Dumb Witness - Agatha Christie [93]
“I will be frank with you. As yet, I have not.”
Donaldson nodded.
“So I thought. I suppose you have considered the possibility that Miss Arundell’s death may turn out to be from natural causes?”
“I have considered the fact that it may appear to be so—yes.”
“But your own mind is made up?”
“Very definitely. If you have a case of—say—tuberculosis that looks like tuberculosis, behaves like tuberculosis, and in which the blood gives a positive reaction—eh bien, you consider it is tuberculosis, do you not?”
“You look at it that way? Then what exactly are you waiting for?”
“I am waiting for a final piece of evidence.”
The telephone bell rang. At a gesture from Poirot I got up and answered it. I recognized the voice.
“Captain Hastings? This is Mrs. Tanios speaking. Will you tell M. Poirot that he is perfectly right. If he will come here tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, I will give him what he wants.”
“At ten o’clock tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Right, I’ll tell him.”
Poirot’s eyes asked a question. I nodded.
He turned to Donaldson. His manner had changed. It was brisk—assured.
“Let me make myself clear,” he said. “I have diagnosed this case of mine as a case of murder. It looked like murder, it gave all the characteristic reactions of murder—in fact, it was murder! Of that there is not the least doubt.”
“Where then, does the doubt—for I perceive there is a doubt—lie?”
“The doubt lay in the identity of the murderer—but that is a doubt no longer!”
“Really? You know?”
“Let us say that I shall have definite proof in my hands tomorrow.”
Dr. Donaldson’s eyebrows rose in a slightly ironical fashion.
“Ah,” he said. “Tomorrow! Sometimes, M. Poirot, tomorrow is a long way off.”
“On the contrary,” said Poirot, “I always find that it succeeds today with monotonous regularity.”
Donaldson smiled. He rose.
“I fear I have wasted your time, M. Poirot.”
“Not at all. It is always as well to understand each other.”
With a slight bow Dr. Donaldson left the room.
Twenty-eight
ANOTHER VICTIM
“That is a clever man,” said Poirot thoughtfully.
“It’s rather difficult to know what he is driving at.”
“Yes. He is a little inhuman. But extremely perceptive.”
“That telephone call was from Mrs. Tanios.”
“So I gathered.”
I repeated the message. Poirot nodded approval.
“Good. All marches well. Twenty-four hours, Hastings, and I think we shall know exactly where we stand.”
“I’m still a little fogged. Who exactly do we suspect?”
“I really could not say who you suspect, Hastings! Everybody in turn, I should imagine!”
“Sometimes I think you like to get me into that state!”
“No, no, I would not amuse myself in such a way.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you.”
Poirot shook his head, but somewhat absently. I studied him.
“Is anything the matter?” I asked.
“My friend, I am always nervous towards the end of a case. If anything should go wrong—”
“Is anything likely to go wrong?”
“I do not think so.” He paused—frowning. “I have, I think, provided against every contingency.”
“Then, supposing we forget crime and go to a show?”
“Ma foi, Hastings, that is a good idea!”
We passed a very pleasant evening, though I made the slight mistake of taking Poirot to a crook play. There is one piece of advice I offer all my readers. Never take a soldier to a military play, a sailor to a naval play, a Scotsman to a Scottish play, a detective to a thriller—and an actor to any play whatsoever! The shower of destructive criticism in each case is somewhat devastating. Poirot never ceased to complain of faulty psychology, and the hero detective’s lack of order and method nearly drove him demented. We parted that night with Poirot still explaining how the whole business might have been laid bare in the first half of the first act.
“But in that case, Poirot, there would have been no play,” I pointed out.
Poirot was forced to admit that perhaps that was so.
It was a few minutes past nine when I entered the sitting room the next morning. Poirot was at the breakfast table—as usual neatly slitting open his letters.
The telephone rang and I answered it.
A heavy