“Ah that, yes! Me, I do not want to be hit on the head with a marble doorstop. You may be assured that I will take every precaution. And now—for the moment—good-bye.”
Poirot heard the sound of the receiver being replaced at the other end, then he heard a very faint second click—and smiled to himself. Somebody had replaced the receiver on the telephone in the hall.
He went out there. There was no one about. He tiptoed to the cupboard at the back of the stairs and looked inside. At that moment Lanscombe came through the service door carrying a tray with toast and a silver coffeepot. He looked slightly surprised to see Poirot emerge from the cupboard.
“Breakfast is ready in the dining room, sir,” he said.
Poirot surveyed him thoughtfully.
The old butler looked white and shaken.
“Courage,” said Poirot, clapping him on the shoulder. “All will yet be well. Would it be too much trouble to serve me a cup of coffee in my bedroom?”
“Certainly, sir. I will send Janet up with it, sir.”
Lanscombe looked disapprovingly at Hercule Poirot’s back as the latter climbed the stairs. Poirot was attired in an exotic silk dressing gown with a pattern of triangles and squares.
“Foreigners!” thought Lanscombe bitterly. “Foreigners in the house! And Mrs. Leo with concussion! I don’t know what we’re coming to. Nothing’s the same since Mr. Richard died.”
Hercule Poirot was dressed by the time he received his coffee from Janet. His murmurs of sympathy were well-received, since he stressed the shock her discovery must have given her.
“Yes, indeed, sir, what I felt when I opened the door of the study and came in with the Hoover and saw Mrs. Leo lying there I shall never forget. There she lay—and I made sure she was dead. She must have been taken faint as she stood at the phone—and fancy her being up at that time in the morning! I’ve never known her to do such a thing before.”
“Fancy, indeed!” He added casually: “No one else was up, I suppose?”
“As it happens, sir, Mrs. Timothy was up and about. She’s a very early riser always—often goes for a walk before breakfast.”
“She is of the generation that rises early,” said Poirot, nodding his head. “The younger ones, now—they do not get up so early?”
“No, indeed, sir, all fast asleep when I brought them their tea—and very late I was, too, what with the shock and getting the doctor to come and having to have a cup first to steady myself.”
She went off and Poirot reflected on what she had said.
Maude Abernethie had been up and about, and the younger generation had been in bed—but that, Poirot reflected, meant nothing at all. Anyone could have heard Helen’s door open and close, and have followed her down to listen—and would afterwards have made a point of being fast asleep in bed.
“But if I am right,” thought Poirot, “and after all, it is natural to me to be right—it is a habit I have!—then there is no need to go into who was here and who was these. First, I must seek a proof where I have deduced the proof may be. And then—I make my little speech. And I sit back and see what happens….”
As soon as Janet had left the room, Poirot drained his coffee cup, put on his overcoat and his hat, left his room, ran nimbly down the back stairs and left the house by the side door. He walked briskly the quarter mile to the post office where he demanded a trunk call. Presently he was once more speaking to Mr. Entwhistle.
“Yes, it is I yet again! Pay no attention to the commission with which I entrusted you. C’était une blague! Someone was listening. Now, mon vieux, to the real commission. You must, as I said, take a train. But not to Bury St. Edmunds. I want you to proceed to the house of Mr. Timothy Abernethie.”
“But Timothy and Maude are at Enderby.”
“Exactly. There is no one in the house but a woman by the name of Jones who has been persuaded by the offer of considerable largesse to guard the house whilst they are absent. What I want you to do is to take something out of that house!”
“My dear Poirot! I really can’t stoop to burglary!”
“It will not seem like burglary. You will say to the excellent Mrs. Jones who knows you, that you have been asked by Mr. or Mrs. Abernethie to fetch this particular object and take it to London. She will not suspect anything amiss.”
“No, no, probably not. But I don’t like it.” Mr. Entwhistle sounded most reluctant. “Why can’t you go and get whatever it is yourself?”
“Because, my friend, I should be a stranger of foreign appearance and as such a suspicious character, and Mrs. Jones would at once raise the difficulties! With you, she will not.”
“No, no—I see that. But what on earth are Timothy and Maude going to think when they hear about it? I have known them for forty odd years.”
“And you knew Richard Abernethie for that time also! And you knew Cora Lansquenet when she was a little girl!”
In a martyred voice Mr. Entwhistle asked:
“You’re sure this is really necessary, Poirot?”
“The old question they asked in wartime on the posters. Is your journey really necessary? I say to you, it is necessary. It is vital!”
“And what is this object I’ve got to get hold of?”
Poirot told him.
“But really, Poirot, I don’t see—”
“It is not necessary for you to see. I am doing the seeing.”
“And what do you want me to do with the damned thing?”
“You will take it to London, to an address in Elm Park Gardens. If you have a pencil, note it down.”
Having done so, Mr. Entwhistle said, still in his martyred voice:
“I hope you know what you are doing, Poirot?”
He sounded very doubtful—but Poirot’s reply was not doubtful at all.
“Of course I know what I am doing. We are nearing the end.”
Mr. Entwhistle sighed:
“If we could only guess what Helen was going to tell me.”
“No need to guess, I know.”
“You know? But my dear Poirot—”
“Explanations must wait. But let me assure you of this. I know what Helen Abernethie saw when she looked in her mirror.”
II
Breakfast had been an uneasy meal. Neither Rosamund nor Timothy had appeared, but the others were there and had talked in rather subdued tones, and eaten a little less than they normally would have done.
George was the first one to recover his spirits. His temperament was mercurial and optimistic.
“I expect Aunt Helen will be all right,” he said. “Doctors always like to pull a long face. After all, what’s concussion? Often clears up completely in a couple of days.”
“A woman I knew had concussion during the war,” said Miss Gilchrist conversationally. “A brick or something hit her as she was walking down Tottenham Court Road—it was during fly bomb time—and she never felt anything at all. Just went on with what she was doing—and collapsed in a train to Liverpool twelve hours later. And would you believe it, she had no recollection at all of going to the station and catching the train or anything. She just couldn’t understand it when she woke up in hospital. She was there for nearly three weeks.”
“What I can’t make out,” said Susan, “is what Helen was doing telephoning at that unearthly hour, and who she was telephoning to?”
“Felt ill,” said Maude with decision. “Probably woke up feeling queer and came down to ring up the doctor. Then had a giddy fit and fell. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“Bad luck hitting her head on that doorstop,” said Michael. “If she’d just pitched over onto that thick pile carpet she’d have been all right.”
The door opened and Rosamund came in, frowning.
“I can’t find those wax flowers,” she said. “I mean the ones that were standing on the malachite table the day of Uncle Richard’s funeral.” She looked accusingly at Susan. “You haven’t taken them?”
“Of course I haven’t! Really, R
osamund, you’re not still thinking about malachite tables with poor old Helen carted off to hospital with concussion?”
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t think about them. If you’ve got concussion you don’t know what’s happening and it doesn’t matter to you. We can’t do anything for Aunt Helen, and Michael and I have got to get back to London by tomorrow lunchtime because we’re seeing Jackie Lygo about opening dates for The Baronet’s Progress. So I’d like to fix up definitely about the table. But I’d like to have a look at those wax flowers again. There’s a kind of Chinese vase on the table now—nice—but not nearly so period. I do wonder where they are—perhaps Lanscombe knows.”
Lanscombe had just looked in to see if they had finished breakfast.
“We’re all through, Lanscombe,” said George getting up. “What’s happened to our foreign friend?”
“He is having his coffee and toast served upstairs, sir.”
“Petit déjeuner for N.A.R.C.O.”
“Lanscombe, do you know where those wax flowers are that used to be on that green table in the drawing room?” asked Rosamund.
“I understand Mrs. Leo had an accident with them, ma’am. She was going to have a new glass shade made, but I don’t think she has seen about it yet.”
“Then where is the thing?”
“It would probably be in the cupboard behind the staircase, ma’am. That is where things are usually placed when awaiting repair. Shall I ascertain for you?”
“I’ll go and look myself. Come with me, Michael sweetie. It’s dark there, and I’m not going in any dark corners by myself after what happened to Aunt Helen.”
Everybody showed a sharp reaction. Maude demanded in her deep voice:
“What do you mean, Rosamund?”
“Well, she was coshed by someone, wasn’t she?”
Gregory Banks said sharply:
“She was taken suddenly faint and fell.”
Rosamund laughed.
“Did she tell you so? Don’t be silly, Greg, of course she was coshed.”
George said sharply:
“You shouldn’t say things like that, Rosamund.”
“Nonsense,” said Rosamund. “She must have been. I mean, it all adds up. A detective in the house looking for clues, and Uncle Richard poisoned, and Aunt Cora killed with a hatchet, and Miss Gilchrist given poisoned wedding cake, and now Aunt Helen struck down with a blunt instrument. You’ll see, it will go on like that. One after another of us will be killed and the one that’s left will be It—the murderer, I mean. But it’s not going to be me—who’s killed, I mean.”
“And why should anyone want to kill you, beautiful Rosamund?” asked George lightly.
Rosamund opened her eyes very wide.
“Oh,” she said. “Because I know too much, of course.”
“What do you know?” Maude Abernethie and Gregory Banks spoke almost in unison.
Rosamund gave her vacant and angelic smile.
“Wouldn’t you all like to know?” she said agreeably. “Come on, Michael.”
Twenty-two
I
At eleven o’clock, Hercule Poirot called an informal meeting in the library. Everyone was there and Poirot looked thoughtfully round the semicircle of faces.
“Last night,” he said, “Mrs. Shane announced to you that I was a private detective. For myself, I hoped to retain my—camouflage, shall we say?—a little longer. But no matter! Today—or at most the day after—I would have told you the truth. Please listen carefully now to what I have to say.
“I am in my own line a celebrated person—I may say a most celebrated person. My gifts, in fact, are unequalled!”
George Crossfield grinned and said:
“That’s the stuff, M. Pont—no, it’s M. Poirot, isn’t it? Funny, isn’t it, that I’ve never even heard of you?”
“It is not funny,” said Poirot severely. “It is lamentable! Alas, there is no proper education nowadays. Apparently one learns nothing but economics—and how to sit Intelligence Tests! But to continue. I have been a friend for many years of Mr. Entwhistle’s—”
“So he’s the fly in the ointment!”
“If you like to put it that way, Mr. Crossfield! Mr. Entwhistle was greatly upset by the death of his old friend, Mr. Richard Abernethie. He was particularly perturbed by some words spoken on the day of the funeral by Mr. Abernethie’s sister, Mrs. Lansquenet. Words spoken in this very room.”
“Very silly—and just like Cora,” said Maude. “Mr. Entwhistle should have had more sense than to pay attention to them!”
Poirot went on:
“Mr. Entwhistle was even more perturbed after the—the coincidence, shall I say?—of Mrs. Lansquenet’s death. He wanted one thing only—to be assured that that death was a coincidence. In other words he wanted to feel assured that Richard Abernethie had died a natural death. To that end he commissioned me to make the necessary investigations.”
There was a pause.
“I have made them….”
Again there was a pause. No one spoke.
Poirot threw back his head.
“Eh bien, you will all be delighted to hear that as a result of my investigations—there is absolutely no reason to believe that Mr. Abernethie died anything but a natural death. There is no reason at all to believe that he was murdered!” He smiled. He threw out his hands in a triumphant gesture.
“That is good news, is it not?”
It hardly seemed to be, by the way they took it. They stared at him and in all but the eyes of one person there still seemed to be doubt and suspicion.
The exception was Timothy Abernethie, who was nodding his head in violent agreement.
“Of course Richard wasn’t murdered,” he said angrily. “Never could understand why anybody ever even thought of such a thing for a moment! Just Cora up to her tricks, that was all. Wanting to give you all a scare. Her idea of being funny. Truth is that although she was my own sister, she was always a bit mental, poor girl. Well, Mr. whatever your name is, I’m glad you’ve had the sense to come to the right conclusion, though if you ask me, I call it damned cheek of Entwhistle to go commissioning you to come prying and poking about. And if he thinks he’s going to charge the estate with your fee, I can tell you he won’t get away with it! Damned cheek, and most uncalled for! Who’s Entwhistle to set himself up? If the family’s satisfied—”
“But the family wasn’t, Uncle Timothy,” said Rosamund.
“Hey—what’s that?”
Timothy peered at her under beetling brows of displeasure.
“We weren’t satisfied. And what about Aunt Helen this morning?”
Maude said sharply:
“Helen’s just the age when you’re liable to get a stroke. That’s all there is to that.”
“I see,” said Rosamund. “Another coincidence, you think?”
She looked at Poirot.
“Aren’t there rather too many coincidences?”
“Coincidences,” said Hercule Poirot, “do happen.”
“Nonsense,” said Maude. “Helen felt ill, came down and rang up the doctor, and then—”
“But she didn’t ring up the doctor,” said Rosamund. “I asked him—”
Susan said sharply:
“Who did she ring up?”
“I don’t know,” said Rosamund, a shade of vexation passing over her face. “But I dare say I can find out,” she added hopefully.
II
Hercule Poirot was sitting in the Victorian summerhouse. He drew his large watch from his pocket and laid it on the table in front of him.
He had announced that he was leaving by the twelve o’clock train. There was still half an hour to go. Half an hour for someone to make up their mind and come to him. Perhaps more than one person….
The summerhouse was clearly visible from most of the windows of the house. Surely, soon, someone would come?
If not, his knowledge of human nature was deficient, and his main premises incorrect.
He w
aited—and above his head a spider in its web waited for a fly.
It was Miss Gilchrist who came first. She was flustered and upset and rather incoherent.
“Oh, Mr. Pontarlier—I can’t remember your other name,” she said. “I had to come and speak to you although I don’t like doing it—but really I feel I ought to. I mean, after what happened to poor Mrs. Leo this morning—and I think myself Mrs. Shane was quite right—and not coincidence, and certainly not a stroke—as Mrs. Timothy suggested, because my own father had a stroke and it was quite a different appearance, and anyway the doctor said concussion quite clearly!”
She paused, took breath and looked at Poirot with appealing eyes.
“Yes,” said Poirot gently and encouragingly. “You want to tell me something?”
“As I say, I don’t like doing it—because she’s been so kind. She found me the position with Mrs. Timothy and everything. She’s been really very kind. That’s why I feel so ungrateful. And even gave me Mrs. Lansquenet’s musquash jacket which is really most handsome and fits beautifully because it never matters if fur is a little on the large side. And when I wanted to return her amethyst brooch she wouldn’t hear of it—”
“You are referring,” said Poirot gently, “to Mrs. Banks?”
“Yes, you see—” Miss Gilchrist looked down, twisting her fingers unhappily. She looked up and said with a sudden gulp:
“You see, I listened!”
“You mean you happened to overhear a conversation—”
“No.” Miss Gilchrist shook her head with an air of heroic determination. “I’d rather speak the truth. And it’s not so bad telling you because you’re not English.”
Hercule Poirot understood her without taking offence.
“You mean that to a foreigner it is natural that people should listen at doors and open letters, or read letters that are left about?”
“Oh, I’d never open anybody else’s letters,” said Miss Gilchrist in a shocked tone. “Not that. But I did listen that day—the day that Mr. Richard Abernethie came down to see his sister. I was curious, you know, about his turning up suddenly after all those years. And I did wonder why—and—and—you see when you haven’t much life of your own or very many friends, you do tend to get interested—when you’re living with anybody, I mean.”