Dumb Witness - Agatha Christie [69]
“No, sir. Miss Lawson’s room is right at the top of the staircase. I can show you, sir.”
Poirot accepted the offer. As he went up the stairs he kept close to the wall side, and just as he reached the top uttered an exclamation and stooped to his trouser leg.
“Ah—I have just caught a thread—ah, yes, there is a nail here in the skirting board.”
“Yes, there is, sir. I think it must have worked loose or something. I’ve caught my dress on it once or twice.”
“Has it been like that long?”
“Well, some time, I’m afraid, sir. I noticed it first when the mistress was laid up—after her accident, that was, sir—I tried to pull it out but I couldn’t.”
“It had a thread round it sometime, I think.”
“That’s right, sir, there was a little loop of thread, I remember. I can’t think what for, I’m sure.”
But there was no suspicion in Ellen’s voice. To her it was just one of the things that occur in houses and which one does not bother to explain!
Poirot had stepped into the room at the top of the stairs. It was of moderate size. There were two windows directly facing us. There was a dressing table across one corner and between the windows was a wardrobe with a long mirror. The bed was to the right behind the door facing the windows. On the left-hand wall of the room was a big mahogany chest of drawers and a marble-topped washstand.
Poirot looked round the room thoughtfully and then came out again on the landing. He went along the passage, passing two other bedrooms and then came to the large bedchamber which had belonged to Emily Arundell.
“The nurse had the little room next door,” Ellen explained.
Poirot nodded thoughtfully.
As we descended the stairs, he asked if he might walk round the garden.
“Oh, yes, sir, certainly. It looks lovely just now.”
“The gardener is still employed?”
“Angus? Oh, yes, Angus is still here. Miss Lawson wants everything kept nice because she thinks it will sell better that way.”
“I think she is wise. To let a place run to seed is not the good policy.”
The garden was very peaceful and beautiful. The wide borders were full of lupins and delphiniums and great scarlet poppies. The peonies were in bud. Wandering along we came presently to a potting shed where a big, rugged old man was busy. He saluted us respectfully and Poirot engaged him in conversation.
A mention that we had seen Mr. Charles that day thawed the old man and he became quite garrulous.
“Always a one, he was! I’ve known him come out here with half a gooseberry pie and the cook hunting high and low for it! And he’d go back with such an innocent face that durned if they wouldn’t say it must have been the cat, though I’ve never known a cat eat a gooseberry pie! Oh, he’s a one, Mr. Charles is!”
“He was down here in April, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, down here two weekends. Just before the missus died, it was.”
“Did you see much of him?”
“A good bit, I did. There wasn’t much for a young gentleman to do down here, and that’s a fact. Used to stroll up to the George and have one. And then he’d potter round here, asking me questions about one thing and another.”
“About flowers?”
“Yes—flowers—and weeds too.” The old man chuckled.
“Weeds?”
Poirot’s voice held a sudden, tentative note. He turned his head and looked searchingly along the shelves. His eye stopped at a tin.
“Perhaps he wanted to know how you got rid of them?”
“He did that!”
“I suppose this is the stuff you use.”
Poirot turned the tin gently round and read the label.
“That’s it,” said Angus. “Very handy stuff it is.”
“Dangerous stuff?”
“Not if you use it right. It’s arsenic, of course. Had a bit of a joke about that, Mr. Charles and I did. Said as how when he had a wife and didn’t like her, he’d come to me and get a little of that stuff to put her away with! Maybe, I sez, she’ll be the one that wants to do away with you! Ah, that made him laugh proper, that did! It was a good one, that!”
We laughed as in duty bound. Poirot prised up the lid of the tin.
“Nearly empty,” he murmured.
The old man had a look.
“Aye, there’s more gone than I thought. No idea I’d used that much.