Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie [86]
Mrs. Upjohn stared at him. “When I was in Miss Bulstrode’s sitting room? I looked—oh, yes, of course! Yes, I did see someone.”
“Someone you were surprised to see?”
“Well, I was rather … You see, it had all been such years ago.”
“You mean the days when you were working in Intelligence towards the end of the war?”
“Yes. It was about fifteen years ago. Of course, she looked much older, but I recognized her at once. And I wondered what on earth she could be doing here.”
“Mrs. Upjohn, will you look round this room and tell me if you see that person here now?”
“Yes, of course,” said Mrs. Upjohn. “I saw her as soon as I came in. That’s her.”
She stretched out a pointing finger. Inspector Kelsey was quick and so was Adam, but they were not quick enough. Ann Shapland had sprung to her feet. In her hand was a small wicked-looking automatic and it pointed straight at Mrs. Upjohn. Miss Bulstrode, quicker than the two men, moved sharply forward, but swifter still was Miss Chadwick. It was not Mrs. Upjohn that she was trying to shield, it was the woman who was standing between Ann Shapland and Mrs. Upjohn.
“No, you shan’t,” cried Chaddy, and flung herself on Miss Bulstrode just as the small automatic went off.
Miss Chadwick staggered, then slowly crumpled down. Miss Johnson ran to her. Adam and Kelsey had got hold of Ann Shapland now. She was struggling like a wild cat, but they wrested the small automatic from her.
Mrs. Upjohn said breathlessly:
“They said then that she was a killer. Although she was so young. One of the most dangerous agents they had. Angelica was her code name.”
“You lying bitch!” Ann Shapland fairly spat out the words.
Hercule Poirot said:
“She does not lie. You are dangerous. You have always led a dangerous life. Up to now, you have never been suspected in your own identity. All the jobs you have taken in your own name have been perfectly genuine jobs, efficiently performed—but they have all been jobs with a purpose, and that purpose has been the gaining of information. You have worked with an Oil Company, with an archaeologist whose work took him to a certain part of the globe, with an actress whose protector was an eminent politician. Ever since you were seventeen you have worked as an agent—though for many different masters. Your services have been for hire and have been highly paid. You have played a dual role. Most of your assignments have been carried out in your own name, but there were certain jobs for which you assumed different identities. Those were the times when ostensibly you had to go home and be with your mother.
“But I strongly suspect, Miss Shapland, that the elderly woman I visited who lives in a small village with a nurse-companion to look after her, an elderly woman who is genuinely a mental patient with a confused mind, is not your mother at all. She has been your excuse for retiring from employment and from the circle of your friends. The three months this winter that you spent with your ‘mother’ who had one of her ‘bad turns’ covers the time when you went out to Ramat. Not as Ann Shapland but as Angelica de Toredo, a Spanish, or near-Spanish cabaret dancer. You occupied the room in the hotel next to that of Mrs. Sutcliffe and somehow you managed to see Bob Rawlinson conceal the jewels in the racquet. You had no opportunity of taking the racquet then for there was the sudden evacuation of all British people, but you had read the labels on their luggage and it was easy to find out something about them. To obtain a secretarial post here was not difficult. I have made some inquiries. You paid a substantial sum to Miss Bulstrode’s former secretary to vacate her post on the plea of a ‘breakdown.’ And you had quite a plausible story. You had been commissioned to write a series of articles on a famous girls’ school ‘from within.’
“It all seemed quite easy,