The Inspector groaned again.
"You have been thinking," he said. "And what have you been thinking?" "I have been thinking of Miss Celia and how she died, and that someone, after she was dead, must have come into her room and left there the empty morphia bottle and the little piece of paper that say she killed herself-was Akibombo paused and the Inspector nodded.
"And so I say-who could have done that? And I think if it is one of the girls it will be easy, but if a man not so easy, because he would have to go downstairs in our house and up the other stairs and someone mi,eaealit wake up and hear him or see him. So I think again, and I say, suppose it is someone in our house, but in the next room to Miss Celia's-only she is in this house, you understand?
Outside his window is a balcony and outside hers is a balcony, too, and she will sleep with her window open because that is hygienic practice. So if he is big and strong and athletic he could jump across." "The room next to Celia's in the other house," said Mrs. Hubbard. "Let me see, that's Nigel's and and. . ." "Len Bateson's," said the Inspector. His finger touched the folded paper in his hand. "Len Bateson." "He is very nice, yes," said Mr.
Akibombo sadly. "And to me most pleasant, but psychologically one does not know what goes on below top surface. That is so, is it not? That is modern theory. Mr. Chandra Lal very angry when his boracic for the eyes disappears and later, when I ask, he says he has been told that it was taken by Len Bateson. . . ." "The morphia was taken from Nigel's drawer and boracic was substituted for it, and then Patricia Lane came along and substituted sodi bicarbonate for what she thought was morphia bat which was really boracic powder.... Yes.... I see.
. ." "I have helped you, yes?" Mr. Akibombo asked politely.
"Yes, indeed, we're most grateful to you.
Don'ter comrepeat any of this." "No, sir. I will be most careful." Mr. A-kibombo bowed politely to all and left the room.
"Len Bateson," said Mrs. Hubbard in a distressed voice.
"Oh! No." Sharpe looked at her.
"You don't want it to be Len Bateson?" "I've got fond of that boy. He's got a temper, I know, but he's always seemed so nice." "That's been said about a lot of criminals," said Sharpe. Gently he unfolded his little paper packet. Mrs. Hubbard obeyed his gesture and leaned forward to look.
On the wte paper were two red short curly hairs.
"Oh! dear," said Mrs. Hubbard.
"Yes," said Sharpe reflectively. "In my experience a murderer usually makes at least one mistake." "BUT IT IS BEAUTIFUL, my friend," said Hercule Poirot with admiration. "So clear-so beautifully clear." "You sound as if you were talking about soup," grumbled the Inspector. "It may be consommd to you comb to me there's a good deal of thick mock turtle about it, still." "Not now. Everything fits in in its appointed place." "Even these?" As he had done to Mrs. Hubbard, Inspector Sharpe produced his exhibit of two red hairs.
Poirot's answer was almost in the same words as Sharpe had used.
"Ah-yeg," he said. "What do you call it on the radio? The one deliberate mistake." The eyes of the two men met.
"No one," said Hercule Poirot, "is as clever as they think they are." Inspector Sharpe was greatly tempted to say: "Not even Hercule Poirot?" but he restrained himself. coneaFor the other, my friend, it is all fixed?" 'allyes, the balloon goes up tomorrow." :, You go yourself?" 'ationo, I'm scheduled to appear at 26 Hickory Road.
Cobb will be in charge." "We will wish him good luck." Gravely, Hercule Poirot raised his glass. It contained crbme de menthe.
Inspector Sharpe raised his whisky glass.
"Here's hoping," he said.
"They do think up things, these places," said Sergeant Cobb.
He was looking with grudging admiration at the display window of SABRINA FAIR. Framed and enclosed in an expensive illustration of the glassmaker's art-the "glassy green translucent wave"-Sabrina was displayed recumbent, clad in brief and exquisite panties and happily surrounded with every variety of deliciously packaged cosmetics. Besides the panties she wore various examples of barbaric costume jewelry.
Detective Constable McCrae gave a snort of deep disapproval.
"Blasphemy, I call it. Sabrina Fair, that's Milton, that is." "Well, Milton isn't the Bible, my lad." "You'll not deny that Paradise Lost is about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden and all the devils of Hell and if that's not religion, what is?" Sergeant Cobb did not enter on these controversial matters. He marched ishment, the dour constable at his heels. In the shell pink interior of Sabrina Fair the Sergeant and his satellite looked as out of place asthe traditional bull in a china shop.
An exquisite creature in delicate salmon pink swam up to them, her feet hardly seeming to touch the floor.
Sergeant Cobb said, "Good morning, Madam," and produced his credentials. The lovely creature withdrew in a flutter. An equally lovely but slightly older creature appeared.
She intum gave way to a superb and resplendent Duchess whose blue-grey hair and smooth cheeks set age and wrinkles at nought. Appraising steel grey eyes met the steady gaze of Sergeant Cobb.
"This is most unusual," said the Duchess severely. "Please come this way." She led him bethrough a square salon with a centre table where magazines and periodicals were heaped carelessly. AH round the walls were curtained recesses where glimpses could be obtained of recumbent women supine under the ministrant hands of pink robed priestesses.
The Duchess led the police officers into a small business-like apartment with a big roll top desk, severe chairs, and no softening of the harsh Northern light.
"I am Mrs. Lucas, the proprietress of this establishment," she said. "My partner, Miss Hobhouse, is not here today." "No, Madam," said Sergeant Cobb, to whom this was no news. dis?This search warrant of yours seems to be most highhanded," said Mrs. Lucas. "This is Miss Hobhouse's private office. I sincerely hope that it will not be necessary for you t cupset our clients in any way." "I don't think you need to worry unduly on that score," said Cobb. "What we're after isn't likely to be in the public rooms." He waited politely until she unwillingly withdrew. Then he looked round Valerie Hobhouse's office. The narrow window gave a view of the back premises of other Mayfair firms. The walls were panelled in pale grey and there were two good Persian rugs on the floor. His eyes went from the small wall safe to the big desk.
"Won't be in the safe," said Cobb. "Too obvious." A quarter of an hour later, the safe and the drawers of the desk had yielded up their secrets.
"Looks like it's maybe a mare's nest," said McCrae who was by nature both gloomy and disapproving.
"We're only beginning," said Cobb.
Having emptied the drawers of their contents and arranged the latter neatly in piles, he now proceeded to take the drawers out and turn them upside down.
He uttered an ejaculation of pleasure.
"Here we are, my lad," he said.
Fastened to the underneath side of the bottom drawer with adhesive tape were a half dozen small dark blue books with gilt lettering.
"Passports," said SereaeaIeant Cobb.
"Issued by Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Aff airs, God bless his trusting heart." McCrae bent over with interest as Cobb opened the passports and compared the affixed photographs.
"Hardly think it was the same woman, would you?" said MacRae.
The passports were those of Mrs. da Silva, Miss Irene French, Mrs. Olga Kohn, Miss Nina Le Mesurier, Mrs. Gladwys Thomas, and Miss Moira O'ationeele. They represented a dark young woman whose age varied between twenty-five and forty.
"It's the different hair-do every time that does it," said Cobb. "Pompadour, curls, straight out, page boy bob, etc. She's done something to her nose for Olga Kohn, plumpers in her cheeks for Mrs. Thomas. Here are two more-foreign passports-Madame Mahmoudi, Algerian.
Sheila Donovan, Eire. I'll say she's got bank accounts in all these dill erent names." "Bit complicated, isn't that?" "It has to be complicated, my lad. Inland Revenue. Always snooping around asking embarrassing questions." It's not so difficult
to make money by smuggling goods comb it's hell and all to account for money when you've got it! I bet this little gambling club in Mayfair was started by the lady for just that reason.
Winning money by gambling is about the only thing an Income Tax Inspector can't cheek up on. A good part of the loot, I should say, is eached around in Algerian and French banks and in Eire. The whole thing's a thoroughly well thought out business-like set-up. And then, one day, she must have had one of i^the fake passports lying about at Hickory Road and that poor little devil CeJia saw it." "IT WAS A CLEVER IDEA of Miss Hobhouse's," said Inspector Sharpe. His voice was indulgent, almost f atherly.
He shuffled the passports from one hand to the other like a man dealing cards.
"Complicated thing, finance," he said. "We've had a busy time haring round from one Bank to the other. She covered her tracks well-her financial tracks, I mean. I'd say that in a couple of years" time she could have cleared out, gone abroad and lived happily ever after, as they say, on ill-gotten gains. It wasn't a big show-illicit diamonds, sapphires, etc., coming instolen stuff going out-and narcotics on the side, as you might say. Thoroughly well organised. She went abroad under her own and under different names, but never too often, and the actual smuggling was always done, unknowingly, by someone else. She had agents abroad who saw to the exchange of rucksacks at the right moment. Yes, it was a clever idea. And we've got Mr. Poirot here to thank for putting us on to it. It was smart of her, too, to suoeaeagest that psychological stealing stunt to poor little Miss Austin. You were wise to that almost at once, weren't you, M. Poirot?" Poirot smiled in a deprecating manner and Mrs. Hubbard looked admiringly at him. The conversation was strictly off the record in Mrs. Hubbard's sitting room.
"Greed was her undoing," said Mr. Poirot.
"She was tempted by that fine diamond in Patricia Lane's ring. It was foolish of her because it suggested at once that she was used to handling precious stones-that business of prising the diamond out and replacing it with a zircon. Yes, that certainly gave me ideas about Valerie Hobhouse. She was clever, though, when I taxed her with inspiring Celia, she admitted it and explained it in a thoroughly sympathetic way." "But murder!" said Mrs. Hubbard.
"Cold-blooded murder. I can't really believe it even now." Inspector Sharpe looked gloomy.
"We aren't in a position to charge her with the murder of Celia Austin yet," he said. "We've got her cold on the smuggling, of course. No difficulties about that. But the murder charge is more tricky. The public prosecutor doesn't see his way.
There's motive, of course, and opportunity. She probably knew all about the bet and Nigel's possession of morphia, but there's no real evidence, and there are the two other deaths to take into account. She could have poisoned Mrs.
Nicoletis all right-but on the other hand, she definitely did not kill Patricia Lane.
Actually she's about the only person who's completely in the clear. Geronimo says positively that she left the house at six o'clock.
He sticks to that. I don't know whether she bribed him" "No," said Poirot, shaking his head. "She did not bribe him." "And we've the evidence of the chemist at the corner of the road. He knows her quite well and he sticks to it that she came in at five minutes past six and bought face powder and aspirin and used the telephone. She left his shop at quarter past six and took a taxi from the rank outside." Poirot sat up in his chair.
"But that," he said, "is magnificentl It is just what we want!" "What on earth do you mean?" "I mean that she actually telephoned from the box at the chemist's shop." Inspector Sharpe looked at him in an exasperated fashion.
"Now, see here, Mr. Poirot. Let's take the known facts. At eight minutes past six, Patricia Lane is alive and telephoning to the police station from this room. You agree to that?" "I do not think she was telephoning from this room." "Well then, from the hall downstairs." "Not from the hall either." Inspector Sharpe sighed.
"I suppose you don't deny that a call was put through to the police station? You don't think that I and my Sergeant and Police Constable Nye, and Nigel Chapman were the victims of mass hallucination?" "Assuredly not. A call was put through to you. I should say at a guess that it was put through from the public call box at the chemist's on the corner." Inspector Sharpe's jaw dropped for a moment.
"You mean that Valerie Hobhouse put through that call? That she pretended to speak as Patricia Lane, and that Patricia Lane was already dead?" "That is what I mean, yes." The Inspector was silent for a moment, then he brou,eaealit down his fist with a crash on the table.
"I don't believe it. The voice-I heard it myself" "You heard it, yes. A girl's voice-breathless, agitated. But you didn't know Patricia Lane's voice well enough to say definitely that it was her voice." "I didn't, perhaps. But it was Nigel Chapman who actually took the call. You can't ten me that Nigel Chapman could be deceived. It isn't so easy to disguile a voice over the telephone, or to counterfeit somebody else's voice. Nigel Chapman would have known if it wasn't Pat's voice speaking." "Yes," said Poirot. -- "Nigel Chapman would have known. Nigel Chapman knew quite well that it wasn't Patricia. Who should know better than he, since he had killed her with a blow on the back of the head only a short while before." It was a moment or two before the Inspector recovered his voice.
"Ni el Chapman? Nigel Chapman? But when we found her dead-he cried-cried like a child." "I daresay," said Poirot. "I think he was as fond of that irl as he could be of anybody-but that wouldn't save her-not if she represented a menace to his interests. All along, Nigel Chapman has stood out as the obvious probability. Who had morphia in his possession? Nigel Chapman.
Who has the shallow brilliant intellect to plan, and the audacity to carry out fraud and murder?
Nigel Chapman. Who do we know to be both ruthless and vain? Nigel Chapman. He has all the hallraarks of the killer; the overweening vanity, the spitefulness, the growing recklessness that led him to draw attention to himself in every conceivable way comusing the green ink in a stupendous double bluff, and finally overreaching himself by the silly deliberate mistake of putting Len Bateson's hairs in Patricia's fingers, oblivious of the fact that as Patricia was struck down from behind, she could not possibly have grasped her assailant by the hair. They are like that, these murderers-carried away by their own egoism, by their admiration of their own cleverness, relying on their charm-for he has charm, this Nigel-he has all the charm of a spoiled child who has never grown up, who never will grow up-who sees only one thing, Himself, and what he wants!" "But why, Mr. Poirot? Why murder?
Celia Austin, perhaps, but why Patricia Lane?" "That," said Poirot, "we have got to find out." "I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU for a long time," said old Mr. Endicott to Hercule Poirot. He peered at the other keenly. "It's very nice of you to drop in." "Not really," said Hercule Poirot. "I want something." "Well, as you know, I'm deeply in your debt.
You cleared up that nasty Abemethy business for me." "I am surprised really to find you here. I thought you had retired." The old lawyer smiled grimly. His firm was a most respectable and old established one.
"I came in specially today to see a very old client. I still attend to the affairs of one or two old friends." "Sir Arthur Stanley was an old friend and client, was he not?" "Yes. We've undertaken all his legal work since he was quite a young man. A very brilliant man, Poirotquite an exceptional brain." "His death was announced on the six o'clock news yesterday, I believe." "Yes. The funeral's on Friday. He's been ailing some time. A malignant growth, I understand." "Lady Stanley died some years ago?" "Two and a hall years ago, roughly." The keen eyes below the bushy brows looked sharply at Poirot.
"How did she die?" The lawyer repried promptly.
"Overdose of sleeping stuff. Medinal as far as'remember." "There was an inquest?" "Yes. The verdict was that she took it accidentally." "Did she?" Mr. Endicott was silent for a moment.
"I won't insult you," he said. "I've no doubt you've got a good reason for asking.
Medinal's a rather dangerous drug, I understand, because there
's not a big margin between an effective dose and a lethal one. If the patient gets drowsy and forgets she's taken a dose and takes another-well, it can have a fatal result." Poirot nodded.
"Is that what she did?" "Presumably. There was no suggestion of suicide, or suicidal tendencies." "And no suggestion of-anything else?" Again that keen glance was shot at him.
"Her husband gave evidence." "And what did he say?" "He made it clear that she did sometimes got confused after comtaking her nightly dose and ask for another." "Was he lying?" "Really, Poirot, what an outrageous question.
Why should you suppose for a minute that I should know?" Poirot smiled. The attempt at bluster did not deceive him.
"I suggest, my friend, that you know very well. But for the moment I will not embarrass you by asking you what you know.
Agatha Christie - Hickory Dickory Death Page 17
