Dumb Witness - Agatha Christie [94]
“Is that M. Poirot? Oh, it’s you, Captain Hastings.”
There was a sort of gasp and a sob.
“Is that Miss Lawson?” I asked.
“Yes, yes, such a terrible thing has happened!”
I grasped the receiver tightly.
“What is it?”
“She left the Wellington, you know—Bella, I mean. I went there late in the afternoon yesterday and they said she’d left. Without a word to me, either! Most extraordinary! It makes me feel that perhaps after all, Dr. Tanios was right. He spoke so nicely about her and seemed so distressed, and now it really looks as though he were right after all.”
“But what’s happened, Miss Lawson? Is is just that Mrs. Tanios left the hotel without telling you?”
“Oh, no, it’s not that! Oh, dear me, no. If that were all it would be quite all right. Though I do think it was odd, you know. Dr. Tanios did say that he was afraid she wasn’t quite—not quite—if you know what I mean. Persecution mania, he called it.”
“Yes.” (Damn the woman!) “But what’s happened?”
“Oh, dear—it is terrible. Died in her sleep. An overdose of some sleeping stuff. And those poor children! It all seems so dreadfully sad! I’ve done nothing but cry since I heard.”
“How did you hear? Tell me all about it.”
Out of the tail of my eye I noticed that Poirot had stopped opening his letters. He was listening to my side of the conversation. I did not like to cede my place to him. If I did it seemed highly probable that Miss Lawson would start with lamentations all over again.
“They rang me up. From the hotel. The Coniston it’s called. It seems they found my name and address in her bag. Oh, dear, M. Poirot—Captain Hastings, I mean, isn’t it terrible? Those poor children left motherless.”
“Look here,” I said. “Are you sure it’s an accident? They didn’t think it could be suicide?”
“Oh, what a dreadful idea, Captain Hastings! Oh, dear, I don’t know, I’m sure. Do you think it could be? That would be dreadful. Of course she did seem very depressed. But she needn’t have. I mean there wouldn’t have been any difficulty about money. I was going to share with her—indeed I was. Dear Miss Arundell would have wished it. I’m sure of that! It seems so awful to think of her taking her own life—but perhaps she didn’t… The hotel people seemed to think it was an accident?”
“What did she take?”
“One of those sleeping things. Veronal, I think. No, chloral. Yes, that was it. Chloral. Oh, dear, Captain Hastings, do you think—”
Unceremoniously I banged down the receiver. I turned to Poirot.
“Mrs. Tanios—”
He raised a hand.
“Yes, yes, I know what you are going to say. She is dead, is she not?”
“Yes. Overdose of sleeping draught. Chloral.”
Poirot got up.
“Come, Hastings, we must go there at once.”
“Is this what you feared—last night? When you said you were always nervous towards the end of a case?”
“I feared another death—yes.”
Poirot’s face was set and stern. We said very little as we drove towards Euston. Once or twice Poirot shook his head.
I said timidly:
“You don’t think—? Could it be an accident?”
“No, Hastings—no. It was not an accident.”
“How on earth did he find out where she had gone?”
Poirot only shook his head without replying.
The Coniston was an unsavoury-looking place quite near Euston station. Poirot, with his card, and a suddenly bullying manner, soon fought his way into the manager’s office.
The facts were quite simple.
Mrs. Peters as she had called herself and her two children had arrived about half past twelve. They had had lunch at one o’clock.
At four o’clock a man had arrived with a note for Mrs. Peters. The note had been sent up to her. A few minutes later she had come down with the two children and a suitcase. The children had then left with the visitor. Mrs. Peters had gone to the office and explained that she should only want the one room after all.
She had not appeared exceptionally distressed or upset, indeed she had seemed quite calm and collected. She had had dinner about seven thirty and had gone to her room soon afterwards.
On calling her in the morning the chambermaid had found her dead.
A doctor