Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie [74]
“Rather more than unfortunate!” she said. “Two murders! And a girl kidnapped. You can’t send your daughter to a school where the mistresses are being murdered all the time.”
It seemed a highly reasonable point of view.
“If the murders,” said Poirot, “turn out to be the work of one person and that person is apprehended, that makes a difference, does it not?”
“Well—I suppose so. Yes,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe doubtfully. “I mean—you mean—oh, I see, you mean like Jack the Ripper or that other man—who was it? Something to do with Devonshire. Cream? Neil Cream. Who went about killing an unfortunate type of woman. I suppose this murderer just goes about killing schoolmistresses! If once you’ve got him safely in prison, and hanged too, I hope, because you’re only allowed one murder, aren’t you?—like a dog with a bite—what was I saying? Oh yes, if he’s safely caught, well, then I suppose it would be different. Of course there can’t be many people like that, can there?”
“One certainly hopes not,” said Hercule Poirot.
“But then there’s this kidnapping too,” pointed out Mrs. Sutcliffe. “You don’t want to send your daughter to a school where she may be kidnapped, either, do you?”
“Assuredly not, madame. I see how clearly you have thought out the whole thing. You are so right in all you say.”
Mrs. Sutcliffe looked faintly pleased. Nobody had said anything like that to her for some time. Henry had merely said things like “What did you want to send her to Meadowbank for anyway?” and Jennifer had sulked and refused to answer.
“I have thought about it,” she said. “A great deal.”
“Then I should not let kidnapping worry you, madame. Entre nous, if I may speak in confidence, about Princess Shaista—It is not exactly a kidnapping—one suspects a romance—”
“You mean the naughty girl just ran away to marry somebody?”
“My lips are sealed,” said Hercule Poirot. “You comprehend it is not desired that there should be any scandal. This is in confidence entre nous. I know you will say nothing.”
“Of course not,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe virtuously. She looked down at the letter that Poirot had brought with him from the Chief Constable. “I don’t quite understand who you are, M.—er—Poirot. Are you what they call in books—a private eye?”
“I am a consultant,” said Hercule Poirot loftily.
This flavour of Harley Street encouraged Mrs. Sutcliffe a great deal.
“What do you want to talk to Jennifer about?” she demanded.
“Just to get her impressions of things,” said Poirot. “She is observant—yes?”
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t say that,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe. “She’s not what I call a noticing kind of child at all. I mean, she is always so matter of fact.”
“It is better than making up things that have never happened at all,” said Poirot.
“Oh, Jennifer wouldn’t do that sort of thing,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe, with certainty. She got up, went to the window and called “Jennifer.”
“I wish,” she said, to Poirot, as she came back again, “that you’d try and get it into Jennifer’s head that her father and I are only doing our best for her.”
Jennifer came into the room with a sulky face and looked with deep suspicion at Hercule Poirot.
“How do you do?” said Poirot. “I am a very old friend of Julia Upjohn. She came to London to find me.”
“Julia went to London?” said Jennifer, slightly surprised. “Why?”
“To ask my advice,” said Hercule Poirot.
Jennifer looked unbelieving.
“I was able to give it to her,” said Poirot. “She is now back at Meadowbank,” he added.
“So her Aunt Isabel didn’t take her away,” said Jennifer, shooting an irritated look at her mother.
Poirot looked at Mrs. Sutcliffe and for some reason, perhaps because she had been in the middle of counting the laundry when Poirot arrived and perhaps because of some unexplained compulsion, she got up and left the room.
“It’s a bit hard,” said Jennifer, “to be out of all that’s going on there. All this fuss! I told Mummy it was silly. After all, none of the pupils have been killed.”
“Have you any ideas of your own about the murders?” asked Poirot.
Jennifer shook her head.