Twelve

POIROT DISCUSSES THE CASE

“Thank goodness, Poirot,” I said with fervour, “you got us out of those raw carrots! What awfulwomen!”

“Pour nous, un bon bifteck—with the fried potatoes—and a good bottle of wine. What shouldwe have had to drink there, I wonder?”

“Well, water, I should think,” I replied with a shudder¹. “Or nonalcoholic cider. It was that kindof place! I bet there’s no bath and no sanitation² except an E.C. in the garden!”

“Strange how women enjoy living an uncomfortable life,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “It is notalways poverty, though they are good at making the best of straitened circumstances.”

“What orders for the chauffeur³ now?” I asked, as I negotiated the last bend of the winding⁴ lanes,and we emerged on the road to Market Basing. “On what local light do we call next? Or do wereturn to the George and interrogate⁵ the asthmatic waiter once more?”

“You will be glad to hear, Hastings, that we have finished with Market Basing—”

“Splendid.”

“For the moment only. I shall return!”

“Still on the track of your unsuccessful murderer?”

“Exactly.”

“Did you learn anything from the fandango of nonsense we’ve just been listening to?”

Poirot said precisely⁶:

“There were certain points deserving of attention. The various characters in our drama begin toemerge more clearly. In some ways it resembles, does it not, a novelette of older days? Thehumble companion, once despised, is raised to affluence⁷ and now plays the part of lady bountiful.”

“I should imagine that such a patronage⁸ must be very galling⁹ to people who regard themselvesas the rightful heirs!”

“As you say, Hastings. Yes, that is very true.”

We drove on in silence for some minutes. We had passed through Market Basing and were nowonce more on the main road. I hummed to myself softly the tune¹⁰ of “Little Man, You’ve had aBusy Day.”

“Enjoyed yourself, Poirot?” I asked at last.

Poirot said coldly:

“I do not know quite what you mean by ‘enjoyed myself,’ Hastings.”

“Well,” I said, “it seemed to me you’ve been treating yourself to a busman’s holiday!”

“You do not think that I am serious?”

“Oh, you’re serious enough. But this business seems to be of the academic kind. You’retackling it for your own mental satisfaction. What I mean is—it’s not real.”

“Au contraire, it is intensely real.”

“I express myself badly. What I mean is, if there were a question of helping¹¹ our old lady, orprotecting her against further attack—well, there would be some excitement then. But as it is, Ican’t help feeling that as she is dead, why worry?”

“In that case, mon ami, one would not investigate a murder case at all!”

“No, no, no. That’s quite different. I mean, then you have a body… Oh, dash it all!”

“Do not enrage¹² yourself. I comprehend perfectly¹³. You make a distinction between a body and amere decease. Supposing, for instance, that Miss Arundell had died with sudden and alarmingviolence instead of respectably of a long-standing illness—then you would not remain indifferentto my efforts to discover the truth?”

“Of course I wouldn’t.”

“But all the same, someone did attempt to murder her?”

“Yes, but they didn’t succeed. That makes all the difference.”

“It does not intrigue¹⁵ you at all to know who attempted to kill her?”

“Well, yes, it does in a way.”

“We have a very restricted circle,” said Poirot musingly¹⁶. “That thread—”

“The thread which you merely deduce from a nail in the skirting board!” I interrupted. “Why,that nail may have been there for years!”

“No. The varnish¹⁷ was quite fresh.”

“Well, I still think there might be all sorts of explanations of it.”

“Give me one.”

At the moment I could not think of anything sufficiently¹⁸ plausible¹⁹. Poirot took advantage of mysilence to sweep on with his discourse²⁰.

“Yes, a restricted circle. That thread could only have been stretched across the top of the stairsafter everyone had gone to bed. Therefore we have only the occupants of the house to consider.

That is to say, the guilt²¹ lies between seven people. Dr. Tanios. Mrs. Tanios. Theresa Arundell.

Charles Arundell. Miss Lawson. Ellen. Cook.”

“Surely you can leave the servants out of it.”

“They received legacies²², mon cher. And there might have been other reasons—spite—a quarrel—dishonesty—one cannot be certain.”

“It seems to me very unlikely.”

“Unlikely, I agree. But one must take all possibilities into consideration.”

“In that case, you must allow for eight people, not seven.”

“How so?”

I felt I was about to score a point.

“You must include Miss Arundell herself. How do you know she may not have stretched thatthread across the stairs in order to trip up some other members of the house party?”

Poirot shrugged²³ his shoulders.

“It is a bêtise you say there, my friend. If Miss Arundell laid a trap, she would be careful not tofall into it herself. It was she who fell down the stairs, remember.”

I retired²⁴ crestfallen²⁵.

Poirot went on in a thoughtful voice:

“The sequence of events is quite clear—the fall—the letter to me—the visit of the lawyer—butthere is one doubtful point. Did Miss Arundell deliberately²⁶ hold back the letter to me, hesitating topost it? Or did she, once having written it, assume it was posted?”

“That we can’t possibly tell,” I said. “No. We can only guess. Personally, I fancy that sheassumed it had been posted. She must have been surprised at getting no reply….”

My thoughts had been busy in another direction.

“Do you think this spiritualistic nonsense counted at all?” I asked. “I mean, do you think, inspite of Miss Peabody’s ridiculing²⁷ of the suggestion, that a command was given at one of theseséances that she should alter her will and leave her money to the Lawson woman?”

Poirot shook his head doubtfully.

“That does not seem to fit in with the general impression I have formed of Miss Arundell’scharacter.”

“The Tripp women say that Miss Lawson was completely taken aback when the will was read,”

I said thoughtfully.

“That is what she told them, yes,” agreed Poirot.

“But you don’t believe it?”

“Mon ami—you know my suspicious nature! I believe nothing that anyone says unless it can beconfirmed or corroborated²⁸.”

“That’s right, old boy,” I said affectionately. “A thoroughly²⁹ nice, trustful nature.”

“‘He says,’ ‘she says,’ ‘they say’— Bah! what does that mean? Nothing at all. It may beabsolute truth. It may be useful falsehood. Me, I deal only with facts.”

“And the facts are?”

“Miss Arundell had a fall. That, nobody disputes. The fall was not a natural one—it wascontrived.”

“The evidence for that being that Hercule Poirot says so!”

“Not at all. There is the evidence of the nail. The evidence of Miss Arundell’s letter to me. Theevidence of the dog having been out that night. The evidence of Miss Arundell’s words about thejar and the picture and Bob’s ball. All these things are facts.”

“And the next fact, please?”

“The next fact is the answer to our usual question. Who benefits by Miss Arundell’s death?

Answer—Miss Lawson.”

“The wicked companion! On the other hand, the others thought they were going to benefit. Andat the time of the accident they would have benefited.”

“Exactly, Hastings. That is why they all lie equally under suspicion. There is also the little factthat Miss Lawson took pains to prevent Miss Arundell learning that Bob had been out all night.”

“You call that suspicious?”

“Not at all. I merely note it. It may have been natural concern for the old lady’s peace of mind.

That is by far the most likely explanation.”

I looked at Poirot sideways. He is so confoundedly slippery.

“Miss Peabody expressed the opinion that there was ‘hanky-panky’ about the will,” I said.

“What do you suppose she meant by that?”

“It was, I think, her way of expressing various nebulous and unformulated suspicions.”

“Undue influence, it seems, can be washed out,” I said thoughtfully. “And it certainly looks asthough Emily Arundell was much too sensible to believe in any tomfoolery like spiritualism.”

“What makes you say that spiritualism is tomfoolery, Hastings?”

I stared at him in astonishment³⁰.

“My dear Poirot—those appalling³¹ women—”

He smiled.

“I quite agree with your estimate of the Misses Tripp. But the mere¹⁴ fact that the Misses Tripphave adopted with enthusiasm Christian³² Science, vegetarianism³³, theosophy and spiritualism doesnot really constitute a damning indictment³⁴ of those subjects! Because a foolish woman will tellyou a lot of nonsense about a fake scarab which she has bought from a rascal³⁵ dealer³⁶, that does notnecessarily bring discredit³⁷ on the general subject of Egyptology!”

“Do you mean you believe in spiritualism, Poirot?”

“I have an open mind on the subject. I have never studied any of its manifestations³⁸ myself, but itmust be accepted that many men of science and learning have pronounced themselves satisfiedthat there are phenomena³⁹ which cannot be accounted for by—shall we say the credulity of a MissTripp?”

“Then you believe in this rigmarole of an aureole of light surrounding Miss Arundell’s head?”

Poirot waved a hand.

“I was speaking generally—rebuking your attitude of quite unreasoning scepticism. I may saythat, having formed a certain opinion of Miss Tripp and her sister, I should examine very carefullyany fact they presented for my notice. Foolish women, mon ami, are foolish women, whether theyare talking about spiritualism or politics or the relation of the sexes or the tenets of the Buddhistfaith.”

“Yet you listened to what they had to say very carefully.”

“That has been my task today—to listen. To hear what everyone has got to tell me about theseseven people—and mainly, of course, the five people primarily concerned. Already we knowcertain aspects of these people. Take Miss Lawson. From the Misses Tripp we learn she wasdevoted, unselfish, unworldly and altogether a beautiful character. From Miss Peabody we learnthat she was credulous⁴⁰, stupid, without the nerve or the brains to attempt anything criminal. FromDr. Grainger we learn that she was downtrodden, that her position was precarious⁴¹, and that shewas a poor ‘frightened, fluttering hen,’ were, I think, the words he used. From our waiter welearned that Miss Lawson was ‘a person,’ and from Ellen that Bob, the dog, despised her!

Everyone, you see, saw her from a slightly different angle. That is the same with the others.

Nobody’s opinion of Charles Arundell’s morals seems to have been high, but nevertheless theyvary in their manner of speaking of him. Dr. Grainger calls him indulgently ‘an irreverent youngdevil.’ Miss Peabody says he would murder his grandmother for twopence but clearly prefers arascal to a ‘stick.’ Miss Tripp hints not only that he would do a criminal action but that he hasdone one—or more. These sidelights are all very useful and interesting. They lead to the nextthing.”

“Which is?”

“To see for ourselves, my friend.”

 

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