Peril at End House (14 page)

‘Big enough for a person to hide in?’

‘Oh, no indeed, sir! A little cupboard place—a kind of niche. About a foot square, sir, not more than that.’

‘Oh! that is not what I mean at all.’

The blush rose to her face again.

‘If you think I was hiding anywhere—I wasn’t! I heard Miss Nick run down the stairs and out and I heard her cry out—and I came into the hall to see if—if anything was the matter. And that’s the gospel truth, sir. That’s the gospel truth.’

Having successfully got rid of Ellen, Poirot turned a somewhat thoughtful face towards me.

‘I wonder now—did she hear those shots? I think she did. She heard them, she opened the kitchen door. She heard Nick rush down the stairs and out, and she herself came into the hall to find out what had happened. That is natural enough. But why did she not go out and watch the fireworks that evening? That is what I should like to know, Hastings.’

‘What was your idea in asking about a secret hiding place?’

‘A mere fanciful idea that, after all, we might not have disposed of J.’

‘J?’

‘Yes. The last person on my list. The problematical outsider. Supposing for some reason connected with Ellen, that J. had come to the house last night. He
(I assume a he) conceals himself in a secret chamber in this room. A girl passes through whom he takes to be Nick. He follows her out—and shoots her.
Non—c’est idiot!
And anyway, we know that there is no hiding place. Ellen’s decision to remain in the kitchen last night was a pure hazard. Come, let us search for the will of Mademoiselle Nick.’

There were no papers in the drawing-room. We adjourned to the library, a rather dark room looking out on the drive. Here there was a large old-fashioned walnut bureau-writing-table.

It took us some time to go through it. Everything was in complete confusion. Bills and receipts were mixed up together. Letters of invitation, letters pressing for payment of accounts, letters from friends.

‘We will arrange these papers,’ said Poirot, sternly, ‘with order and method.’

He was as good as his word. Half an hour later, he sat back with a pleased expression on his face. Everything was neatly sorted, docketed and filed.

‘
C’est bien, ça
. One thing is at least to the good. We have had to go through everything so thoroughly that there is no possibility of our having missed anything.’

‘No, indeed. Not that there’s been much to find.’

‘Except possibly this.’

He tossed across a letter. It was written in large sprawling handwriting, almost indecipherable.

‘Dated last February,’ said Poirot thoughtfully. ‘She takes drugs, of course, I knew that as soon as I looked at her.’

‘Really? I never suspected such a thing.’

‘It is fairly obvious. You have only to look at her eyes. And then there are her extraordinary variations of mood. Sometimes she is all on edge, strung up—sometimes she is lifeless—inert.’

‘Drug-taking affects the moral sense, does it not?’

‘Inevitably. But I do not think Madame Rice is a real addict. She is at the beginning—not the end.’

‘And Nick?’

‘There are no signs of it. She may have attended a dope party now and then for fun, but she is no taker of drugs.’

‘I’m glad of that.’

I remembered suddenly what Nick had said about Frederica: that she was not always herself. Poirot nodded and tapped the letter he held.

‘This is what she was referring to, undoubtedly. Well, we have drawn the blank, as you say, here. Let us go up to Mademoiselle’s room.’

There was a desk in Nick’s room also, but comparatively little was kept in it. Here again, there was no sign of a will. We found the registration book of her car and a perfectly good dividend warrant of a month back. Otherwise there was nothing of importance.

Poirot sighed in an exasperated fashion.

‘The young girls—they are not properly trained nowadays. The order, the method, it is left out of their bringing up. She is charming, Mademoiselle Nick, but she is a feather-head. Decidedly, she is a feather-head.’

He was now going through the contents of a chest of drawers.

‘Surely, Poirot,’ I said, with some embarrassment, ‘those are underclothes.’

He paused in surprise.

‘And why not, my friend?’

‘Don’t you think—I mean—we can hardly—’

He broke into a roar of laughter.

‘Decidedly, my poor Hastings, you belong to the Victorian era. Mademoiselle Nick would tell you so if she were here. In all probability she would say that you had the mind like the sink! Young ladies are not ashamed of their underclothes nowadays. The cami-sole, the camiknicker, it is no longer a shameful secret.
Every day, on the beach, all these garments will be discarded within a few feet of you. And why not?’

‘I don’t see any need for what you are doing.’

‘
Ecoutez
, my friend. Clearly, she does not lock up her treasures, Mademoiselle Nick. If she wished to hide anything from sight—where would she hide it? Underneath the stockings and the petticoats. Ah! what have we here?’

He held up a packet of letters tied with a faded pink ribbon.

‘The love letters of M. Michael Seton, if I mistake not.’

Quite calmly he untied the ribbon and began to open out the letters.

‘Poirot,’ I cried, scandalized. ‘You really can’t do that. It isn’t playing the game.’

‘I am not playing a game,
mon ami
.’ His voice rang out suddenly harsh and stern. ‘I am hunting down a murderer.’

‘Yes, but private letters—’

‘May have nothing to tell me—on the other hand, they may. I must take every chance, my friend. Come, you might as well read them with me. Two pairs of eyes are no worse than one pair. Console yourself with the thought that the staunch Ellen probably knows them by heart.’

I did not like it. Still I realized that in Poirot’s position
he could not afford to be squeamish, and I consoled myself by the quibble that Nick’s last word had been, ‘Look at anything you like.’

The letters spread over several dates, beginning last winter.

The last was undated.

Poirot folded the letters together again.

‘You see, Hastings? I had to read them—to make sure. It is as I told you.’

‘Surely you could have found out some other way?’

‘No,
mon cher
, that is just what I could not do. It had to be this way. We have now some very valuable evidence.’

‘In what way?’

‘We now know that the fact of Michael’s having made a will in favour of Mademoiselle Nick is actually recorded in writing. Anyone who had read those letters would know the fact. And with letters carelessly hidden like that, anyone could read them.’

‘Ellen?’

‘Ellen, almost certainly, I should say. We will try a little experiment on her before passing out.’

‘There is no sign of the will.’

‘No, that is curious. But in all probability it is thrown on top of a bookcase, or inside a china jar. We must try to awaken Mademoiselle’s memory on that point. At any rate, there is nothing more to be found here.’

Ellen was dusting the hall as we descended.

Poirot wished her good morning very pleasantly as we passed. He turned back from the front door to say:

‘You knew, I suppose, that Miss Buckley was engaged to the airman, Michael Seton?’

She stared.

‘What? The one there’s all the fuss in the papers about?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I never. To think of that. Engaged to Miss Nick.’

‘Complete and absolute surprise registered very convincingly,’ I remarked, as we got outside.

‘Yes. It really seemed genuine.’

‘Perhaps it was,’ I suggested.

‘And that packet of letters reclining for months under the
lingerie
? No,
mon ami
.’

‘All very well,’ I thought to myself. ‘But we are not all Hercule Poirots. We do not all go nosing into what does not concern us.’

But I said nothing.

‘This Ellen—she is an enigma,’ said Poirot. ‘I do not like it. There is something here that I do not understand.’

We went straight back to the nursing home.

Nick looked rather surprised to see us.

‘Yes, Mademoiselle,’ said Poirot, answering her look. ‘I am like the Jack in the Case. I pop up again. To begin with I will tell you that I have put the order in your affairs. Everything is now neatly arranged.’

‘Well, I expect it was about time,’ said Nick, unable to help smiling. ‘Are you
very
tidy, M. Poirot?’

‘Ask my friend Hastings here.’

The girl turned an inquiring gaze on me.

I detailed some of Poirot’s minor peculiarities—toast that had to be made from a square loaf—eggs matching in size—his objection to golf as a game ‘shapeless and haphazard’, whose only redeeming feature was the tee boxes! I ended by telling her the famous case which Poirot had solved by his habit of straightenting ornaments on the mantelpiece.

Poirot sat by smiling.

‘He makes the good tale of it, yes,’ he said, when I had finished. ‘But on the whole it is true. Figure to yourself, Mademoiselle, that I never cease trying to persuade Hastings to part his hair in the middle instead of on the side. See what an air, lop-sided and unsymmetrical, it gives him.’

‘Then you must disapprove of me, M. Poirot,’ said Nick. ‘I wear a side parting. And you must approve of Freddie who parts her hair in the middle.’

‘He was certainly admiring her the other evening,’ I put in maliciously. ‘Now I know the reason.’

‘
C’est assez
,’ said Poirot. ‘I am here on serious business. Mademoiselle, this will of yours, I find it not.’

‘Oh!’ She wrinkled her brows. ‘But does it matter so much? After all, I’m not dead. And wills aren’t really important till you are dead, are they?’

‘That is correct. All the same, I interest myself in this will of yours. I have various little ideas concerning it. Think Mademoiselle. Try to remember where you placed it—where you saw it last?’

‘I don’t suppose I put it anywhere particular,’ said Nick. ‘I never do put things in places. I probably shoved it into a drawer.’

‘You did not put it in the secret panel by any chance?’

‘The secret
what?
’

‘Your maid, Ellen, says that there is a secret panel in the drawing-room or the library.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Nick. ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing.
Ellen
said so?’

‘
Mais oui
. It seems she was in service at End House as a young girl. The cook showed it to her.’

‘It’s the first I’ve ever heard of it. I suppose Grandfather must have known about it, but, if so, he didn’t tell me. And I’m sure he
would
have told me. M. Poirot, are you sure Ellen isn’t making it all up?’

‘No, Mademoiselle, I am not at all sure!
Il me semble
that there is something—odd about this Ellen of yours.’

‘Oh! I wouldn’t call her odd. William’s a half-wit, and the child is a nasty little brute, but Ellen’s all right. The essence of respectability.’

‘Did you give her leave to go out and see the fireworks last night, Mademoiselle?’

‘Of course. They always do. They clear up afterwards.’

‘Yet she did not go out.’

‘Oh, yes, she did.’

‘How do you know, Mademoiselle?’

‘Well—well—I suppose I don’t know. I told her to go and she thanked me—and so, of course, I assumed that she did go.’

‘On the contrary—she remained in the house.’

‘But—how very odd!’

‘You think it odd?’

‘Yes, I do. I’m sure she’s never done such a thing before. Did she say why?’

‘She did not tell me the real reason—of that I am sure.’

Nick looked at him questioningly.

‘Is it—important?’

Poirot flung out his hands.

‘That is just what I cannot say, Mademoiselle.
C’est curieux
. I leave it like that.’

‘This panel business too,’ said Nick, reflectively. ‘I can’t help thinking that’s frightfully queer—and unconvincing. Did she show you where it was?’

‘She said she couldn’t remember.’

‘I don’t believe there is such a thing.’

‘It certainly looks like it.’

‘She must be going batty, poor thing.’

‘She certainly recounts the histories! She said also that End House was not a good house to live in.’

Nick gave a little shiver.

‘Perhaps she’s right there,’ she said slowly. ‘Sometimes I’ve felt that way myself. There’s a queer feeling in that house…’

Her eyes grew large and dark. They had a fated look. Poirot hastened to recall her to other topics.

‘We have wandered from our subject, Mademoiselle. The will. The last will and testament of Magdala Buckley.’

‘I put that,’ said Nick, with some pride. ‘I remember putting that, and I said pay all debts and testamentary expenses. I remembered that out of a book I’d read.’

‘You did not use a will form, then?’

‘No, there wasn’t time for that. I was just going off to the nursing home, and besides Mr Croft said will forms were very dangerous. It was better to make a simple will and not try to be too legal.’

‘M. Croft? He was there?’

‘Yes. It was he who asked me if I’d made one. I’d never have thought of it myself. He said if you died in—in—’

‘Intestate,’ I said.

‘Yes, that’s it. He said if you died intestate, the Crown pinched a lot and that would be a pity.’

‘Very helpful, the excellent M. Croft!’

‘Oh, he was,’ said Nick warmly. ‘He got Ellen in and her husband to witness it. Oh! of course! What an idiot I’ve been!’

We looked at her inquiringly.

‘I’ve been a perfect idiot. Letting you hunt round End House. Charles has got it, of course! My cousin, Charles Vyse.’

‘Ah! so that is the explanation.’

‘Mr Croft said a lawyer was the proper person to have charge of it.’

‘
Très correct, ce bon M. Croft.
’

‘Men are useful sometimes,’ said Nick. ‘A lawyer or the Bank—that’s what he said. And I said Charles would be best. So we stuck it in an envelope and sent it off to him straight away.’

She lay back on her pillows with a sigh.

‘I’m sorry I’ve been so frightfully stupid. But it is all right now. Charles has got it, and if you really want to see it, of course he’ll show it to you.’

‘Not without an authorization from you,’ said Poirot, smiling.

‘How silly.’

‘No, Mademoiselle. Merely prudent.’

‘Well, I think it’s silly.’ She took a piece of paper from a little stack that lay beside her bed. ‘What shall I say? Let the dog see the rabbit?’

‘
Comment?’

I laughed at his startled face.

He dictated a form of words, and Nick wrote obediently.

‘Thank you, Mademoiselle,’ said Poirot, as he took it.

‘I’m sorry to have given you such a lot of trouble. But I really had forgotten. You know how one forgets things almost at once?’

‘With order and method in the mind one does not forget.’

‘I’ll have to have a course of some kind,’ said Nick.
‘You’re giving me quite an inferiority complex.’

‘That is impossible.
Au revoir, Mademoiselle
.’ He looked round the room. ‘Your flowers are lovely.’

‘Aren’t they? The carnations are from Freddie and the roses from George and the lilies from Jim Lazarus. And look here—’

She pulled the wrapping from a large basket of hothouse grapes by her side.

Poirot’s face changed. He stepped forward sharply.

‘You have not eaten any of them?’

‘No. Not yet.’

‘Do not do so. You must eat nothing, Mademoiselle, that comes in from outside.
Nothing
. You comprehend?’

‘Oh!’

She stared at him, the colour ebbing slowly from her face.

‘I see. You think—you think it isn’t over yet. You think they’re still trying?’ she whispered.

He took her hand.

‘Do not think of it. You are safe here. But remember—nothing that comes in from outside.’

I was conscious of that white frightened face on the pillow as we left the room.

Poirot looked at his watch.

‘
Bon
. We have just time to catch M. Vyse at his office before he leaves it for lunch.’

On arrival we were shown into Charles Vyse’s office after the briefest of delays.

The young lawyer rose to greet us. He was as formal and unemotional as ever.

‘Good morning, M. Poirot. What can I do for you?’

Without more ado Poirot presented the letter Nick had written. He took it and read it, then gazed over the top of it in a perplexed manner.

‘I beg your pardon. I really am at a loss to understand?’

‘Has not Mademoiselle Buckley made her meaning clear?’

‘In this letter,’ he tapped it with his finger-nail, ‘she asks me to hand over to you a will made by her and entrusted to my keeping in February last.’

‘Yes, Monsieur.’

‘But, my dear sir, no will has been entrusted to my keeping!’

‘
Comment?’

‘As far as I know my cousin never made a will. I certainly never made one for her.’

‘She wrote this herself, I understand, on a sheet of notepaper and posted it to you.’

The lawyer shook his head.

‘In that case all I can say is that I never received it.’

‘Really, M. Vyse—’

‘I never received anything of the kind, M. Poirot.’

There was a pause, then Poirot rose to his feet.

‘In that case, M. Vyse, there is nothing more to be said. There must be some mistake.’

‘Certainly there must be some mistake.’

He rose also.

‘Good day, M. Vyse.’

‘Good day, M. Poirot.’

‘And that is that,’ I remarked, when we were out in the street once more.

‘
Précisément.
’

‘Is he lying, do you think?’

‘Impossible to tell. He has the good poker face, M. Vyse, besides looking as though he had swallowed one. One thing is clear, he will not budge from the position he has taken up.
He never received the will
. That is his point.’

‘Surely Nick will have a written acknowledgment of its receipt.’

‘
Cette petite
, she would never bother her head about a thing like that. She despatched it. It was off her mind.
Voilà
. Besides, on that very day, she went into a nursing home to have her appendix out. She had her emotions, in all probability.’

‘Well, what do we do now?’

‘
Parbleu
, we go and see M. Croft. Let us see what he can remember about this business. It seems to have been very much his doing.’

‘He didn’t profit by it in any way,’ I said, thoughtfully.

‘No. No, I cannot see anything in it from his point of view. He is probably merely the busybody—the man who likes to arrange his neighbour’s affairs.’

Such an attitude was indeed typical of Mr Croft, I felt. He was the kindly know all who causes so much exasperation in this world of ours.

We found him busy in his shirt sleeves over a steaming pot in the kitchen. A most savoury smell pervaded the little lodge.

He relinquished his cookery with enthusiasm, being clearly eager to talk about the murder.

‘Half a jiffy,’ he said. ‘Walk upstairs. Mother will want to be in on this. She’d never forgive us for talking down here. Cooee—Milly. Two friends coming up.’

Mrs Croft greeted us warmly and was eager for news of Nick. I liked her much better than her husband.

‘That poor dear girl,’ she said. ‘In a nursing home, you say? Had a complete breakdown, I shouldn’t wonder. A dreadful business, M. Poirot—perfectly dreadful. An innocent girl like that shot dead. It doesn’t bear thinking about—it doesn’t indeed. And no lawless wild part of the world either. Right here in the heart of the old country. Kept me awake all night, it did.’

‘It’s made me nervous about going out and leaving you, old lady,’ said her husband, who had put on his coat and
joined us. ‘I don’t like to think of your having been left all alone here yesterday evening. It gives me the shivers.’

‘You’re not going to leave me again, I can tell you,’ said Mrs Croft. ‘Not after dark, anyway. And I’m thinking I’d like to leave this part of the world as soon as possible. I shall never feel the same about it. I shouldn’t think poor Nicky Buckley could ever bear to sleep in that house again.’

It was a little difficult to reach the object of our visit. Both Mr and Mrs Croft talked so much and were so anxious to know all about everything. Were the poor dead girl’s relations coming down? When was the funeral? Was there to be an inquest? What did the police think? Had they any clue yet? Was it true that a man had been arrested in Plymouth?

Then, having answered all these questions, they were insistent on offering us lunch. Only Poirot’s mendacious statement that we were obliged to hurry back to lunch with the Chief Constable saved us.

At last a momentary pause occurred and Poirot got in the question he had been waiting to ask.

‘Why, of course,’ said Mr Croft. He pulled the blind cord up and down twice, frowning at it abstractedly. ‘I remember all about it. Must have been when we first came here. I remember. Appendicitis—that’s what the doctor said—’

‘And probably not appendicitis at all,’ interrupted
Mrs Croft. ‘These doctors—they always like cutting you up if they can. It wasn’t the kind you
have
to operate on anyhow. She’d had indigestion and one thing and another, and they’d X-rayed her and they said out it had better come. And there she was, poor little soul, just going off to one of those nasty Homes.’

‘I just asked her,’ said Mr Croft, ‘if she’d made a will. More as a joke than anything else.’

‘Yes?’

‘And she wrote it out then and there. Talked about getting a will form at the post office—but I advised her not to. Lot of trouble they cause sometimes, so a man told me. Anyway, her cousin is a lawyer. He could draw her out a proper one afterwards if everything was all right—as, of course, I knew it would be. This was just a precautionary matter.’

‘Who witnessed it?’

‘Oh! Ellen, the maid, and her husband.’

‘And afterwards? What was done with it?’

‘Oh! we posted it to Vyse. The lawyer, you know.’