Cards on the Table - Agatha Christie [51]
‘Good for you, M. Poirot.’
‘And Dr Roberts did the inoculation?’
‘That’s right. There you are again—we can’t prove anything. She had the usual two inoculations—and they may have been typhoid inoculations for all we know. Or one of them may have been typhoid inoculation and the other—something else. We don’t know. We never shall know. The whole thing is pure hypothesis. All we can say is: it might be.’
Poirot nodded thoughtfully.
‘It agrees very well with some remarks made to me by Mr Shaitana. He was exalting the successful murderer—the man against whom his crime could never be brought home.’
‘How did Mr Shaitana know about it, then?’ asked Mrs Oliver.
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
‘That we shall never learn. He himself was in Egypt at one time. We know that, because he met Mrs Lorrimer there. He may have heard some local doctor comment on curious features of Mrs Craddock’s case—a wonder as to how the infection arose. At some other time he may have heard gossip about Roberts and Mrs Craddock. He might have amused himself by making some cryptic remark to the doctor and noted the startled awareness in his eye—all that one can never know. Some people have an uncanny gift of divining secrets. Mr Shaitana was one of those people. All that does not concern us. We have only to say—he guessed. Did he guess right?’
‘Well, I think he did,’ said Battle. ‘I’ve a feeling that our cheerful, genial doctor wouldn’t be too scrupulous. I’ve known one or two like him—wonderful how certain types resemble each other. In my opinion he’s a killer all right. He killed Craddock. He may have killed Mrs Craddock if she was beginning to be a nuisance and cause a scandal. But did he kill Shaitana? That’s the real question. And comparing the crimes, I rather doubt it. In the case of the Craddocks he used medical methods each time. The deaths appeared to be due to natural causes. In my opinion if he had killed Shaitana, he would have done so in a medical way. He’d have used the germ and not the knife.’
‘I never thought it was him,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Not for a minute. He’s too obvious, somehow.’
‘Exit Roberts,’ murmured Poirot. ‘And the others?’
Battle made a gesture of impatience.
‘I’ve pretty well drawn blank. Mrs Lorrimer’s been a widow for twenty years now. She’s lived in London most of the time, occasionally going abroad in the winter. Civilized places—the Riviera, Egypt, that sort of thing. Can’t find any mysterious death associated with her. She seems to have led a perfectly normal, respectable life—the life of a woman of the world. Everyone seems to respect her and to have the highest opinion of her character. The worst that they can say about her is that she doesn’t suffer fools gladly! I don’t mind admitting I’ve been beaten all along the line there. And yet there must be something! Shaitana thought there was.’
He sighed in a dispirited manner.
‘Then there’s Miss Meredith. I’ve got her history taped out quite clearly. Usual sort of story. Army officer’s daughter. Left with very little money. Had to earn her living. Not properly trained for anything. I’ve checked up on her early days at Cheltenham. All quite straightforward. Everyone very sorry for the poor little thing. She went first to some people in the Isle of Wight—kind of nursery-governess and mother’s help. The woman she was with is out in Palestine but I’ve talked with her sister and she says Mrs Eldon liked the girl very much. Certainly no mysterious deaths nor anything of that kind.
‘When Mrs Eldon went abroad, Miss Meredith went to Devonshire and took a post as companion to an aunt of a school friend. The school friend is the girl she is living with now—Miss Rhoda Dawes. She was there over two years until Miss Dawes got too ill and she had to have a regular trained nurse. Cancer, I gather. She’s alive still, but very vague. Kept under morphia a good deal, I imagine. I had an interview with her. She remembered “Anne,” said she was a nice child. I also talked to a neighbour of hers who