Hercule Poirot 100 Years (1916 - 2016)

by Mark Place

  "You enjoy life altogether, don't you?"

  "Yes, I do. I suppose it's the feeling that one never knows what might be going to happen next."

  "Yet that feeling," said Mrs. Rosentelle, "is just what makes so many people never stop worrying!"

  Chapter 16

  MR. GOBY REPORTS

  Mr. Goby came into the room and sat, as indicated by Poirot, in his usual chair. He glanced around him before choosing what particular piece of furniture or part of the room he was about to address. He settled, as often before, for the electric fire, not turned on at this time of year. Mr. Goby had never been known to address the human being he was working for directly. He selected always the cornice, a radiator, a television set, a clock, sometimes a carpet or a mat. Out of a briefcase he took a few papers.

  "Well," said Hercule Poirot, "you have something for me?"

  "I have collected various details," said Mr. Goby.

  Mr. Goby was celebrated all over London, indeed possibly all over England and even further, as a great purveyor of information. How he performed these miracles, nobody ever really quite knew. He employed a not excessive staff. Sometimes he complained that his legs, as he sometimes called them, were not as good as they used to be. But his results were still able to astonish people who had commissioned them.

  "Mrs. Burton-Cox," he said, announcing the name much as though he had been the local churchwarden having his turn at reading the lessons. He might equally have been saying, "Third verse, fourth chapter, the book of Isaiah."

  "Mrs. Burton-Cox," he said again. "Married Mr. Cecil Aldbury, manufacturer of buttons on a large scale. Rich man. Entered politics, was MP for Little Stansmere. Mr. Cecil Aldbury was killed in a car accident four years after their marriage. The only child of the marriage died in an accident shortly afterwards, Mr. Aldbury's estate was inherited by his wife, but was not as much as had been expected, since the firm had not been doing well of late years. Mr. Aldbury also left quite a considerable sum of money to a Miss Kathleen Fenn, with whom it seemed he had been having intimate relations quite unknown to his wife. Mrs. Burton-Cox continued her political career. Some three years after that she adopted a child which had been born to Miss Kathleen Fenn. Miss Kathleen Fenn insisted that the child was the son of the late Mr. Aldbury. This, from what I have been able to learn in my inquiries, is somewhat difficult to accept," continued Mr. Goby.

  "Miss Fenn had had many relationships, usually with gentlemen of ample means and generous dispositions, but after all, so many people have their price, have they not? I'm afraid this is quite a serious bill I may have to send you in."

  "Continue," said Hercule Poirot.

  "Mrs. Aldbury, as she then was, agreed to adopt the child. A short while later she married Major Burton-Cox. Miss Kathleen Fenn became, I may say, a most successful actress and pop singer and made a very large amount of money. She then wrote to Mrs. Burton-Cox, saying she would be willing to take back the adopted child. Mrs. Burton-Cox refused. Mrs. Burton-Cox has been living quite comfortably since, I understand. Major Burton-Cox was killed in Malaya. He left her moderately well off. A further piece of information I have obtained is that Miss Kathleen Fenn, who died a very short while ago - eighteen months, I think - left a will by which her entire fortune, which amounted by then to a considerable sum of money, was left to her natural son Desmond, at present known under the name of Desmond Burton-Cox."

  "Very generous," said Poirot. "Of what did Miss Fenn die?"

  "My informant tells me that she contracted leukemia."

  "And the boy has inherited his mother's money?"

  "It was left in trust for him to acquire at the age of twenty-five."

  "So he will be independent, will have a substantial fortune? And Mrs, Burton-Cox?"

  "Has not been happy in her investments, it is understood. She has sufficient to live on but not much more."

  "Has the boy Desmond made a will?" asked Poirot.

  "That," said Mr. Goby, "I fear I do not know as yet. But I have certain means of finding out. If I do, I will acquaint you with the fact without loss of time."

  Mr. Goby took his leave, absent-mindedly, bowing a farewell to the electric fire. About an hour and a half later the telephone rang. Hercule Poirot, with a sheet of paper in front of him, was making notes. Now and then he frowned, twirled his moustaches, crossed something out and rewrote it and then proceeded onward. When the telephone rang, he picked up the receiver and listened.

  "Thank you," he said; "that was quick work. Yes... yes, I'm grateful. I really do not know sometimes how you manage these things... Yes, that sets out the position clearly. It makes sense of something that did not make sense before... yes... I gather... yes, I'm listening... you are pretty sure that that is the case. He knows he is adopted... but he never has been told who his real mother was... yes. Yes, I see... Very well. You will clear up the other point, too?

  Thank you."

  He replaced the receiver and started once more writing down words. In half an hour the telephone rang once more. Once again he picked up the phone.

  "I'm back from Cheltenham," said a voice which Poirot bad no difficulty in recognizing.

  "Ah, chère madame, you have returned? You have seen Mrs. Rosentelle?"

  "Yes. She is nice. Very nice. And you were quite right, you know. She is another elephant."

  "Meaning, chère madame'?"

  "I mean that she remembered Molly Ravenscroft."

  "And she remembered her wigs?"

  "Yes."

  Briefly she outlined what the retired hairdresser had told her about the wigs.

  "Yes," said Poirot, "that agrees. That is exactly what Superintendent Garroway mentioned to me. The four wigs that the police found. Curls, an evening type of headdress, and two other plainer ones. Four."

  "So I really only told you what you knew already?"

  "No, you told me something more than that. She said - that is what you told me just now, is it not? - that Lady Ravenscroft wanted two extra wigs to add to the two that she already had and that this was about three weeks to six weeks before the suicide tragedy occurred. Yes, that is interesting, is it not?"

  "It's very natural," said Mrs. Oliver. "I mean, you know that people, women, I mean, may do awful damage to things. To false hair and things of that kind. If it can't be redressed and cleaned, if it's got burnt or got stuff spilt on it you can't get out, or it's been dyed and dyed all wrong - something like that - well then, of course you have to get two new wigs or switches or whatever they are. I don't see what makes you excited about that."

  "Not exactly excited," said Poirot, "no. It is a point, but the more interesting point is what you have just added. It was a French lady, was it not, who brought the wigs to be copied or matched?"

  "Yes. I gathered some kind of companion or something. Lady Ravenscroft had been or was in hospital or in a nursing home somewhere and she was not in good health and she could not come herself to make a choice or anything of that kind."

  "I see."

  "And so her French companion came."

  "Do you know the name of that companion, by any chance?"

  "No. I don't think Mrs. Rosentelle mentioned it. In fact I don't think she knew. The appointment was made by Lady Ravenscroft and the French girl or woman just brought the wigs along for size and matching and all the rest of it, I suppose."

  "Well," said Poirot, "that helps me towards the further step that I am about to take."

  "What have you learned?" said Mrs. Oliver. "Have you done anything?"

  "You are always so skeptical," said Poirot. "You always consider that I do nothing, that I sit in a chair and repose myself."

  "Well, I think you sit in a chair and think," admitted Mrs. Oliver, "but I quite agree that you don't often go out and do things."

  "In the near future I think I may possibly go out and do things," said Hercule Poirot, "and that will please you. I may even cross the Channel, though certainly not in a boat. A plane, I think, is indicated."

&
nbsp; "Oh," said Mrs. Oliver. "Do you want me to come, too?"

  "No," said Poirot, "I think it would be better if I went alone on this occasion."

  "You really will go?"

  "Oh, yes, oh, yes. I will run about with all activity and so you should be pleased with me, madame." When he had rung off, he dialed another number which he looked up from a note he had made in his pocketbook. Presently he was connected to the person whom he wished to speak to. "My dear Superintendent Garroway, it is Hercule Poirot who addresses you. I do not derange you too much? You are not very busy at this moment?"

  "No, I am not busy," said Superintendent Garroway. "I am pruning my roses, that's all."

  "There is something that I want to ask you. Quite a small thing."

  "About our problem of the double suicide?"

  "Yes, about our problem. You said there was a dog in the house. You said that the dog went for walks with the family, or so you understood."

  "Yes, there was some mention made of a dog. I think it may have been either the housekeeper or someone who said that they went for a walk with the dog as usual that day."

  "In examination of the body, was there any sign that Lady Ravenscroft had been bitten by a dog? Not necessarily very recently or on that particular day?"

  "Well, it's odd you should say that. I can't say I'd have remembered about it if you hadn't mentioned such a thing. But, yes, there were a couple of scars. Not bad ones. But again the housekeeper mentioned that the dog had attacked its mistress more than once and bitten her, though not very severely. Look here, Poirot, there was no rabies about, if that's what you are thinking. There couldn't have been anything of that kind. After all, she was shot - they were both shot. There was no question of any septic poisoning or danger of tetanus."

  "I do not blame the dog," said Poirot, "it was only something I wanted to know."

  "One dog bite was fairly recent, about a week before, I think, or two weeks, somebody said. There was no case of necessary injections or anything of that kind. It had healed quite well. What's that quotation?" went on Superintendent Garroway. "'The dog it was that died.' I can't remember where it comes from, but -"

  "Anyway, it wasn't the dog that died," said Poirot. "That wasn't the point of my question. I would like to have known that dog. He was perhaps a very intelligent dog."

  After he had replaced the receiver with thanks to the Superintendent, Poirot murmured: "An intelligent dog. More intelligent perhaps than the police were."

  Chapter 17

  POIROT ANNOUNCES HIS DEPARTURE

  Miss Livingstone showed in a guest. "Mr. Hercules Porrett."

  As soon as Miss Livingstone had left the room, Poirot shut the door after her and sat down by his friend, Mrs. Ariadne Oliver. He said, lowering his voice slightly, "I depart."

  "You do what?" said Mrs. Oliver, who was always slightly startled by Poirot's methods of passing on information. "I depart. I make the departure. I take a plane to Geneva."

  "You sound as though you were UNO or UNESCO or something."

  "No. It is just a private visit that I make."

  "Have you got an elephant in Geneva?"

  "Well, I suppose you might look at it that way. Perhaps two of them."

  "I haven't found out anything more," said Mrs. Oliver. "In fact, I don't know who I can go to to find out any more."

  "I believe you mentioned, or somebody did, that your goddaughter, Celia Ravenscroft, had a young brother."

  "Yes, He's called Edward, I think. I've hardly ever seen him. I took him out once or twice from school, I remember. But that was years ago."

  "Where is he now?"

  "He's at university, in Canada, I think. Or he's taking some engineering course there. Do you want to go and ask him things?"

  "No, not at the moment. I should just like to know where he is now. But I gather he was not in the house when this suicide happened?"

  "You're not thinking - you're not thinking for a moment that he did it, are you? I mean, shot his father and his mother, both of them. I know boys do sometimes. Very queer they are sometimes when they're at a funny age."

  "He was not in the house," said Poirot. "That I know already from my police reports."

  "Have you found out anything else interesting? You look quite excited."

  "I am excited, in a way. I have found out certain things that may throw light upon what we already know."

  "Well, what throws light on what?"

  "It seems to me possible now that I can understand why Mrs. Burton-Cox approached you as she did and tried to get you to obtain information for her about the facts of the suicide of the Ravenscrofts."

  "You mean she wasn't just being a nosey-parker?"

  "No. I think there was some motive behind it. This is where, perhaps, money comes in."

  "Money? What's money got to do with that? She's quite well off, isn't she?"

  "She has enough to live upon, yes. But it seems that her adopted son, whom she regards apparently as her true son - he knows that he was adopted although he knows nothing about the family from which he really came. It seems that when he came of age he made a will, possibly urged by his adopted mother to do so. Perhaps it was merely hinted to him by some friends of hers or possibly by some lawyer that she had consulted. Anyway, on coming of age he may have felt that he might as well leave everything to her, to his adopted mother. Presumably at that time he had nobody else to leave it to."

  "I don't see how that leads to wanting news about a suicide."

  "Don't you? She wanted to discourage the marriage. If young Desmond had a girlfriend, if he proposed to marry her in the near future, which is what a lot of young people do nowadays - they can't wait or think it over. In that case, Mrs. Burton-Cox would not inherit the money he left, since the marriage would invalidate any earlier will, and presumably if he did marry this girl, he would make a new will leaving everything too her and not to his adopted mother."

  "And you mean Mrs. Burton-Cox didn't want that?"

  "She wanted to find something that would discourage him from marrying the girl. I think she hoped, and probably really believed as far as that goes, that Celia's mother killed her husband, afterwards shooting herself. That is the sort of thing that might discourage a boy. Even if her father killed her mother, it is still a discouraging thought. It might quite easily prejudice and influence a boy at that age."

  "You mean he'd think if her father or mother was a murderer, the girl might have murderous tendencies?"

  "Not quite as crude as that, but that might be the main idea, I should think."

  "But he wasn't rich, was he? An adopted child."

  "He didn't know his real mother's name or who she was, but it seems that his mother, who was an actress and a singer and who managed to make a great deal of money before she became ill and died, wanted at one time to get her child returned to her, and when Mrs. Burton-Cox would not agree to that, I should imagine she thought about this boy a great deal and decided that she would leave her money to him. He will inherit this money at the age of twenty-five, but it is held in trust for him until then. So of course Mrs. Burton-Cox doesn't want him to marry, or only to marry someone that she really approves of or over whom she might have influence."

  "Yes, that seems to me fairly reasonable. She's not a nice woman, though, is she?"

  "No," said Poirot, "I did not think her a very nice woman."

  "And that's why she didn't want you coming to see her and messing about with things and finding out what she was up to."

  "Possibly," said Poirot.

  "Anything else you have learned?"

  "Yes, I have learned - that is, only a few hours ago really - when Superintendent Garroway happened to ring me up about some other small matters, but I did ask him and he told me that the housekeeper, who was elderly, had very bad eyesight."

  "Does that come into it anywhere?"

  "It might," said Poirot. He looked at his watch.

  "I think," he said, "it is time that I left."

&
nbsp; "You are on your way to catch your plane at the airport?"

  "No. My plane does not leave until tomorrow morning. But there is a place I have to visit today - a place that I wish to see with my own eyes. I have a car waiting outside now to take me there -"

  "What is it you want to see?" Mrs. Oliver asked with some curiosity.

  "Not so much to see - to feel. Yes, that is the right word - to feel and to recognize what it will be that I feel..."

  Chapter 18

  INTERLUDE

  Hercule Poirot passed through the gate of the churchyard. He walked up one of the paths, and presently, against a moss-grown wall, he stopped, looking down on a grave. He stood there for some minutes looking first at the grave, then at the view of the Downs and sea beyond. Then his eyes came back again. Flowers had been put recently on the grave. A small bunch of assorted wild flowers, the kind of bunch that might have been left by a child, but Poirot did not think that it was a child who had left them. He read the lettering on the grave.

  TO THE MEMORY OF

  DOROTHEA JARROW

  Died Sept. 15th, 1952

  ALSO OF

  MARGARET RAVENSCROFT

  Died Oct. 3rd, 1952

  SISTER OF ABOVE

  ALSO OF

  ALISTAIR RAVENSCROFT

  Died Oct. 3rd, 1952

  HER HUSBAND

  In their Death they were not divided Forgive us our trespasses

  As we forgive those that trespass against us. Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us.

  Poirot stood there a moment or two. He nodded his head once or twice. Then he left the churchyard and walked by a footpath that led out on to the cliff and along it. Presently he stood still again, looking out to the sea. He spoke to himself. "I am sure now that I know what happened and why. I understand the pity of it and the tragedy. One has to go back such a long way. In my end is my beginning, or should one put it differently? 'In my beginning was my tragic end'? The Swiss girl must have known - but will she tell me? The boy believes she will. For their sakes - the girl and the boy. They cannot accept life unless they know."