Dumb Witness (7 page)

“No, she came after that. She'd been with her about a year.”

“I suppose she'd had companions before that?”

“Oh, quite a number, sir.”

“Her companions didn't stay as long as her servants,” said Poirot, smiling.

The woman flushed.

“Well, you see, sir, it was different. Miss Arundell didn't get out much and what with one thing and another—” she paused.

Poirot eyed her for a minute then he said:

“I understand a little the mentality of elderly ladies. They crave, do they not, for novelty. They get, perhaps, to the end of a person.”

“Well, now, that's very clever of you, sir. You've hit it exactly. When a new lady came Miss Arundell was always interested to start with—about her life and her childhood and where she'd been and what she thought about things, and then, when she knew all about her, well, she'd get—well, I suppose bored is the real word.”

“Exactly. And between you and me, these ladies who go as companions, they are not usually very interesting—very amusing, eh?”

“No, indeed, sir. They're poor-spirited creatures, most of them. Downright foolish, now and then. Miss Arundell soon got through with them, so to speak. And then she'd make a change and have someone else.”

“She must have been unusually attached to Miss Lawson, though.”

“Oh, I don't think so, sir.”

“Miss Lawson was not in any way a remarkable woman?”

“I shouldn't have said so, sir. Quite an ordinary person.”

“You liked her, yes?”

The woman shrugged her shoulders slightly.

“There wasn't anything to like or dislike. Fussy she was—a regular old maid and full of this nonsense about spirits.”

“
Spirits?
” Poirot looked alert.

“Yes, sir, spirits. Sitting in the dark round a table and dead people came back and spoke to you. Downright irreligious I call it—as if we didn't know departed souls had their rightful place and aren't likely to leave it.”

“So Miss Lawson was a spiritualist! Was Miss Arundell a believer too?”

“Miss Lawson would have liked her to be!” snapped the other. There was a spice of satisfied malice in her tone.

“But she wasn't?” Poirot persisted.

“The mistress had too much sense.” She snorted. “Mind you, I don't say it didn't
amuse
her. ‘I'm willing to be convinced,' she'd say. But she'd often look at Miss Lawson as much as to say, ‘My poor dear, what a fool you are to be so taken in!'”

“I comprehend. She did not believe in it, but it was a source of amusement to her.”

“That's right, sir. I sometimes wondered if she didn't—well have a bit of quiet fun, so to speak, pushing the table and that sort of thing. And the others all as serious as death.”

“The others?”

“Miss Lawson and the two Miss Tripps.”

“Miss Lawson was a very convinced spiritualist?”

“Took it all for gospel, sir.”

“And Miss Arundell was very attached to Miss Lawson, of course.”

It was the second time Poirot had made this certain remark and he got the same response.

“Well, hardly that, sir.”

“But surely,” said Poirot. “If she left her everything. She did, did she not?”

The change was immediate. The human being vanished. The correct maidservant returned. The woman drew herself up and said in a colourless voice that held reproof for familiarity in it:

“The way the mistress left her money is hardly my business, sir.”

I felt that Poirot had bungled the job. Having got the woman in a friendly mood, he was now proceeding to throw away his advantage. He was wise enough to make no immediate attempt to recover lost ground. After a commonplace remark about the size and number of the bedrooms he went towards the head of the stairs.

Bob had disappeared, but as I came to the stairhead, I stumbled and nearly fell. Catching at the baluster to steady myself I looked down and saw that I had inadvertently placed my foot on Bob's ball which he had left lying on the top of the stairs.

The woman apologized quickly.

“I'm sorry, sir. It's Bob's fault. He leaves his ball there. And you can't see it against the dark carpet. Death of someone some day it'll be. The poor mistress had a nasty fall through it. Might easily have been the death of her.”

Poirot stopped suddenly on the stairs.

“She had an accident you say?”

“Yes, sir. Bob left his ball there, as he often did, and the mistress came out of her room and fell over it and went right down the stairs. Might have been killed.”

“Was she much hurt?”

“Not as much as you'd think. Very lucky she was, Dr. Grainger
said. Cut her head a little, and strained her back, and of course there were bruises and it was a nasty shock. She was in bed for about a week, but it wasn't serious.”

“Was this long ago?”

“Just a week or two before she died.”

Poirot stooped to recover something he had dropped.

“Pardon—my fountain pen—ah, yes, there it is.”

He stood up again.

“He is careless, this Master Bob,” he observed.

“Ah well, he don't know no better, sir,” said the woman in an indulgent voice. “Nearly human he may be, but you can't have everything. The mistress, you see, usedn't to sleep well at night and often she'd get up and wander downstairs and round and about the house.”

“She did that often?”

“Most nights. But she wouldn't have Miss Lawson or anyone fussing after her.”

Poirot had turned into the drawing room again.

“A beautiful room this,” he observed. “I wonder, would there be space in this recess for my bookcase? What do you think, Hastings?”

Quite fogged I remarked cautiously that it would be difficult to say.

“Yes, sizes are so deceptive. Take, I pray you, my little rule and measure the width of it and I will write it down.”

Obediently I took the folding rule that Poirot handed me and took various measurements under his direction whilst he wrote on the back of an envelope.

I was just wondering why he adopted such an untidy and un
characteristic method instead of making a neat entry in his little pocketbook when he handed the envelope to me, saying:

“That is right, is it not? Perhaps you had better verify it.”

There were no figures on the envelope. Instead was written: “When we go upstairs again, pretend to remember an appointment and ask if you can telephone. Let the woman come with you and delay her as long as you can.”

“That's all right,” I said, pocketing the envelope. “I should say both bookcases would go in perfectly.”

“It is as well to be sure though. I think, if it is not too much trouble, I would like to look at the principal bedroom again. I am not quite sure of the wall space there.”

“Certainly, sir. It's no trouble.”

We went up again. Poirot measured a portion of wall, and was just commenting aloud on the respective possible positions of bed, wardrobe and writing table, when I looked at my watch, gave a somewhat exaggerated start and exclaimed:

“By Jove, do you know it's three o'clock already? What will Anderson think? I ought to telephone to him.” I turned to the woman. “I wonder if I might use your telephone if you have one.”

“Why, certainly, sir. It's in the little room off the hall. I'll show you.”

She bustled down with me, indicating the instrument, and then I got her to help me in finding a number in the telephone directory. In the end I made a call—to a Mr. Anderson in the neighbouring town of Harchester. Fortunately he was out and I was able to leave a message saying it was unimportant and that I would ring up later!

When I emerged Poirot had descended the staircase and was
standing in the hall. His eyes had a slightly green tinge. I had no clue to his excitement but I realized that he
was
excited.

Poirot said:

“That fall from the top of the stairs must have given your mistress a great shock. Did she seem perturbed about Bob and his ball after it?”

“It's funny your saying that, sir. It worried her a lot. Why, just as she was dying, she was delirious and she rambled on a lot about Bob and his ball and something about a picture that was ajar.”

“A picture that was ajar,” said Poirot thoughtfully.

“Of course, it didn't make sense, sir, but she was rambling, you see.”

“One moment—I must just go into the drawing room once more.”

He wandered round the room examining the ornaments. In especial, one big jar with a lid on it seemed to attract him. It was not, I fancy, a particularly good bit of china. A piece of Victorian humour—it had on it a rather crude picture of a bulldog sitting outside a front door with a mournful expression on its face. Below was written:
Out all night and no key.

Poirot, whose taste I have always been convinced, is hopelessly Bourgeois, seemed lost in admiration.

“
Out all night and no key,
” he murmured. “It is amusing, that! Is that true of our Master Bob? Does he sometimes stay out all night?”

“Very occasional, sir. Oh, very occasional. He's a very good dog, Bob is.”

“I am sure he is. But even the best of dogs—”

“Oh, it's quite true, sir. Once or twice he's gone off and come home perhaps at four in the morning. Then he sits down on the step and barks till he's let in.”

“Who lets him in—Miss Lawson?”

“Well, anyone who hears him, sir. It was Miss Lawson, sir, last time. It was the night of the mistress's accident. And Bob came home about five. Miss Lawson hurried down to let him in before he could make a noise. She was afraid of waking up the mistress and hadn't told her Bob was missing for fear of worrying her.”

“I see. She thought it was better Miss Arundell shouldn't be told?”

“That's what she said, sir. She said, ‘He's sure to come back. He always does, but she might worry and that would never do.' So we didn't say anything.”

“Was Bob fond of Miss Lawson?”

“Well, he was rather contemptuous of her if you know what I mean, sir. Dogs can be. She was kind to him. Called him a good doggie and a nice doggie, but he used to look at her kind of scornful like and he didn't pay any attention at all to what she told him to do.”

Poirot nodded. “I see,” he said.

Suddenly he did something which startled me.

He pulled a letter from his pocket—the letter he had received this morning.

“Ellen,” he said, “do you know anything about this?”

The change that came over Ellen's face was remarkable.

Her jaw dropped and she stared at Poirot with an almost comical expression of bewilderment.

“Well,” she ejaculated. “I never did!”

The observation lacked coherency, perhaps, but it left no doubt of Ellen's meaning.

Gathering her wits about her she said slowly:

“Are you the gentleman that letter was written to then?”

“I am. I am Hercule Poirot.”

Like most people, Ellen had not glanced at the name on the order Poirot had held out to her on his arrival. She nodded her head slowly.

“That was it,” she said. “Hercules Poirot.” She added an S to the Christian name and sounded the T of the surname.

“My word!” she exclaimed. “Cook
will
be surprised.”

Poirot said, quickly:

“Would it not be advisable, perhaps, for us to go to the kitchen and there in company with your friend, we could talk this matter over?”

“Well—if you don't mind, sir.”

Ellen sounded just a little doubtful. This particular social dilemma was clearly new to her. But Poirot's matter-of-fact manner reassured her and we departed forthwith to the kitchen, Ellen elucidating the situation to a large, pleasant-faced woman who was just lifting a kettle from a gas ring.

“You'll never believe it, Annie. This is actually the gentleman that letter was to. You know, the one I found in the blotter.”

“You must remember I am in the dark,” said Poirot. “Perhaps you will tell me how the letter came to be posted so late in the day?”

“Well, sir, to tell the truth I didn't know what to do. Neither of us did, did we?”

“Indeed, we didn't,” the cook confirmed.

“You see, sir, when Miss Lawson was turning out things after the mistress's death a good lot of things were given away or thrown away. Among them was a little papier-mâché, I think they call it, blotter. Very pretty it was, with a lily of the valley on it. The mistress always used it when she wrote in bed. Well, Miss Lawson didn't want it so she gave it to me along with a lot of other little odds and ends that had belonged to the mistress. I put it away in a drawer, and it wasn't till yesterday that I took it out. I was going to put some new blotting paper in it so that it was ready for me to use. There was a sort of pocket inside and I just slipped my hand in it when what should I find but a letter in the mistress's handwriting, tucked away.

“Well, as I say I didn't know rightly what to do about it. It was the mistress's hand all right, and I saw as she'd written it and slipped it in there waiting to post it the next day and then she'd forgot, which is the kind of thing she did many a time, poor dear. Once it was a dividend warrant to her bank and no one could think where it had got to, and at last it was found pushed right back in the pigeonholes of the desk.”

“Was she untidy?”

“Oh, no, sir, just the opposite. She was always putting things away and clearing them up. That was half the trouble. If she'd left things about it would really have been better. It was their being tidied away and then forgotten that was always happening.”

“Things like Bob's ball, for instance?” asked Poirot with a smile.

The sagacious terrier had just trotted in from outdoors and greeted us anew in a very friendly manner.