Dumb Witness - Agatha Christie [43]
“From my aunt, M. Poirot?”
“That is what I said, mademoiselle.”
She murmured:
“I’m sorry if I’m spoiling sport in any way, but really, you know, there isn’t any such person! All my aunts are mercifully dead. The last died two months ago.”
“Miss Emily Arundell?”
“Yes, Miss Emily Arundell. You don’t receive letters from corpses, do you, M. Poirot?”
“Sometimes I do, mademoiselle.”
“How macabre!”
But there was a new note in her voice—a note suddenly alert and watchful.
“And what did my aunt say, M. Poirot?”
“That, mademoiselle, I can hardly tell you just at present. It was, you see, a somewhat”—he coughed—“delicate matter.”
There was silence for a minute or two. Theresa Arundell smoked. Then she said:
“It all sounds delightfully hush-hush. But where exactly do I come in?”
“I hoped, mademoiselle, that you might consent to answer a few questions.”
“Questions? What about?”
“Questions of a family nature.”
Again I saw her eyes widen.
“That sounds rather pompous! Supposing you give me a specimen.”
“Certainly. Can you tell me the present address of your brother Charles?”
The eyes narrowed again. Her latent energy was less apparent. It was as though she withdrew into a shell.
“I’m afraid I can’t. We don’t correspond much. I rather think he has left England.”
“I see.”
Poirot was silent for a minute or two.
“Was that all you wanted to know?”
“Oh, I have other questions. For one—are you satisfied with the way in which your aunt disposed of her fortune? For another—how long have you been engaged to Dr. Donaldson?”
“You do jump about, don’t you?”
“Eh bien?”
“Eh bien—since we are so foreign!—my answer to both those questions is they are none of your business! Ca ne vous regarde pas, M. Hercule Poirot.”
Poirot studied her for a moment or two attentively. Then, with no trace of disappointment, he got up.
“So it is like that! Ah, well, perhaps it is not surprising. Allow me, mademoiselle, to congratulate you upon your French accent. And to wish you a very good morning. Come, Hastings.”
We had reached the door when the girl spoke. The simile of a whiplash came again into my mind. She did not move from her position but the two words were like the flick of a whip.
“Come back!” she said.
Poirot obeyed slowly. He sat down again and looked at her inquiringly.
“Let’s stop playing the fool,” she said. “It’s just possible that you might be useful to me, M. Hercule Poirot.”
“Delighted, mademoiselle—and how?”
Between two puffs of cigarette smoke she said very quietly and evenly:
“Tell me how to break that will.”
“Surely a lawyer—”
“Yes, a lawyer, perhaps—if I knew the right lawyer. But the only lawyers I know are respectable men! Their advice is that the will holds good in law and that any attempts to contest it will be useless expense.”
“But you do not believe them.”
“I believe there is always a way to do things—if you don’t mind being unscrupulous and are prepared to pay. Well, I am prepared to pay.”
“And you take it for granted that I am prepared to be unscrupulous if I am paid?”
“I’ve found that to be true of most people! I don’t see why you should be an exception. People always protest about their honesty and their rectitude to begin with, of course.”
“Just so, that is part of the game, eh? But what, given that I was prepared to be—unscrupulous—do you think I could do?”
“I don’t know. But you’re a clever man. Everyone knows that. You could think out some scheme.”
“Such as?”
Theresa Arundell shrugged her shoulders.
“That’s your business. Steal the will and substitute a forgery… Kidnap the Lawson and frighten her into saying she bullied Aunt Emily into making it. Produce a later will made on old Emily’s deathbed.”
“Your fertile imagination takes my breath away, mademoiselle!”
“Well, what is your answer? I’ve been frank enough. If it’s righteous refusal, there’s the door.”
“It is not righteous refusal—yet—” said Poirot.
Theresa Arundell laughed. She looked at me.
“Your friend,” she observed, “looks shocked. Shall we send him out to chase himself round