Dumb Witness (24 page)

I
t was eleven o'clock the following morning.

Seven people were assembled at Littlegreen House.

Hercule Poirot stood by the mantelpiece. Charles and Theresa 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 association with Poirot I had assisted 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 was not
sure.

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

“We are assembled 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 assumed 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.”

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 pass over the next ten minutes since it would involve much needless repetition. 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.

“To begin with it is necessary to picture exactly what passed in Miss Arundell's mind. That, I think, is fairly easy. She has a fall, her fall is supposed to be occasioned by a dog's ball, but
she herself knows better.
Lying there on her bed her active and shrewd mind goes over the circumstances of her fall and she comes to a very definite conclusion about it. Someone has deliberately tried to injure—perhaps to kill her.

“From that conclusion she passes to a consideration of who that person can be. There were
seven
people in the house—four guests, her companion and two servants. Of these seven people only one can be entirely exonerated—since to that one person no advantage could accrue. She does not seriously suspect the two servants, both of whom have been with her for many years and whom she knows to be devoted to her. There remain then,
four
persons, three of them members of her family, and one of them a connection by marriage.
Each of those four persons benefit, three directly, one indirectly, by her death.

“She is in a difficult position since she is a woman with a strong sense of family feeling. Essentially she is not one who wishes to wash the dirty linen in public, as the saying goes. On the other hand, she is not one to submit tamely to attempted murder!

“She takes her decision and writes to me. She also takes a further step. That further step was, I believe, actuated by two motives. One, I think, was a distinct feeling of
spite
against her entire family! She suspected them all impartially, and she determined at all costs to score off them! The second and more reasoned motive was a wish to protect herself and a realization of how this could be accomplished. As you know, she wrote to her lawyer, Mr. Purvis,
and directed him to draw up a will in favour of the one person in the house whom, she felt convinced, could have had no hand in her accident.

“Now I may say that, from the terms of her letter to me and from her subsequent actions, I am quite sure that Miss Arundell passed from
indefinite
suspicion of four people to
definite
suspicion of
one
of those four. The whole tenor of her letter to me is an insistence that this business must be kept strictly private since the honour of the family is involved.

“I think that, from a Victorian point of view, this means that a person of
her own name
was indicated—and preferably a
man.

“If she had suspected Mrs. Tanios she would have been quite as anxious to secure her own safety, but not quite as concerned for the family honour. She might have felt much the same about Theresa Arundell, but not nearly as intensely as she would feel about Charles.

“Charles was an
Arundell.
He bore the family
name!
Her reasons for suspecting him seem quite clear. To begin with, she had no illusions about Charles. He had come near to disgracing the family once before. That is, she knew him to be not only a
potential
but an
actual
criminal! He had already forged her name to a cheque. After forgery—a step further—murder!

“Also she had had a somewhat suggestive conversation with him only two days before her accident. He had asked her for money and she had refused and he had thereupon remarked—oh, lightly enough—that she was going the right way to get herself bumped off. To this she had responded that she could take care of herself! To this, we are told, her nephew responded, ‘Don't be too sure.'
And two days later this sinister accident takes place.

“It is hardly to be wondered at that lying there and brooding over the occurrence, Miss Arundell came definitely to the conclusion that it was
Charles Arundell
who had made an attempt upon her life.

“The sequence of events is perfectly clear. The conversation with Charles. The accident. The letter written to me in great distress of mind. The letter to the lawyer. On the following Tuesday, the 21st, Mr. Purvis brings the will and she signs it.

“Charles and Theresa Arundell come down the following weekend and Miss Arundell at once takes the necessary steps to safeguard herself.
She tells Charles about the will.
She not only
tells
him but she actually
shows
it to him! That, to my mind,
is absolutely conclusive. She is making it quite clear to a would-be murderer that murder would bring him nothing whatever!

“She probably thought that Charles would pass on that information to his sister. But he did not do so. Why? I fancy that he had a very good reason—he felt guilty! He believed that it was
his
doing that the will had been made. But
why
did he feel guilty? Because he had really attempted murder? Or merely because he had helped himself to a small sum of ready cash? Either the serious crime or the petty one might account for his reluctance. He said nothing, hoping that his aunt would relent and change her mind.

“As far as Miss Arundell's state of mind was concerned I felt that I had reconstructed events with a fair amount of correctness. I had next to make up my mind if her suspicions were, in actual fact, justified.

“Just as she had done, I realized that my suspicions were limited to a narrow circle—seven people to be exact. Charles and
Theresa Arundell, Dr. Tanios and Mrs. Tanios. The two servants, Miss Lawson. There was an eighth person who had to be taken into account—namely, Dr. Donaldson, who dined there that night, but I did not learn of his presence until later.

“These seven persons that I was considering fell easily into two categories. Six of them stood to benefit in a greater or lesser degree by Miss Arundell's death. If any one of those six had committed the crime the reason was probably a plain matter of
gain.
The second category contained one person only—Miss Lawson. Miss Lawson did
not
stand to gain by Miss Arundell's death, but
as a result of the accident,
she did benefit considerably
later!

“That meant that if Miss Lawson staged the so-called accident—”

“I never did anything of the kind!” Miss Lawson interrupted. “It's disgraceful! Standing up there and saying such things!”

“A little patience, mademoiselle. And be kind enough not to interrupt,” said Poirot.

Miss Lawson tossed her head angrily.

“I insist on making my protest! Disgraceful, that's what it is! Disgraceful!”

Poirot went on unheeding.

“I was saying that
if
Miss Lawson staged that accident she did so for an entirely
different
reason—that is, she engineered it so that Miss Arundell
would naturally suspect her own family and become alienated from them.
That
was
a possibility! I searched to see if there were any confirmation or otherwise and I unearthed one very definite fact. If Miss Lawson wanted Miss Arundell to suspect her own family, she would have stressed the fact of the dog, Bob, being
out
that night. But on the contrary Miss Lawson took the utmost pains to
prevent
Miss Arundell hearing of that. Therefore, I argued, Miss Lawson
must
be innocent.”

Miss Lawson said sharply:

“I should hope so!”

“I next considered the problem of Miss Arundell's death. If one attempt to murder a person is made, a second attempt usually follows. It seemed to me significant that within a fortnight of the first attempt Miss Arundell should have died. I began to make inquiries.

“Dr. Grainger did not seem to think there was anything unusual about his patient's death. That was a little damping to my theory. But, inquiring into the happenings of the last evening before she was taken ill, I came across a significant fact. Miss Isabel Tripp mentioned a halo of light that had appeared round Miss Arundell's head. Her sister confirmed her statement. They might, of course, be inventing—in a romantic spirit—but I did not think that the incident was quite a likely one to occur to them unprompted. When questioning Miss Lawson she also gave me an interesting piece of information. She referred to a luminous ribbon issuing from Miss Arundell's mouth and forming a luminous haze round her head.

“Obviously, though described somewhat differently by two different observers, the actual
fact
was the same. What it amounted to, shorn of spiritualistic significance, was this:
On the night in question Miss Arundell's breath was phosphorescent!
”

Dr. Donaldson moved a little in his chair.

Poirot nodded to him.

“Yes, you begin to see. There are not very many phosphorescent substances. The first and most common one gave me exactly
what I was looking for. I will read you a short extract from an article on phosphorus poisoning.

“
The person's breath may be phosphorescent before he feels in any way affected.
That is what Miss Lawson and the Misses Tripp saw in the dark—Miss Arundell's phosphorescent breath—‘a luminous haze.' And here I will read you again.
The jaundice having thoroughly pronounced itself, the system may be considered as not only under the influence of the toxic action of phosphorus, but as suffering in addition from all the accidents incidental to the retention of the biliary secretion in the blood, nor is there from this point any special difference between phosphorus poisoning and certain affections of the liver—such for example as yellow atrophy.

“You see the cleverness of that? Miss Arundell has suffered for years from liver trouble. The symptoms of phosphorus poisoning would only look like
another attack of the same complaint.
There will be nothing new, nothing startling about it.

“Oh! It was well-planned! Foreign matches—vermin paste? It is not difficult to get hold of phosphorus and a very small dose will kill. The medicinal dose is from 1/100 to 1/30 grain.

“
Voilà.
How clear—how marvellously clear the whole business becomes! Naturally, the doctor is deceived—especially as I find his sense of smell is affected—the garlic odour of the breath is a distinct symptom of phosphorus poisoning. He had no suspicions—why should he have? There were no suspicious circumstances and the one thing that might have given him a hint was the one thing he would never hear—or if he did hear it he would only class it as spiritualistic nonsense.

“I was now sure (from the evidence of Miss Lawson and the Misses Tripp) that murder had been committed. The question still was by
whom?
I eliminated the servants—their mentality was obvi
ously not adapted to such a crime. I eliminated Miss Lawson since she would hardly have prattled on about luminous ectoplasm if she had been connected with the crime. I eliminated Charles Arundell
since he knew, having seen the will, that he would gain nothing by his aunt's death.

“There remained his sister Theresa, Dr. Tanios, Mrs. Tanios and Dr. Donaldson whom I discovered to have been dining in the house on the evening of the dog's ball incident.

“At this point I had very little to help me. I had to fall back upon the psychology of the crime and the
personality
of the murderer! Both crimes had roughly
the same outline.
They were both
simple.
They were cunning, and carried out with efficiency. They required a certain amount of knowledge but not a great deal. The facts about phosphorus poisoning are easily learned, and the stuff itself, as I say, is quite easily obtained, especially abroad.