Twenty-eight

ANOTHER VICTIM

“That is a clever man,” said Poirot thoughtfully.

“It’s rather difficult to know what he is driving at.”

“Yes. He is a little inhuman¹. But extremely perceptive².”

“That telephone call was from Mrs. Tanios.”

“So I gathered.”

I repeated the message. Poirot nodded approval.

“Good. All marches well. Twenty-four hours, Hastings, and I think we shall know exactlywhere we stand.”

“I’m still a little fogged. Who exactly do we suspect?”

“I really could not say who you suspect, Hastings! Everybody in turn, I should imagine!”

“Sometimes I think you like to get me into that state!”

“No, no, I would not amuse myself in such a way.”

“I wouldn’t put it past you.”

Poirot shook his head, but somewhat absently. I studied him.

“Is anything the matter?” I asked.

“My friend, I am always nervous towards the end of a case. If anything should go wrong—”

“Is anything likely to go wrong?”

“I do not think so.” He paused — frowning. “I have, I think, provided against everycontingency.”

“Then, supposing we forget crime and go to a show?”

“Ma foi, Hastings, that is a good idea!”

We passed a very pleasant evening, though I made the slight mistake of taking Poirot to a crookplay. There is one piece of advice I offer all my readers. Never take a soldier to a military play, asailor to a naval³ play, a Scotsman to a Scottish play, a detective to a thriller—and an actor to anyplay whatsoever⁴! The shower of destructive criticism in each case is somewhat devastating⁵. Poirotnever ceased to complain of faulty psychology⁶, and the hero detective’s lack of order and methodnearly drove him demented. We parted that night with Poirot still explaining how the wholebusiness might have been laid bare in the first half of the first act.

“But in that case, Poirot, there would have been no play,” I pointed⁷ out.

Poirot was forced to admit that perhaps that was so.

It was a few minutes past nine when I entered the sitting room the next morning. Poirot was atthe breakfast table—as usual neatly⁸ slitting⁹ open his letters.

The telephone rang and I answered it.

A heavy breathing female voice spoke¹⁰:

“Is that M. Poirot? Oh, it’s you, Captain Hastings.”

There was a sort of gasp¹¹ and a sob¹².

“Is that Miss Lawson?” I asked.

“Yes, yes, such a terrible thing has happened!”

I grasped the receiver tightly.

“What is it?”

“She left the Wellington, you know—Bella, I mean. I went there late in the afternoon yesterdayand they said she’d left. Without a word to me, either! Most extraordinary! It makes me feel thatperhaps after all, Dr. Tanios was right. He spoke so nicely about her and seemed so distressed¹³, andnow it really looks as though he were right after all.”

“But what’s happened, Miss Lawson? Is is just that Mrs. Tanios left the hotel without tellingyou?”

“Oh, no, it’s not that! Oh, dear me, no. If that were all it would be quite all right. Though I dothink it was odd, you know. Dr. Tanios did say that he was afraid she wasn’t quite—not quite—ifyou know what I mean. Persecution¹⁴ mania¹⁵, he called it.”

“Yes.” (Damn the woman!) “But what’s happened?”

“Oh, dear—it is terrible. Died in her sleep. An overdose of some sleeping stuff. And those poorchildren! It all seems so dreadfully sad! I’ve done nothing but cry since I heard.”

“How did you hear? Tell me all about it.”

Out of the tail of my eye I noticed that Poirot had stopped opening his letters. He was listeningto my side of the conversation. I did not like to cede¹⁶ my place to him. If I did it seemed highlyprobable that Miss Lawson would start with lamentations all over again.

“They rang me up. From the hotel. The Coniston it’s called. It seems they found my name andaddress in her bag. Oh, dear, M. Poirot—Captain Hastings, I mean, isn’t it terrible? Those poorchildren left motherless.”

“Look here,” I said. “Are you sure it’s an accident? They didn’t think it could be suicide?”

“Oh, what a dreadful idea, Captain Hastings! Oh, dear, I don’t know, I’m sure. Do you think itcould be? That would be dreadful. Of course she did seem very depressed¹⁷. But she needn’t have. Imean there wouldn’t have been any difficulty about money. I was going to share with her—indeedI was. Dear Miss Arundell would have wished it. I’m sure of that! It seems so awful to think of hertaking her own life — but perhaps she didn’t… The hotel people seemed to think it was anaccident?”

“What did she take?”

“One of those sleeping things. Veronal, I think. No, chloral. Yes, that was it. Chloral. Oh, dear,Captain Hastings, do you think—”

Unceremoniously I banged down the receiver. I turned to Poirot.

“Mrs. Tanios—”

He raised a hand.

“Yes, yes, I know what you are going to say. She is dead, is she not?”

“Yes. Overdose of sleeping draught¹⁸. Chloral.”

Poirot got up.

“Come, Hastings, we must go there at once.”

“Is this what you feared—last night? When you said you were always nervous towards the endof a case?”

“I feared another death—yes.”

Poirot’s face was set and stern. We said very little as we drove towards Euston. Once or twicePoirot shook his head.

I said timidly:

“You don’t think—? Could it be an accident?”

“No, Hastings—no. It was not an accident.”

“How on earth did he find out where she had gone?”

Poirot only shook his head without replying.

The Coniston was an unsavoury-looking place quite near Euston station. Poirot, with his card,and a suddenly bullying¹⁹ manner, soon fought his way into the manager’s office.

The facts were quite simple.

Mrs. Peters as she had called herself and her two children had arrived about half past twelve.

They had had lunch at one o’clock.

At four o’clock a man had arrived with a note for Mrs. Peters. The note had been sent up to her.

A few minutes later she had come down with the two children and a suitcase. The children hadthen left with the visitor. Mrs. Peters had gone to the office and explained that she should onlywant the one room after all.

She had not appeared exceptionally distressed or upset, indeed she had seemed quite calm andcollected. She had had dinner about seven thirty and had gone to her room soon afterwards.

On calling her in the morning the chambermaid had found her dead.

A doctor had been sent for and had pronounced her to have been dead for some hours. Anempty glass was found on the table by the bed. It seemed fairly obvious that she had taken asleeping draught, and by mistake, taken an overdose. Chloral hydrate, the doctor said, was asomewhat uncertain drug. There were no indications of suicide. No letter had been left. Searchingfor means of notifying her relations, Miss Lawson’s name and address had been found and she hadbeen communicated with by telephone.

Poirot asked if anything had been found in the way of letters or papers. The letter, for instance,brought by the man who had called for the children.

No papers of any kind had been found, the man said, but there was a pile of charred²⁰ paper onthe hearth²¹.

Poirot nodded thoughtfully.

As far as anyone could say, Mrs. Peters had had no visitors and no one had come to her room—with the solitary²² exception of the man who had called for the two children.

I questioned the porter myself as to his appearance, but the man was very vague. A man ofmedium height — he thought fair- haired — rather military build — of somewhat nondescriptappearance. No, he was positive the man had no beard.

“It wasn’t Tanios,” I murmured to Poirot.

“My dear Hastings! Do you really believe that Mrs. Tanios, after all the trouble she was takingto get the children away from their father, would quite meekly²³ hand them over to him without theleast fuss or protest? Ah, that, no!”

“Then who was the man?”

“Clearly it was someone in whom Mrs. Tanios had confidence or rather it was someone sent bya third person in whom Mrs. Tanios had confidence.”

“A man of medium height,” I mused²⁴.

“You need hardly trouble yourself about his appearance, Hastings. I am quite sure that the manwho actually called for the children was some quite unimportant personage. The real agent kepthimself in the background!”

“And the note was from this third person?”

“Yes.”

“Someone in whom Mrs. Tanios had confidence?”

“Obviously.”

“And the note is now burnt?”

“Yes, she was instructed to burn it.”

“What about that résumé of the case that you gave her?”

Poirot’s face looked unusually grim.

“That, too, is burned. But that does not matter!”

“No?”

“No. For you see—it is all in the head of Hercule Poirot.”

He took me by the arm.

“Come, Hastings, let us leave here. Our concern is not with the dead but with the living. It iswith them I have to deal.”

 

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