Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

by John Curran

  ‘A house called The Laburnums,’ he said. ‘You know it? The house of a Miss Wheeler.’

  ‘That’s right, sir. Just past the church. You can’t miss it. Three Miss Wheelers there were, old-fashioned ladies, born and brought up here. Ah! well, they’re all gone now and the house is up for sale.’

  He shook his head sadly.

  ‘So the Miss Wheelers are all dead?’ said Poirot.

  ‘Yes, sir. Miss Amelia and Miss Caroline twelve years ago and Miss Matilda just a month or two ago. You thinking of buying the house, sir—if I may ask?’

  ‘The idea had occurred to me,’ said Poirot mendaciously. ‘But I believe it is in a very bad state.’

  ‘It’s old-fashioned, sir. Never been modernised as the saying goes. But it’s in good condition—roof and drains and all that. Never grudged money on repairs, Miss Wheeler didn’t, and the garden was always a picture.’

  ‘She was well off?’

  ‘Oh! very comfortably off indeed, sir. A very well-to-do family.’

  ‘I suppose the house has been left to someone who has no use for it? A niece or nephew or some distant relative?’

  ‘No, sir, she left it to her companion, Miss Lawson. But Miss Lawson doesn’t fancy living in it, and so it’s up for sale. But it’s a bad time for selling houses, they say.’

  ‘Whenever one has to sell anything it is always a bad time,’ said Poirot smiling, as he paid the bill and added a handsome tip. ‘When exactly did you say Miss Matilda Wheeler died?’

  ‘Just the beginning of May, sir—thank you, sir—or was it the end of April? She’d not been in good health for a long time.’

  ‘You have a good doctor here?’

  ‘Yes, sir, Dr Lawrence. He’s getting on now, but he’s well thought of down here. Always very pleasant-spoken and careful.’

  Poirot nodded and presently we strolled out into the hot August sunshine and made our way along the street in the direction of the church.

  Before we got to it, however, we passed an old-fashioned house set a little way back, with a brass plate on the gate inscribed with the name of Dr Lawrence.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Poirot. ‘We will make a call here. At this hour we shall make sure of finding the doctor at home.’

  ‘My dear Poirot! But what on earth are you going to say? And anyway what are you driving at?’

  ‘For your first question, mon ami, the answer is simple—I shall have to invent. Fortunately I have the imagination fertile. For your second question—eh bien, after we have conversed with the doctor, it may be that I shall find I am not driving at anything.’

  iii

  Dr Lawrence proved to be a man of about sixty. I put him down as an unambitious kindly sort of fellow, not particularly brilliant mentally, but quite sound.

  Poirot is a past master in the art of mendacity. In five minutes we were all chatting together in the most friendly fashion—it being somehow taken for granted that we were old and dear friends of Miss Matilda Wheeler.

  ‘Her death, it is a great shock to me. Most sad,’ said Poirot. ‘She had the stroke? No?’

  ‘Oh! no, my dear fellow. Yellow atrophy of the liver. Been coming on for a long time. She had a very bad attack of jaundice a year ago. She was pretty well through the winter except for digestive trouble. Then she had jaundice again the end of April and died of it. A great loss to us—one of the real oldfashioned kind.’

  ‘Ah! yes, indeed,’ sighed Poirot. ‘And the companion, Miss Lawson—?’

  He paused and rather to our surprise the doctor responded promptly.

  ‘I can guess what you’re after, and I don’t mind telling you that you’ve my entire sympathy. But if you’re coming to me for any hope of “undue influence” it’s no good. Miss Wheeler was perfectly capable of making a will—not only when she did—but right up to the day of her death. It’s no good hoping that I can say anything different because I can’t.’

  ‘But your sympathy—’

  ‘My sympathy is with James Graham and Miss Mollie. I’ve always felt strongly that money shouldn’t be left away from the family to an outsider. I daresay there might be some sort of case that Miss Lawson obtained an ascendency over Miss Wheeler owing to spiritualistic tomfoolery—but I doubt if there’s anything that you could take into court. Only run yourself in for terrific expense. Avoid the law, wherever you can, is my motto. And certainly medically I can’t help you. Miss Wheeler’s mind was perfectly clear.’

  He shook hands with us and we passed out into the sunlight.

  ‘Well!’ I said. ‘That was rather unexpected!’

  ‘Truly. We begin to learn a little about my correspondent. She has at least two relatives—James Graham and a girl called Mollie. They ought to have inherited her money but did not do so. By a will clearly not made very long ago, the whole amount has gone to the companion, Miss Lawson. There is also a very significant mention of spiritualism.’

  ‘You think that significant?’

  ‘Obviously. A credulous old lady—the spirits tell her to leave her money to a particular person—she obeys. Something of that kind occurs to one as a possibility, does it not?’

  iv

  We had arrived at The Laburnums. It was a fair sized Georgian house, standing a little way back from the street with a large garden behind. There was a board stuck up with For Sale on it.

  Poirot rang the bell. His efforts were rewarded by a fierce barking within. Presently the door was opened by a neat middle-aged woman who held a barking wire-haired terrier by the collar.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said Poirot. ‘The house is for sale, I understand, so Mr James Graham told me.’

  ‘Oh! yes, sir. You would like to see over it?’

  ‘If you please.’

  ‘You needn’t be afraid of Bob, sir. He barks if anyone comes to the door, but he’s as gentle as a lamb really.’

  True enough, as soon as we were inside, the terrier jumped up and licked our hands. We were shown over the house—pathetic as an empty house always is, with the marks of pictures showing on the walls, and the bare uncarpeted floors. We found the woman only too ready and willing to talk to friends of the family as she supposed us to be. By his mention of James Graham, Poirot created this impression very cleverly.

  Ellen, for such was our guide’s name, had clearly been very attached to her late mistress. She entered with the gusto of her class into a description of her illness and death.

  ‘Taken sudden she was. And suffered! Poor dear! Delirious at the end. All sorts of queer things she’d say. How long was it? Well, it must have been three days from the time she was took bad. But poor dear, she’d suffered for many years on and off. Jaundice last year she had—and her food never agreed with her well. She’d take digestion tablets after nearly every meal. Oh! yes, she suffered a good deal one way or another. Sleeplessness for one thing. Used to get up and walk about the house at night, she did, her eyesight being too bad for much reading.’

  It was at this point that Poirot produced from his pocket the letter. He held it out to her.

  ‘Do you recognise this by any chance?’ he asked.

  He was watching her narrowly. She gave an exclamation of surprise.

  ‘Well, now, I do declare! And is it you that’s the gentleman it’s written to?’

  Poirot nodded.

  ‘Tell me how you came to post it to me?’ he said.

  ‘Well, sir, I didn’t know what to do—and that’s the truth. When the furniture was all cleared out, Miss Lawson she gave me several little odds and ends that had been the mistress’s. And among them was a mother of pearl blotter that I’d always admired. I put it by in a drawer, and it was only yesterday that I took it out and was putting new blotting paper in it when I found this letter slipped inside the pocket. It was the mistress’s handwriting and I saw as she’d meant to post it and slipped it in there and forgot—which was the kind of thing she did many a time, poor dear. Absentminded as you might say. Well, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t like
to put it in the fire and I couldn’t take it upon myself to open it and I didn’t see as it was any business of Miss Lawson’s, so I just put a stamp on it and ran out to the post box and posted it.’

  Ellen paused for breath and the terrier uttered a sharp staccato bark. It was so peremptory in sound that Poirot’s attention was momentarily diverted. He looked down at the dog who was sitting with his nose lifted entreatingly towards the empty mantelpiece of the drawing-room where we were at the time.

  ‘But what is it that he regards so fixedly?’ asked Poirot.

  Ellen laughed.

  ‘It’s his ball, sir. It used to be put in ajar on the mantelpiece and he thinks it ought somehow or other to be there still.’

  ‘I see,’ said Poirot. ‘His ball…’ He remained thoughtful for a moment or two.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Did your mistress ever mention to you something about the dog and his ball? Something that perturbed her greatly?’

  ‘Now it’s odd your saying that, sir. She never said anything about a ball, but I do believe there was something about Bob here that was on her mind—for she tried to say something just as she was dying. “The dog,” she said. “The dog—” and then something about a picture ajar—nothing that made sense but there, poor soul, she was delirious and didn’t know what she was saying.’

  ‘You will comprehend,’ said Poirot, ‘that this letter not reaching me when it should have done, I am greatly intrigued about many things and much in the dark. There are several questions that I should wish to ask.’

  By this time Ellen would have taken for granted any statement that Poirot had chosen to make. We adjourned to her somewhat overcrowded sitting-room and having pacified Bob by giving him the desired ball which he retired under a table to chew, Poirot began his interrogations.

  ‘First of all,’ he said, ‘I comprehend that Miss Wheeler’s nearest relations were only two in number?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. Mr James—Mr James Graham whom you mentioned just now—and Miss Davidson. They were first cousins and niece and nephew to Miss Wheeler. There were five Miss Wheelers, you see, and only two of them married.’

  ‘And Miss Lawson was no relation at all?’

  ‘No, indeed—nothing but a paid companion.’

  Scorn was uppermost in Ellen’s voice.

  ‘Did you like Miss Lawson, Ellen?’

  ‘Well, sir, she wasn’t one you could dislike, so to speak. Neither one thing nor the other, she wasn’t, a poor sort of creature, and full of nonsense about spirits. Used to sit in the dark, they did, she and Miss Wheeler and the two Miss Pyms. A sayance, they called it. Why they were at it the very night she was taken bad. And if you ask me, it was that wicked nonsense that made Miss Wheeler leave her money away from her own flesh and blood.’

  ‘When exactly did she make the new will? But perhaps you do not know that.’

  ‘Oh! yes, I do. Sent for the lawyer she did while she was still laid up.’

  ‘Laid up?’

  ‘Yes, sir—from a fall she had. Down the stairs. Bob here had left his ball on top of the stairs and she slipped on it and fell. In the night it was. As I tell you, she used to get up and walk about.’

  ‘Who was in the house at the time?’

  ‘Mr James and Miss Mollie were here for the weekend. Easter it was, and it was the night of Bank Holiday. There was cook and me and Miss Lawson and Mr James and Miss Mollie and what with the fall and the scream we all came out. Cut her head, she did, and strained her back. She had to lie up for nearly a week. Yes, she was still in bed—it was the following Friday—when she sent for Mr Halliday. And the gardener had to come in and witness it, because for some reason I couldn’t on account of her having remembered me in it, and cook alone wasn’t enough.’

  ‘Bank holiday was the 10th of August,’[16] said Poirot. He looked at me meaningfully. ‘Friday would be the 14th. And what next? Did Miss Wheeler get up again?’

  ‘Oh! yes, sir. She got up on the Saturday, and Miss Mollie and Mr James they came down again, being anxious about her, you see. Mr James he even came down the weekend after that.’

  ‘The weekend of the 22nd?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And when was Miss Wheeler finally taken ill?’

  ‘It was the 25th, sir. Mr James had left the day before. And Miss Wheeler seemed as well as she’d ever been—bar her indigestion, of course, but that was chronic. Taken sudden after the sayance, she was. They had a sayance after dinner, you know, so the Miss Pyms went home and Miss Lawson and I got her to bed and sent for Dr Lawrence.’

  Poirot sat frowning for a moment or two, then he asked Ellen for the address of Miss Davidson and Mr Graham and also for that of Miss Lawson.

  All three proved to be in London. James Graham was junior partner in some chemical dye works,[17] Miss Davidson worked in a beauty parlour in Dover Street. Miss Lawson had taken a flat near High Street, Kensington.

  As we left, Bob, the dog, rushed up to the top of the staircase, lay down and carefully nosed his ball over the edge so that it bumped down the stairs. He remained, wagging his tail, until it was thrown up to him again.

  ‘The incident of the dog’s ball,’ murmured Poirot under his breath.

  v

  A minute or two later we were out in the sunshine again.

  ‘Well,’ I said with a laugh. ‘The dog’s ball incident did not amount to much after all. We now know exactly what it was. The dog left his ball at the top of the stairs and the old lady tripped over it and fell. So much for that!’

  ‘Yes, Hastings, as you say—the incident is simple enough. What we do not know—and what I should like to know—and what I mean to know—is why the old lady was so perturbed by it?’

  ‘Do you think there is anything in that?’

  ‘Consider the dates, Hastings. On Monday night, the fall. On Wednesday the letter written to me. On Friday the altered will. There is something curious there. Something that I should like to know. And ten days afterwards Miss Wheeler dies. If it had been a sudden death, one of these mysterious deaths due to “heart failure”—I confess I should have been suspicious. But her death appears to have been perfectly natural and due to disease of long standing. Tout de même—’

  He went off into a brown study. Finally he said unexpectedly:

  ‘If you really wished to kill someone, Hastings, how would you set about it?’

  ‘Well—I don’t know. I can’t imagine myself—’

  ‘One can always imagine. Think, for instance, of a particularly repellent money-lender, of an innocent girl in his clutches.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said slowly. ‘I suppose one might always see red and knock a fellow out.’

  Poirot sighed.

  ‘Mais oui, it would be that way with you! But I seek to imagine the mind of someone very different. A cold-blooded but cautious murderer, reasonably intelligent. What would he try first? Well, there is accident. A well staged accident— that is very difficult for the police to bring home to the perpetrator. But it has its disadvantages—it may disable but not kill. And then, possibly, the victim might be suspicious. Accident cannot be tried again. Suicide? Unless a convenient piece of writing with an ambiguous meaning can be obtained from the victim, suicide would be very uncertain. Then murder—recognised as such. For that you want a scapegoat or an alibi.’

  ‘But Miss Wheeler wasn’t murdered. Really, Poirot—’

  ‘I know. I know. But she died, Hastings. Do not forget—she died. She makes a will—and ten days later she dies. And the only two people in the house with her (for I except the cook) both benefit by her death.’

  ‘I think,’ I said, ‘that you have a bee in your bonnet.’

  ‘Very possibly. Coincidences do happen. But she wrote to me, mon ami, she wrote to me, and until I know what made her write I cannot rest in peace.’

  vi

  It was about a week later that we had three interviews.

  Exactly what Poirot wrote to them I do not know, but Mollie Davidso
n and James Graham came together by appointment, and certainly displayed no resentment. The letter from Miss Wheeler lay on the table in a conspicuous position. From the conversation that followed, I gathered that Poirot had taken considerable liberties in his account of the subject matter.

  ‘We have come here in answer to your request, but I am sorry to say that I do not understand in the least what you are driving at, M. Poirot,’ said Graham with some irritation as he laid down his hat and stick.

  He was a tall thin man, looking older than his years, with pinched lips and deep-set grey eyes. Miss Davidson was a handsome fair-haired girl of twenty-nine or so. She seemed puzzled, but unresentful.

  ‘It is that I seek to aid you,’ said Poirot. ‘Your inheritance it has been wrested from you! It has gone to a stranger!’

  ‘Well, that’s over and done with,’ said Graham. ‘I’ve taken legal advice and it seems there’s nothing to be done. And I really cannot see where it concerns you, M. Poirot.’

  ‘I think James, that that is not very fair to M. Poirot,’ said Mollie Davidson. ‘He is a busy man, but he is going out of his way to help us. I wish he could. All the same, I’m afraid nothing can be done. We simply can’t afford to go to law.’

  ‘Can’t afford. Can’t afford. We haven’t got a leg to stand upon,’ said her cousin irritably.

  ‘That is where I come in,’ said Poirot. ‘This letter’—he tapped it with a finger-nail—has suggested a possible idea to me. Your aunt, I understand, had originally made a will leaving her property to be divided between you. Suddenly, on the 14th April she makes another will. Did you know of that will, by the way?’

  It was to Graham he put the question.

  Graham flushed and hesitated a moment.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I knew of it. My aunt told me of it.’

  ‘What?’ A cry of astonishment came from the girl.

  Poirot wheeled round upon her.

  ‘You did not know of it, Mademoiselle?’

  ‘No, it came as a great shock to me. I thought it did to my cousin also. When did Auntie tell you, James?’