Dumb Witness (11 page)

“I wonder they didn't give it to you at the house,” exclaimed Isabel. “It must be that Ellen! Servants are so
jealous
and
so small-minded.
They used to be quite rude to Minnie sometimes.”

Julia shook hands in a
grande dame
manner.

“We have enjoyed your visit,” she declared graciously. “I wonder—”

She flashed a glance of inquiry at her sister.

“You would, perhaps—” Isabel flushed a little. “Would you, that is to say, stay and share our evening meal? A very simple one—some shredded raw vegetables, brown bread and butter, fruit.”

“It sounds delicious,” Poirot said hastily. “But alas! my friend and I have to return to London.”

With renewed handshaking and messages to be delivered to Miss Lawson, we at last made our exit.

“T
hank goodness, Poirot,” I said with fervour, “you got us out of those raw carrots! What awful women!”

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

“Well, water, I should think,” I replied with a shudder. “Or nonalcoholic cider. It was that kind of place! I bet there's no bath and no sanitation except an E.C. in the garden!”

“Strange how women enjoy living an uncomfortable life,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “It is not always poverty, though they are good at making the best of straitened circumstances.”

“What orders for the chauffeur now?” I asked, as I negotiated the last bend of the winding lanes, and we emerged on the road to Market Basing. “On what local light do we call next? Or do we return to the George and interrogate 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 precisely:

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

“I should imagine that such a patronage must be very galling to people who regard themselves as 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 now once more on the main road. I hummed to myself softly the tune of “Little Man, You've had a Busy 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're tackling 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
helping
our old lady, or protecting her against further attack—well, there would be some excitement then. But as it is, I can'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 enrage yourself. I comprehend perfectly. You make a distinction between a
body
and a mere
decease.
Supposing, for instance, that Miss Arundell had died with sudden and alarming violence instead of respectably of a long-standing illness—then you would not remain indifferent to 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 intrigue 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 musingly. “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 varnish 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 sufficiently plausible. Poirot took advantage of my silence to sweep on with his discourse.

“Yes, a restricted circle. That thread could only have been stretched across the top of the stairs after everyone had gone to bed. Therefore we have
only the occupants of the house to consider.
That is to say, the guilt 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 legacies,
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 that thread across the stairs in order to trip up some other members of the house party?”

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

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

I retired crestfallen.

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—but there is one doubtful point. Did
Miss Arundell deliberately hold back the letter to me, hesitating to post 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 she assumed 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, in spite of Miss Peabody's ridiculing of the suggestion, that a command was given at one of these
séances
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's character.”

“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 be confirmed or corroborated.”

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

“‘He says,' ‘she says,' ‘they say'—Bah! what does that mean? Nothing at all. It may be absolute 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 was contrived.”

“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. The evidence of the dog having been out that night. The evidence of Miss Arundell's words about the jar 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. And at 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 fact that 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 as though 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 astonishment.

“My dear Poirot—those appalling women—”

He smiled.

“I quite agree with your estimate of the Misses Tripp. But the mere fact that the Misses Tripp have adopted with enthusiasm Christian Science, vegetarianism, theosophy and spiritualism does not really constitute a damning indictment of those subjects! Because a foolish woman will tell you a lot of nonsense about a fake scarab which she has bought from a rascal dealer, that does not necessarily bring discredit 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 manifestations myself, but it must be accepted that many men of science and learning have pronounced themselves satisfied that there are phenomena which cannot be accounted for by—shall we say the credulity of a Miss Tripp?”

“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 say that, having formed a certain opinion of Miss Tripp and her sister, I should examine very carefully any fact they presented for my notice. Foolish women,
mon ami,
are foolish women, whether they are talking about spiritualism or politics or the relation of the sexes or the tenets of the Buddhist faith.”

“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 these seven people—and mainly, of course, the five people primarily concerned. Already we know certain aspects of these people. Take Miss Lawson. From the
Misses Tripp we learn she was devoted, unselfish, unworldly and altogether a beautiful character. From Miss Peabody we learn that she was credulous, stupid, without the nerve or the brains to attempt anything criminal. From Dr. Grainger we learn that she was downtrodden, that her position was precarious, and that she was a poor ‘frightened, fluttering hen,' were, I think, the words he used. From our waiter we learned 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 they vary in their manner of speaking of him. Dr. Grainger calls him indulgently ‘an irreverent young devil.' Miss Peabody says he would murder his grandmother for twopence but clearly prefers a rascal to a ‘stick.' Miss Tripp hints not only that he would do a criminal action but that he has done one—or more. These sidelights are all very useful and interesting. They lead to the next thing.”

“Which is?”

“To see for ourselves, my friend.”

O
n 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 Poirot negatived the idea strongly.

“No, indeed, my friend. What could we say—what reason could we advance for seeking information?”

“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. We should be—how do you say it—thrown out with the flea 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 situated in a block at Chelsea overlooking the river. It was furnished expensively in the modern style,
with gleaming chromium and thick rugs with geometric designs upon them.

We were kept waiting a few minutes and then a girl entered the room and looked at us inquiringly.

Theresa Arundell looked about twenty-eight or nine. She was tall and very slender, and she looked rather like an exaggerated drawing in black and white. Her hair was jet black—her face heavily made-up, dead pale. Her eyebrows, freakishly plucked, gave her an air of mocking irony. Her lips were the only spot of colour, a brilliant gash of scarlet in a white face. She also conveyed the impression—how I do not quite know, for her manner was almost wearily indifferent—of being at least twice as much alive as most people. There hung about her the restrained energy of a whiplash.

With an air of cool inquiry she looked from me to Poirot.

Wearied (I hoped) of deceit, Poirot had on this occasion sent in his own card. She was holding it now in her fingers, twirling it to and for.

“I suppose,” she said, “you're M. Poirot?”

Poirot bowed in his best manner.

“At your service, mademoiselle. You permit me to trespass for a few moments of your valuable time?”

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 and chromium. Theresa sat negligently on a low stool in front of the fireplace. She offered us both cigarettes. 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?”

Poirot, I think, did not much relish this description. He said with some importance:

“I concern myself with problems of crime, mademoiselle.”

“How frightfully thrilling,” said Theresa Arundell in a bored voice. “And to think I've lost my autograph book!”

“The matter with which I concern myself is this,” continued Poirot. “Yesterday I received a letter from your aunt.”

Her eyes—very long, almond-shaped eyes—opened a little. She puffed smoke in a cloud.

“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?”

“Yes, Miss Emily Arundell. You don't receive letters from corpses, do you, M. Poirot?”

“Sometimes I do, mademoiselle.”

“How
macabre!
”

But there was a new note in her voice—a note suddenly alert and watchful.

“And what did my aunt say, M. Poirot?”

“That, mademoiselle, I can hardly tell you just at present. It was, you see, a somewhat”—he coughed—“delicate matter.”

There was silence for a minute or two. Theresa Arundell smoked. Then she said:

“It all sounds delightfully 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.

“That sounds rather pompous! Supposing you give me a specimen.”

“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 withdrew into 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 aunt disposed 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 of your business!
Ca ne vous regarde pas, M. Hercule Poirot.
”

Poirot studied her for a moment or two attentively. Then, with no trace of disappointment, he got up.

“So it is like that! Ah, well, perhaps it is not surprising. Allow me, mademoiselle, to congratulate you upon your French accent. And to wish you a very good morning. Come, Hastings.”

We had reached the door when the girl spoke. The simile of a whiplash came again into my mind. She did not move from her position but the two words were like the flick 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?”

Between two puffs of cigarette smoke she said very quietly and evenly:

“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 are respectable men! Their advice is that the will holds good in law and that any attempts to contest it will 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 are prepared 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. People always 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 some scheme.”

“Such as?”

Theresa Arundell shrugged her shoulders.

“That's your business. Steal the will and substitute a forgery… Kidnap the Lawson and frighten her into saying she bullied Aunt Emily into making it. Produce a later will made on old Emily's deathbed.”

“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 the block?”

Poirot addressed himself to me with some slight irritation.

“Control, I pray of you, your beautiful and upright nature, Hastings. I demand pardon for my friend, mademoiselle. He is, as you have perceived, honest. But he is also faithful. His loyalty to myself is absolute. In any case, let me emphasize this point”—he looked at her very hard—“whatever we are about to do will be strictly within the law.”

She raised her eyebrows slightly.

“The law,” said Poirot thoughtfully, “has a lot of latitude.”

“I see,” she smiled faintly. “All right, we'll let that be understood. Do you want to discuss your share 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, I am on the side of the law. The hundredth—well, the hundredth is different. For one thing, it is usually much more lucrative… But it has to be done very quietly, you understand—very, very quietly. 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 one knows the truth it is an easier matter to know just what lies to tell!”

“That seems eminently reasonable.”

“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 legacy to Ellen and one to a former cook, all her property was to be divided between the 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, if any of us asked for a loan she would usually say, ‘You'll have all my money when I'm dead and gone. Be content with that fact.'”

“Would she have refused a loan if there had been a case of illness or any dire necessity?”

“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 to about twelve hundred a year. Income tax takes another wedge off it. A nice little income on which one can manage very prettily. But I—” her voice changed, her slim body straightened, her head went back—all that wonderful aliveness I had sensed in her came to the fore—“but I want something better than that out of life! I want the best! The best food, the best clothes—something with line to it—beauty—not just suitable covering in the prevailing fashion. I want to live and enjoy—to go to the Mediterranean and lie in the warm summer sea—to sit round a table and play with exciting wads of money—to give parties—wild, absurd, extravagant parties—I want everything 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, intoxicating.

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. So you 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 could give 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 deference to Shakespeare, he happened to be the first man she had 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 congealed chop every day for lunch quite happily, and wash in a cracked tin bath. If he had money it would all go on test tubes and a laboratory and all the rest of it. He's ambitious. His profession means everything 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 is what you are getting at.”

“You are still engaged?”

“Of course we are.”

Poirot did not reply. His silence seemed to disquiet her.

“Of course we are,” she repeated sharply. And then she added, “You—have you seen him?”