Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie [87]
He stopped. In a monotonous official voice, Inspector Kelsey cautioned his prisoner.
She did not listen. Turning towards Hercule Poirot, she burst out in a low-pitched flood of invective that startled everyone in the room.
“Whew!” said Adam, as Kelsey took her away. “And I thought she was a nice girl!”
Miss Johnson had been kneeling by Miss Chadwick.
“I’m afraid she’s badly hurt,” she said. “She’d better not be moved until the doctor comes.”
Twenty-four
POIROT EXPLAINS
I
Mrs. Upjohn, wandering through the corridors of Meadowbank School, forgot the exciting scene she had just been through. She was for the moment merely a mother seeking her young. She found her in a deserted classroom. Julia was bending over a desk, her tongue protruding slightly, absorbed in the agonies of composition.
She looked up and stared. Then flung herself across the room and hugged her mother.
“Mummy!”
Then, with the self-consciousness of her age, ashamed of her unrestrained emotion, she detached herself and spoke in a carefully casual tone—indeed almost accusingly.
“Aren’t you back rather soon, Mummy?”
“I flew back,” said Mrs. Upjohn, almost apologetically, “from Ankara.”
“Oh,” said Julia. “Well—I’m glad you’re back.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Upjohn, “I am very glad too.”
They looked at each other, embarrassed. “What are you doing?” said Mrs. Upjohn, advancing a little closer.
“I’m writing a composition for Miss Rich,” said Julia. “She really does set the most exciting subjects.”
“What’s this one?” said Mrs. Upjohn. She bent over.
The subject was written at the top of the page. Some nine or ten lines of writing in Julia’s uneven and sprawling handwriting came below. “Contrast the Attitudes of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to Murder” read Mrs. Upjohn.
“Well,” she said doubtfully, “you can’t say that the subject isn’t topical!”
She read the start of her daughter’s essay. “Macbeth,” Julia had written, “liked the idea of murder and had been thinking of it a lot, but he needed a push to get him started. Once he’d got started he enjoyed murdering people and had no more qualms or fears. Lady Macbeth was just greedy and ambitious. She thought she didn’t mind what she did to get what she wanted. But once she’d done it she found she didn’t like it after all.”
“Your language isn’t very elegant,” said Mrs. Upjohn. “I think you’ll have to polish it up a bit, but you’ve certainly got something there.”
II
Inspector Kelsey was speaking in a slightly complaining tone.
“It’s all very well for you, Poirot,” he said. “You can say and do a lot of things we can’t: and I’ll admit the whole thing was well stage-managed. Got her off her guard, made her think we were after Rich, and then, Mrs. Upjohn’s sudden appearance made her lose her head. Thank the lord she kept that automatic after shooting Springer. If the bullet corresponds—”
“It will, mon ami, it will,” said Poirot.
“Then we’ve got her cold for the murder of Springer. And I gather Miss Chadwick’s in a bad way. But look here, Poirot, I still can’t see how she can possibly have killed Miss Vansittart. It’s physically impossible. She’s got a cast-iron alibi—unless young Rathbone and the whole staff of the Nid Sauvage are in it with her.”
Poirot shook his head. “Oh, no,” he said. “Her alibi is perfectly good. She killed Miss Springer and Mademoiselle Blanche. But Miss Vansittart—” he hesitated for a moment, his eyes going to where Miss Bulstrode sat listening to them. “Miss Vansittart was killed by Miss Chadwick.”
“Miss Chadwick?” exclaimed Miss Bulstrode and Kelsey together.
Poirot nodded. “I am sure of it.”
“But—why?”
“I think,” said Poirot,