Dumb Witness - Agatha Christie [40]
“I should imagine that such a patronage must be very galling to people who regard themselves as the rightful heirs!”
“As you say, Hastings. Yes, that is very true.”
We drove on in silence for some minutes. We had passed through Market Basing and were now once more on the main road. I hummed to myself softly the tune of “Little Man, You’ve had a Busy Day.”
“Enjoyed yourself, Poirot?” I asked at last.
Poirot said coldly:
“I do not know quite what you mean by ‘enjoyed myself,’ Hastings.”
“Well,” I said, “it seemed to me you’ve been treating yourself to a busman’s holiday!”
“You do not think that I am serious?”
“Oh, you’re serious enough. But this business seems to be of the academic kind. You’re tackling it for your own mental satisfaction. What I mean is—it’s not real.”
“Au contraire, it is intensely real.”
“I express myself badly. What I mean is, if there were a question of helping our old lady, or protecting her against further attack—well, there would be some excitement then. But as it is, I can’t help feeling that as she is dead, why worry?”
“In that case, mon ami, one would not investigate a murder case at all!”
“No, no, no. That’s quite different. I mean, then you have a body… Oh, dash it all!”
“Do not enrage yourself. I comprehend perfectly. You make a distinction between a body and a mere decease. Supposing, for instance, that Miss Arundell had died with sudden and alarming violence instead of respectably of a long-standing illness—then you would not remain indifferent to my efforts to discover the truth?”
“Of course I wouldn’t.”
“But all the same, someone did attempt to murder her?”
“Yes, but they didn’t succeed. That makes all the difference.”
“It does not intrigue you at all to know who attempted to kill her?”
“Well, yes, it does in a way.”
“We have a very restricted circle,” said Poirot musingly. “That thread—”
“The thread which you merely deduce from a nail in the skirting board!” I interrupted. “Why, that nail may have been there for years!”
“No. The varnish was quite fresh.”
“Well, I still think there might be all sorts of explanations of it.”
“Give me one.”
At the moment I could not think of anything sufficiently plausible. Poirot took advantage of my silence to sweep on with his discourse.
“Yes, a restricted circle. That thread could only have been stretched across the top of the stairs after everyone had gone to bed. Therefore we have only the occupants of the house to consider. That is to say, the guilt lies between seven people. Dr. Tanios. Mrs. Tanios. Theresa Arundell. Charles Arundell. Miss Lawson. Ellen. Cook.”
“Surely you can leave the servants out of it.”
“They received legacies, mon cher. And there might have been other reasons—spite—a quarrel—dishonesty—one cannot be certain.”
“It seems to me very unlikely.”
“Unlikely, I agree. But one must take all possibilities into consideration.”
“In that case, you must allow for eight people, not seven.”
“How so?”
I felt I was about to score a point.
“You must include Miss Arundell herself. How do you know she may not have stretched that thread across the stairs in order to trip up some other members of the house party?”
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
“It is a bêtise you say there, my friend. If Miss Arundell laid a trap, she would be careful not to fall into it herself. It was she who fell down the stairs, remember.”
I retired crestfallen.
Poirot went on in a thoughtful voice:
“The sequence of events is quite clear—the fall—the letter to me—the visit of the lawyer—but there is one doubtful point. Did Miss Arundell deliberately hold back the letter to me, hesitating to post it? Or did she, once having written it, assume it was posted?”
“That we can’t possibly tell,” I said. “No. We can only guess. Personally, I fancy that she assumed it had been posted. She must have been surprised at getting no reply….”
My thoughts had been busy in another direction.
“Do you think this spiritualistic nonsense counted at all?” I asked. “I mean, do you think,