Mary as she went down the stairs one day, and the black hate that was on it? ’Twasmurder she had in her heart that minute.”

Poirot said:

“If Elinor Carlisle killed Mrs. Welman, why did she do it?”

“Why? For the money, of course. Two hundred thousand pounds, no less. That’s what she gotby it, and that’s why she did it—if she did it. She’s a bold, clever young lady, with no fear in her,and plenty of brains.”

Hercule Poirot said:

“If Mrs. Welman had lived to make a will, how do you think she’d have left her money?”

“Ah, it’s not for me to be saying that,” said Nurse O’Brien, betraying, however, every symptomof being about to do so. “But it’s my opinion that every penny the old lady had would have goneto Mary Gerrard.”

“Why?” said Hercule Poirot.

The simple monosyllable seemed to upset Nurse O’Brien.

“Why? Is it why you’re asking? Well—I’d say that that would be the way of it.”

Poirot murmured:

“Some people might say that Mary Gerrard had played her cards very cleverly, that she hadmanaged so to ingratiate herself with the old woman, as to make her forget the ties of blood andaffection.”

“They might that,” said Nurse O’Brien slowly.

Poirot asked:

“Was Mary Gerrard a clever, scheming girl?”

Nurse O’Brien said, still rather slowly:

“I’ll not think that of her… All she did was natural enough, with no thought of scheming. Shewasn’t that kind. And there’s reasons often for these things that never get made public….”

Hercule Poirot said softly:

“You are, I think, a very discreet³ woman, Nurse O’Brien.”

“I’m not one to be talking of what doesn’t concern me.”

Watching her very closely, Poirot went on:

“You and Nurse Hopkins, you have agreed together, have you not, that there are some thingswhich are best not brought out into the light of day.”

Nurse O’Brien said:

“What would you be meaning by that?”

Poirot said quickly:

“Nothing to do with the crime—or crimes. I mean—the other matter.”

Nurse O’Brien said, nodding her head:

“What would be the use of raking up mud and an old story, and she a decent elderly womanwith never a breath of scandal about her, and dying respected and looked up to by everybody.”

Hercule Poirot nodded in assent⁴. He said cautiously:

“As you say, Mrs. Welman was much respected in Maidensford.”

The conversation had taken an unexpected turn, but his face expressed no surprise orpuzzlement.

Nurse O’Brien went on:

“It’s so long ago, too. All dead and forgotten. I’ve a soft heart for a romance myself, and I dosay and I always have said that it’s hard for a man who’s got a wife in an asylum⁵ to be tied all hislife with nothing but death that can free him.”

Poirot murmured, still in bewilderment:

“Yes, it is hard….”

Nurse O’Brien said:

“Did Nurse Hopkins tell you how her letter crossed mine?”

Poirot said truthfully:

“She did not tell me that.”

“’Twas an odd coincidence. But there, that’s always the way of it! Once you hear a name,maybe, and a day or two later you’ll come across it again, and so on and so on. That I should beseeing the selfsame photograph on the piano and at the same minute Nurse Hopkins was hearingall about it from the doctor’s housekeeper⁶.”

“That,” said Poirot, “is very interesting.”

He murmured tentatively:

“Did Mary Gerrard know—about this?”

“Who’d be telling her?” said Nurse O’Brien. “Not I—and not Hopkins. After all, what goodwould it be to her?”

She flung up her red head and gazed at him steadily⁷.

Poirot said with a sigh:

“What, indeed?”

 

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