Poirot Loses A Client Part 20

"Let us proceed, then. I admit that I gained Miss Theresa's confidence by a trick.

I let her think that I would be--shall we say, reasonably dishonest--for money. She believed that without the least difficulty." "Theresa believes that any one would do anything for money," said the young doctor in the matter-of-fact tone one uses when stating a self-evident truth."True. Thai seems to be her att.i.tude-- her brother's also." "Charles probably would do anything for money!" "You have no illusions, I see, about your future brother-in-law.'' "No. I find him quite an interesting study.

There is, I think, some deep-seated neurosis--but that is talking shop. To return to what we are discussing. I have asked myself why you should act in the way you have done, and I have found only one answer. It is clear that you suspect either Theresa or Charles of having a hand in Miss ArundelFs death. No, please don't bother to contradict me! Your mention of exhumation was, I think, a mere device to see what reaction you would get. Have you, in actual fact, taken any steps towards getting a Home Office order for exhumation?" "I will be quite frank with you. As yet, I have not." Donaldson nodded.

"So I thought. I suppose you have considered the possibility that Miss ArundelFs death may turn out to be from natural causes?" "I have considered the fact that it may [appear to be so--yes."

"But your own mind is made up?" "Very definitely. If you have a case of-- say--tuberculosis that looks like tuberculosis, behaves like tuberculosis, and in which the blood gives a positive reaction--eh bien, you consider it is tuberculosis, do you not?" "You look at it that way? I see.

Then what exactly are you waiting for?" "I am waiting for a final piece of evidence."

The telephone bell rang. At a gesture from Poirot I got up and answered it. I recognized the voice.

"Captain Hastings? This is Mrs. Tanios speaking. Will you tell M. Poirot that he is perfectly right.

If he will come here to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, I will give him what he wants." "At ten o'clock tomorrow?" "Yes." "Right, I'll tell him." Poirot's eyes asked a question. I nodded.

He turned to Donaldson. His manner had changed. It was brisk--a.s.sured.

"Let me make myself clear," he said. "I have diagnosed this case of mine as a case of murder. It looked like murder, it gave all the characteristic reactions of murder--in fact, it was murder! Of that, there is not the least doubt." "Where then does the doubt--for I perceive there is a doubt--lie?" "The doubt lay in the ident.i.ty of the murderer--but that is a doubt no longer!"

"Really? You know?" "Let us say that I shall have definite proof in my hands tomorrow." Dr.

Donaldson5 s eyebrows rose in a slightly ironical fashion.

"Ah," he said. "To-morrow! Sometimes, M. Poirot, to-morrow is a long way off." "On the contrary," said Poirot, "I always find that it succeeds to-day with monotonous regularity."

Donaldson smiled. He rose.

[ "I fear I have wasted your time, M.

Poirot." "Not at all. It is always as well to understand each other." With a slight bow. Dr.

Donaldson left the room.

XXVIII 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 inhuman. But extremely perceptive." "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 exactly where 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 every contingency."

"Then, supposing that we forget crime and go to a show?" "Mafoi, Hastings, that is a good idea!"

We pa.s.sed a very pleasant evening, though I made the slight mistake of taking Poirot to a crook play. There is one piece of advice I offer to all my readers. Never take a soldier to a military play, a sailor to a naval play, a Scotsman to a Scottish play, a detective to a thriller--and an actor to any play whatsoever!

The shower of destructive criticism in each case is somewhat devastating. Poirot never ceased to complain of faulty psychology, and the hero detective's lack of order and method nearly drove him demented. We parted that night with Poirot still explaining how the whole business 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 pointed 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 at the breakfast-table--as usual neatly slitting open his letters.

The telephone rang and I answered it.

A heavy-breathing female voice spoke: "Is that M. Poirot? Oh, it's you. Captain Hastings." There was a sort of gasp and a sob.

"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 yesterday and they said she'd left.

Without a word to me, either! Most extraordinary!It makes me feel that perhaps, after all. Dr. Tanios was right. He spoke so nicely about her and seemed so distressed, and now it really looks as though he were right after all." "But what's happened. Miss Lawson? Is it just that Mrs. Tanios left the hotel without telling you?" "Oh, no, it's not that! Oh, dear me, no. If that were all it would be quite all right. Though I do think it was odd, you know. Dr. Tanios did say that he was afraid she wasn't quite-not quite-if you know what I mean.

Persecution mania, he called it." "Yes." (d.a.m.n the woman!) "But what's happened?" "Oh, dear-it is terrible. Died in her sleep. An overdose of some sleeping stuff!

And those poor little children! 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 listening to my side of the conversation.

I did not like to cede my place to him. If I did it seemed highly probable 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 and address in her bag. Oh, dear, M.

Poirot--Captain Hastings, I mean--isn't it terrible? Those poor little children 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 it could be? That would be dreadful! Of course she did seem very depressed.

But she needn't have been. I mean there wouldn't have been any difficulty about money. 1 was going to share with her--indeed I was! Dear Miss Arundell would have wished it. I'm sure of that!

It seems so awful to think of her taking her own life--but perhaps she didn't.... The hotel people seemed to think it was an accident." "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-draught.

:hloral." 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 end of a case?" "I feared another death--yes." Poirot5 s face was set and stern. We said very little as we drove towards Euston.

Once or twice Poirot shook his head.I said timidly: "You don't think--? Could it be an accident?"

"No, Hastings--no. It was not an acci1.

dent." "How on earth did he find out where she had gone?" Poirot only shook his head without replying.

I The Coniston was an unsavoury-looking place quite near Euston station. Poirot, with his card, and a suddenly bullying manner, , soon fought his way into the manager's ofy-fice.

^fc 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 had then left with the visitor.

Mrs. Peters had gone to the office and explained that she should only want the one room after all.

She had not appeared exceptionally distressed or upset, indeed she had seemed quite calm and collected. 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 p.r.o.nounced her to have been dead for some hours. An empty gla.s.s was found on the table by the bed. It seemed fairly obvious that she had taken a sleeping-draught, and, by mistake, taken an overdose. Chloral hydrate, the doctor said, was a somewhat uncertain drug.

There were no indications of suicide. No letter had been left. Searching for means of notifying her relations. Miss Lawson's name and address had been found and she had been communicated with by telephone.

Poirot asked if anything had been found tin 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 charred paper on the hearth.

Poirot nodded thoughtfully.

As far as any one could say, Mrs. Peters had had no visitors and no one had come to her room-with the solitary 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 of medium height-he thought fairhaired-rather military build-of somewhat nondescript appearance. 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 taking to get the children away from their father, would quite meekly hand them over to him without the least fuss or protest?

A, that, no!" "Then who was the man?" "Clearly it was some one in whom Mrs.

'anios had confidence or rather it was some one sent by a third person in whom Mrs.

Tanios had confidence." "A man of medium height," I mused.

"You need hardly trouble yourself about his appearance, Hastings. I am quite sure that the man who actually called for the children was some quite unimportant personage.

The real agent kept himself in the background!"

"And the note was from this third person?"

"Yes." "Some one in whom Mrs. Tanios had confidence?"

"Obviously." "And the note is now burnt?" "Yes, she was instructed to burn it." "What about that resume 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 is with them I have to deal."

XXIX Inquest at Littlegreen House it was eleven o'clock the following morning.

Seven people were a.s.sembled at Littlegreen House. Hercule Poirot stood by the mantelpiece.

Charles and Theresa Arundell were on the sofa, Charles on the arm of it with his hand on Theresa's shoulder. Dr.

Tanios sat in a grandfather chair. His eyes were red-rimmed and he wore a black band round his arm.

On an upright chair by a round table sat the owner of the house. Miss Lawson. She, too, had red eyes. Her hair was even untidier than usual. Dr. Donaldson sat directly facing Poirot. His face was quite expressionless.

My interest quickened as I looked at each face in turn.

In the course of my a.s.sociation with Poirot I had a.s.sisted at many such a scene. A little company of people, all outwardly composed with well-bred masks for faces. And I had seen Poirot strip the mask from one face and show it for what it was--the face of a killer!

Yes, there was no doubt of it. One of these people was a murderer! But which? Even now I wasnot sure.

Poirot cleared his throat--a little pompously as was his habit--and began to speak.

"We are a.s.sembled here, ladies and gentlemen, to inquire into the death of Emily Arundell on the first of May last. There are four possibilities--that she died naturally-- that she died as the result of an accident-- that she took her own life--or lastly that she met her death at the hands of some person known or unknown.

"No inquest was held at the time of her death, since it was a.s.sumed that she died from natural causes and a medical certificate to that effect was given by Dr. Grainger.

"In a case where suspicion arises after burial has taken place it is usual to exhume the body of the person in question. There are reasons why I have not advocated that course. The chief of them is that my client would not have liked it.55 It was Dr. Donaldson who interrupted.

He said: "Your client?" Poirot turned to him.

"My client is Miss Emily Arundell. I am acting for her. Her greatest desire was that there should be no scandal." I will pa.s.s over the next ten minutes, since it would involve much needless repet.i.tion.

Poirot told of the letter he had received, and producing it he read it aloud. He went on to explain the steps he had taken on coming to Market Basing, and of his discovery of the means taken to bring about the accident.

Then he paused, cleared his throat once more, and went on: "I am now going to take you over the ground I travelled to get at the truth. I am going to show you what I believe to be a true reconstruction of the facts of the case.