Poirot's Early Cases (27 page)

He bowed, picked up his hat and moved to the door. Mary Delafontaine came with him into the hall. On the doorstep he paused and looked at her.

‘You are fond of your garden, I think, madame?’

‘I? Yes, I spend a lot of time gardening.’

‘Je vous fais mes compliments.’

He bowed once more and strode down to the gate. As he passed out of it and turned to the right he glanced back and registered two impressions—a sallow face watching him from the first-floor window, and a man of erect and soldierly carriage pacing up and down on the opposite side of the street.

Hercule Poirot nodded to himself. ‘
Definitivement
,’ he said. ‘There is a mouse in this hole! What move must the cat make now?’

His decision took him to the nearest post office. Here he put through a couple of telephone calls. The result seemed to be satisfactory. He bent his steps to Charman’s Green police station, where he inquired for Inspector Sims.

Inspector Sims was a big, burly man with a hearty manner. ‘M. Poirot?’ he inquired. ‘I thought so. I’ve
just this minute had a telephone call through from the chief constable about you. He said you’d be dropping in. Come into my office.’

The door shut, the inspector waved Poirot to one chair, settled himself in another, and turned a gaze of acute inquiry upon his visitor.

‘You’re very quick on to the mark, M. Poirot. Come to see us about this Rosebank case almost before we know it is a case. What put you on to it?’

Poirot drew out the letter he had received and handed it to the inspector. The latter read it with some interest.

‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘The trouble is, it might mean so many things. Pity she couldn’t have been a little more explicit. It would have helped us now.’

‘Or there might have been no need for help.’

‘You mean?’

‘She might have been alive.’

‘You go as far as that, do you? H’m—I’m not sure you’re wrong.’

‘I pray of you, Inspector, recount to me the facts. I know nothing at all.’

‘That’s easily done. Old lady was taken bad after dinner on Tuesday night. Very alarming. Convulsions—spasms—whatnot. They sent for the doctor. By the time he arrived she was dead. Idea was she’d died of a fit. Well, he didn’t much like the look of things. He
hemmed and hawed and put it with a bit of soft sawder, but he made it clear that he couldn’t give a death certificate. And as far as the family go, that’s where the matter stands. They’re awaiting the result of the post-mortem. We’ve got a bit further. The doctor gave us the tip right away—he and the police surgeon did the autopsy together—and the result is in no doubt whatever. The old lady died of a large dose of strychnine.’

‘Aha!’

‘That’s right. Very nasty bit of work. Point is, who gave it to her? It must have been administered very shortly before death. First idea was it was given to her in her food at dinner—but, frankly, that seems to be a washout. They had artichoke soup, served from a tureen, fish pie and apple tart.

‘Miss Barrowby, Mr Delafontaine and Mrs Delafontaine. Miss Barrowby had a kind of nurse-attendant—a half-Russian girl—but she didn’t eat with the family. She had the remains as they came out from the dining-room. There’s a maid, but it was her night out. She left the soup on the stove and the fish pie in the oven, and the apple tart was cold. All three of them ate the same thing—and, apart from that, I don’t think you could get strychnine down anyone’s throat that way. Stuff’s as bitter as gall. The doctor told me you could taste it in a solution of one in a thousand, or something like that.’

‘Coffee?’

‘Coffee’s more like it, but the old lady never took coffee.’

‘I see your point. Yes, it seems an insuperable difficulty. What did she drink at the meal?’

‘Water.’

‘Worse and worse.’

‘Bit of a teaser, isn’t it?’

‘She had money, the old lady?’

‘Very well to do, I imagine. Of course, we haven’t got exact details yet. The Delafontaines are pretty badly off, from what I can make out. The old lady helped with the upkeep of the house.’

Poirot smiled a little. He said, ‘So you suspect the Delafontaines. Which of them?’

‘I don’t exactly say I suspect either of them in particular. But there it is; they’re her only near relations, and her death brings them a tidy sum of money, I’ve no doubt. We all know what human nature is!’

‘Sometimes inhuman—yes, that is very true. And there was nothing else the old lady ate or drank?’

‘Well, as a matter of fact—’

‘Ah,
voilà
! I felt that you had something, as you say, up your sleeve—the soup, the fish pie, the apple tart—a
bêtise
! Now we come to the hub of the affair.’

‘I don’t know about that. But as a matter of fact, the old girl took a cachet before meals. You know, not a pill or a tablet; one of those rice-paper things with a
powder inside. Some perfectly harmless thing for the digestion.’

‘Admirable. Nothing is easier than to fill a cachet with strychnine and substitute it for one of the others. It slips down the throat with a drink of water and is not tasted.’

‘That’s all right. The trouble is, the girl gave it to her.’

‘The Russian girl?’

‘Yes. Katrina Rieger. She was a kind of lady-help, nurse-companion to Miss Barrowby. Fairly ordered about by her, too, I gather. Fetch this, fetch that, fetch the other, rub my back, pour out my medicine, run round to the chemist—all that sort of business. You know how it is with these old women—they mean to be kind, but what they need is a sort of black slave!’

Poirot smiled.

‘And there you are, you see,’ continued Inspector Sims. ‘It doesn’t fit in what you might call nicely. Why should the girl poison her? Miss Barrowby dies and now the girl will be out of a job, and jobs aren’t easy to find—she’s not trained or anything.’

‘Still,’ suggested Poirot, ‘if the box of cachets was left about, anyone in the house might have the opportunity.’

‘Naturally we’re making inquiries—quiet like, if you understand me. When the prescription was last
made up, where it was usually kept; patience and a lot of spade work—that’s what will do the trick in the end. And then there’s Miss Barrowby’s solicitor. I’m having an interview with him tomorrow. And the bank manager. There’s a lot to be done still.’

Poirot rose. ‘A little favour, Inspector Sims; you will send me a little word how the affair marches. I would esteem it a great favour. Here is my telephone number.’

‘Why, certainly, M. Poirot. Two heads are better than one; and besides, you ought to be in on this, having had that letter and all.’

‘You are too amiable, Inspector.’ Politely, Poirot shook hands and took his leave.

He was called to the telephone on the following afternoon. ‘Is that M. Poirot? Inspector Sims here. Things are beginning to sit up and look pretty in the little matter you and I know of.’

‘In verity? Tell me, I pray of you.’

‘Well, here’s item No. I—and a pretty big item. Miss B. left a small legacy to her niece and everything else to K. In consideration of her great kindness and attention—that’s the way it was put. That alters the complexion of things.’

A picture rose swiftly in Poirot’s mind. A sullen face and a passionate voice saying, ‘The money is mine. She wrote it down and so it shall be.’ The legacy would not come as a surprise to Katrina—she knew about it beforehand.

‘Item No. 2,’ continued the voice of Inspector Sims. ‘Nobody but K. handled that cachet.’

‘You can be sure of that?’

‘The girl herself doesn’t deny it. What do you think of that?’

‘Extremely interesting.’

‘We only want one thing more—evidence of how the strychnine came into her possession. That oughtn’t to be difficult.’

‘But so far you haven’t been successful?’

‘I’ve barely started. The inquest was only this morning.’

‘What happened at it?’

‘Adjourned for a week.’

‘And the young lady—K.?’

‘I’m detaining her on suspicion. Don’t want to run any risks. She might have some funny friends in the country who’d try to get her out of it.’

‘No,’ said Poirot. ‘I do not think she has any friends.’

‘Really? What makes you say that, M. Poirot?’

‘It is just an idea of mine. There were no other “items”, as you call them?’

‘Nothing that’s strictly relevant. Miss B. seems to have been monkeying about a bit with her shares lately—must have dropped quite a tidy sum. It’s rather a funny business, one way and another, but I don’t see how it affects the main issue—not at present, that is.’

‘No, perhaps you are right. Well, my best thanks to you. It was most amiable of you to ring me up.’

‘Not at all. I’m a man of my word. I could see you were interested. Who knows, you may be able to give me a helping hand before the end.’

‘That would give me great pleasure. It might help you, for instance, if I could lay my hand on a friend of the girl Katrina.’

‘I thought you said she hadn’t got any friends?’ said Inspector Sims, surprised.

‘I was wrong,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘She has one.’

Before the inspector could ask a further question, Poirot had rung off.

With a serious face he wandered into the room where Miss Lemon sat at her typewriter. She raised her hands from the keys at her employer’s approach and looked at him inquiringly.

‘I want you,’ said Poirot, ‘to figure to yourself a little history.’

Miss Lemon dropped her hands into her lap in a resigned manner. She enjoyed typing, paying bills, filing papers and entering up engagements. To be asked
to imagine herself in hypothetical situations bored her very much, but she accepted it as a disagreeable part of a duty.

‘You are a Russian girl,’ began Poirot.

‘Yes,’ said Miss Lemon, looking intensely British.

‘You are alone and friendless in this country. You have reasons for not wishing to return to Russia. You are employed as a kind of drudge, nurse-attendant and companion to an old lady. You are meek and uncomplaining.’

‘Yes,’ said Miss Lemon obediently, but entirely failing to see herself being meek to any old lady under the sun.

‘The old lady takes a fancy to you. She decides to leave her money to you. She tells you so.’ Poirot paused.

Miss Lemon said ‘Yes’ again.

‘And then the old lady finds out something; perhaps it is a matter of money—she may find that you have not been honest with her. Or it might be more grave still—a medicine that tasted different, some food that disagreed. Anyway, she begins to suspect you of something and she writes to a very famous detective—
enfin
, to the most famous detective—me! I am to call upon her shortly. And then, as you say, the dripping will be in the fire. The great thing is to act quickly. And so—before the great detective arrives—the old
lady is dead. And the money comes to you…Tell me, does that seem to you reasonable?’

‘Quite reasonable,’ said Miss Lemon. ‘Quite reasonable for a Russian, that is. Personally, I should never take a post as a companion. I like my duties clearly defined. And of course I should not dream of murdering anyone.’

Poirot sighed. ‘How I miss my friend Hastings. He had such imagination. Such a romantic mind! It is true that he always imagined wrong—but that in itself was a guide.’

Miss Lemon was silent. She looked longingly at the typewritten sheet in front of her.

‘So it seems to you reasonable,’ mused Poirot.

‘Doesn’t it to you?’

‘I am almost afraid it does,’ sighed Poirot.

The telephone rang and Miss Lemon went out of the room to answer it. She came back to say ‘It’s Inspector Sims again.’ Poirot hurried to the instrument. ‘ ’Allo, ’allo. What is that you say?’

Sims repeated his statement. ‘We’ve found a packet of strychnine in the girl’s bedroom—tucked underneath the mattress. The sergeant’s just come in with the news. That about clinches it, I think.’

‘Yes,’ said Poirot, ‘I think that clinches it.’ His voice had changed. It rang with sudden confidence.

When he had rung off, he sat down at his writing
table and arranged the objects on it in a mechanical manner. He murmured to himself, ‘There was something wrong. I felt it—no, not felt. It must have been something I saw.
En avant
, the little grey cells. Ponder—reflect. Was everything logical and in order? The girl—her anxiety about the money: Mme Delafontaine; her husband—his suggestion of Russians—imbecile, but he is an imbecile; the room; the garden—ah! Yes, the garden.’

He sat up very stiff. The green light shone in his eyes. He sprang up and went into the adjoining room.

‘Miss Lemon, will you have the kindness to leave what you are doing and make an investigation for me?’

‘An investigation, M. Poirot? I’m afraid I’m not very good—’

Poirot interrupted her. ‘You said one day that you knew all about tradesmen.’

‘Certainly I do,’ said Miss Lemon with confidence.

‘Then the matter is simple. You are to go to Charman’s Green and you are to discover a fish-monger.’

‘A fishmonger?’ asked Miss Lemon, surprised.

‘Precisely. The fishmonger who supplied Rosebank with fish. When you have found him you will ask him a certain question.’

He handed her a slip of paper. Miss Lemon took it,
noted its contents without interest, then nodded and slipped the lid on her typewriter.

‘We will go to Charman’s Green together,’ said Poirot. ‘You go to the fishmonger and I to the police station. It will take us but half an hour from Baker Street.’

On arrival at his destination, he was greeted by the surprised Inspector Sims. ‘Well, this is quick work, M. Poirot. I was talking to you on the phone only an hour ago.’

‘I have a request to make to you; that you allow me to see this girl Katrina—what is her name?’

‘Katrina Rieger. Well, I don’t suppose there’s any objection to that.’

The girl Katrina looked even more sallow and sullen than ever.

Poirot spoke to her very gently. ‘Mademoiselle, I want you to believe that I am not your enemy. I want you to tell me the truth.’

Her eyes snapped defiantly. ‘I have told the truth. To everyone I have told the truth! If the old lady was poisoned, it was not I who poisoned her. It is all a mistake. You wish to prevent me having the money.’ Her voice was rasping. She looked, he thought, like a miserable little cornered rat.