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Thirteen
THERESA ARUNDELL
On the following morning we made our way to the address given us by Dr. Donaldson.
I suggested to Poirot that a visit to the lawyer, Mr. Purvis, might be a good thing, but Poirotnegatived the idea strongly.
“No, indeed, my friend. What could we say — what reason could we advance for seekinginformation?”
“You’re usually pretty ready with reasons, Poirot! Any old lie would do, wouldn’t it?”
“On the contrary, my friend, ‘any old lie,’ as you put it, would not do. Not with a lawyer. Weshould be—how do you say it—thrown out with the flea1 upon the ear.”
“Oh, well,” I said. “Don’t let us risk that!”
So, as I have said, we set out for the flat occupied by Theresa Arundell.
The flat in question was situated2 in a block at Chelsea overlooking the river. It was furnishedexpensively in the modern style, with gleaming chromium and thick rugs with geometric designsupon them.
We were kept waiting a few minutes and then a girl entered the room and looked at usinquiringly.
Theresa Arundell looked about twenty-eight or nine. She was tall and very slender, and shelooked rather like an exaggerated drawing in black and white. Her hair was jet black—her faceheavily made-up, dead pale. Her eyebrows3, freakishly plucked, gave her an air of mocking irony4.
Her lips were the only spot of colour, a brilliant gash5 of scarlet6 in a white face. She also conveyedthe impression—how I do not quite know, for her manner was almost wearily indifferent—ofbeing at least twice as much alive as most people. There hung about her the restrained energy of awhiplash.
Wearied (I hoped) of deceit, Poirot had on this occasion sent in his own card. She was holding itnow in her fingers, twirling it to and for.
“I suppose,” she said, “you’re M. Poirot?”
Poirot bowed in his best manner.
With a faint imitation of Poirot’s manner she replied:
“Enchanted, M. Poirot. Pray sit down.”
Poirot sat, rather gingerly, on a low square easy chair. I took an upright one of webbing andchromium. Theresa sat negligently9 on a low stool in front of the fireplace. She offered us bothcigarettes. We refused and she lighted one herself.
“You know my name perhaps, mademoiselle?”
She nodded.
“Little friend of Scotland Yard. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“I concern myself with problems of crime, mademoiselle.”
“How frightfully thrilling,” said Theresa Arundell in a bored voice. “And to think I’ve lost myautograph book!”
“The matter with which I concern myself is this,” continued Poirot. “Yesterday I received aletter from your aunt.”
“From my aunt, M. Poirot?”
“That is what I said, mademoiselle.”
She murmured:
“I’m sorry if I’m spoiling sport in any way, but really, you know, there isn’t any such person!
All my aunts are mercifully dead. The last died two months ago.”
“Miss Emily Arundell?”
“Sometimes I do, mademoiselle.”
“And what did my aunt say, M. Poirot?”
“That, mademoiselle, I can hardly tell you just at present. It was, you see, a somewhat”—hecoughed—“delicate matter.”
There was silence for a minute or two. Theresa Arundell smoked. Then she said:
“It all sounds delightfully16 hush-hush. But where exactly do I come in?”
“I hoped, mademoiselle, that you might consent to answer a few questions.”
“Questions? What about?”
“Questions of a family nature.”
Again I saw her eyes widen.
“Certainly. Can you tell me the present address of your brother Charles?”
The eyes narrowed again. Her latent energy was less apparent. It was as though she withdrewinto a shell.
“I’m afraid I can’t. We don’t correspond much. I rather think he has left England.”
“I see.”
Poirot was silent for a minute or two.
“Was that all you wanted to know?”
“Oh, I have other questions. For one—are you satisfied with the way in which your auntdisposed of her fortune? For another—how long have you been engaged to Dr. Donaldson?”
“You do jump about, don’t you?”
“Eh bien?”
“Eh bien—since we are so foreign!—my answer to both those questions is they are none ofyour business! Ca ne vous regarde pas, M. Hercule Poirot.”
Poirot studied her for a moment or two attentively19. Then, with no trace of disappointment, hegot up.
“So it is like that! Ah, well, perhaps it is not surprising. Allow me, mademoiselle, tocongratulate you upon your French accent. And to wish you a very good morning. Come,Hastings.”
We had reached the door when the girl spoke20. The simile21 of a whiplash came again into mymind. She did not move from her position but the two words were like the flick22 of a whip.
“Come back!” she said.
Poirot obeyed slowly. He sat down again and looked at her inquiringly.
“Let’s stop playing the fool,” she said. “It’s just possible that you might be useful to me, M.
Hercule Poirot.”
“Delighted, mademoiselle—and how?”
“Tell me how to break that will.”
“Surely a lawyer—”
“Yes, a lawyer, perhaps — if I knew the right lawyer. But the only lawyers I know arerespectable men! Their advice is that the will holds good in law and that any attempts to contest itwill be useless expense.”
“But you do not believe them.”
“I believe there is always a way to do things—if you don’t mind being unscrupulous and areprepared to pay. Well, I am prepared to pay.”
“And you take it for granted that I am prepared to be unscrupulous if I am paid?”
“I’ve found that to be true of most people! I don’t see why you should be an exception. Peoplealways protest about their honesty and their rectitude to begin with, of course.”
“Just so, that is part of the game, eh? But what, given that I was prepared to be—unscrupulous—do you think I could do?”
“I don’t know. But you’re a clever man. Everyone knows that. You could think out somescheme.”
“Such as?”
“That’s your business. Steal the will and substitute a forgery… Kidnap the Lawson and frightenher into saying she bullied25 Aunt Emily into making it. Produce a later will made on old Emily’sdeathbed.”
“Your fertile imagination takes my breath away, mademoiselle!”
“Well, what is your answer? I’ve been frank enough. If it’s righteous refusal, there’s the door.”
“It is not righteous refusal—yet—” said Poirot.
Theresa Arundell laughed. She looked at me.
“Your friend,” she observed, “looks shocked. Shall we send him out to chase himself round theblock?”
Poirot addressed himself to me with some slight irritation26.
“Control, I pray of you, your beautiful and upright nature, Hastings. I demand pardon for myfriend, mademoiselle. He is, as you have perceived, honest. But he is also faithful. His loyalty27 tomyself is absolute. In any case, let me emphasize this point”— he looked at her very hard—“whatever we are about to do will be strictly28 within the law.”
She raised her eyebrows slightly.
“I see,” she smiled faintly. “All right, we’ll let that be understood. Do you want to discuss yourshare of the booty—if there turns out to be any booty?”
“That, also, can be understood. Some nice little pickings—that is all I ask?”
“Done,” said Theresa.
Poirot leant forward.
“Now listen, mademoiselle, usually—in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred cases, shall we say, Iam on the side of the law. The hundredth—well, the hundredth is different. For one thing, it isusually much more lucrative… But it has to be done very quietly, you understand—very, veryquietly. My reputation, it must not suffer. I have to be careful.”
Theresa Arundell nodded.
“And I must have all the facts of the case! I must have the truth! You comprehend that once oneknows the truth it is an easier matter to know just what lies to tell!”
“Very well then. Now, on what date was this will made?”
“On April 21st.”
“And the previous will?”
“Aunt Emily made a will five years ago.”
“Its provisions being—?”
“After a legacy31 to Ellen and one to a former cook, all her property was to be divided betweenthe children of her brother Thomas and the children of her sister Arabella.”
“Was this money left in trust?”
“No, it was left to us absolutely.”
“Now, be careful. Did you all know the provisions of this will?”
“Oh, yes. Charles and I knew—and Bella knew too. Aunt Emily made no secret of it. In fact, ifany of us asked for a loan she would usually say, ‘You’ll have all my money when I’m dead andgone. Be content with that fact.’”
“No, I don’t think she would,” said Theresa slowly.
“But she considered you all had enough to live on?”
“She considered so—yes.”
There was bitterness in that voice.
“But you—did not?”
Theresa waited a minute or two before speaking. Then she said:
“My father left us thirty thousand pounds each. The interest on that, safely invested, amounts toabout twelve hundred a year. Income tax takes another wedge off it. A nice little income on whichone can manage very prettily33. But I—” her voice changed, her slim body straightened, her headwent back—all that wonderful aliveness I had sensed in her came to the fore—“but I wantsomething better than that out of life! I want the best! The best food, the best clothes—somethingwith line to it—beauty—not just suitable covering in the prevailing34 fashion. I want to live andenjoy—to go to the Mediterranean35 and lie in the warm summer sea—to sit round a table and playwith exciting wads of money — to give parties — wild, absurd, extravagant36 parties — I wanteverything that’s going in this rotten world—and I don’t want it some day—I want it now!”
Her voice was wonderfully exciting, warm, exhilarating, intoxicating37.
Poirot was studying her intently.
“And you have, I fancy, had it now?”
“Yes, Hercule—I’ve had it!”
“And how much of the thirty thousand is left?”
She laughed suddenly.
“Two hundred and twenty-one pounds, fourteen and seven-pence. That’s the exact balance. Soyou see, little man, you’ve got to be paid by results. No results—no fees.”
“In that case,” said Poirot in a matter-of-fact manner, “there will certainly be results.”
“You’re a great little man, Hercule. I’m glad we got together.”
Poirot went on in a businesslike way:
“There are a few things that are actually necessary that I should know. Do you drug?”
“No, never.”
“Drink?”
“Quite heavily—but not for the love of it. My crowd drinks and I drink with them, but I couldgive it up tomorrow.”
“That is very satisfactory.”
She laughed.
“I shan’t give the show away in my cups, Hercule.”
Poirot proceeded:
“Love affairs?”
“Plenty in the past.”
“And the present?”
“Only Rex.”
“That is Dr. Donaldson?”
“Yes.”
“He seems, somehow, very alien from the life you mention.”
“Oh, he is.”
“And yet you care for him. Why, I wonder?”
“Oh, what are reasons? Why did Juliet fall for Romeo?”
“Well for one thing, with all due deference38 to Shakespeare, he happened to be the first man shehad seen.”
Theresa said slowly:
“Rex wasn’t the first man I saw—not by a long way.” She added in a lower voice, “But I think—I feel—he’ll be the last man I’ll ever see.”
“And he is a poor man, mademoiselle.”
She nodded.
“And he, too, needs money?”
“Desperately. Oh, not for the reasons I did. He doesn’t want luxury—or beauty—or excitement—or any of these things. He’d wear the same suit until it went into holes—and eat a congealedchop every day for lunch quite happily, and wash in a cracked tin bath. If he had money it wouldall go on test tubes and a laboratory and all the rest of it. He’s ambitious. His profession meanseverything to him. It means more to him than—I do.”
“He knew that you would come into money when Miss Arundell died?”
“I told him so. Oh! after we were engaged. He isn’t really marrying me for my money if that iswhat you are getting at.”
“You are still engaged?”
“Of course we are.”
“Of course we are,” she repeated sharply. And then she added, “You—have you seen him?”
“I saw him yesterday—at Market Basing.”
“Why? What did you say to him?”
“I said nothing. I only asked him for your brother’s address.”
“Charles?” Her voice was sharp again. “What did you want with Charles?”
“Charles? Who wants Charles?”
It was a new voice—a delightful15, man’s voice.
A bronze-faced young man with an agreeable grin strolled into the room.
They were very particular about eavesdropping41 at Borstal. Now then, Theresa my girl, what’s allthis? Spill the beans.”
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