Dumb Witness - Agatha Christie [95]
Poirot asked if anything had been found in the way of letters or papers. The letter, for instance, brought by the man who had called for the children.
No papers of any kind had been found, the man said, but there was a pile of charred paper on the hearth.
Poirot nodded thoughtfully.
As far as anyone could say, Mrs. Peters had had no visitors and no one had come to her room—with the solitary exception of the man who had called for the two children.
I questioned the porter myself as to his appearance, but the man was very vague. A man of medium height—he thought fair-haired—rather military build—of somewhat nondescript appearance. No, he was positive the man had no beard.
“It wasn’t Tanios,” I murmured to Poirot.
“My dear Hastings! Do you really believe that Mrs. Tanios, after all the trouble she was taking to get the children away from their father, would quite meekly hand them over to him without the least fuss or protest? Ah, that, no!”
“Then who was the man?”
“Clearly it was someone in whom Mrs. Tanios had confidence or rather it was someone sent by a third person in whom Mrs. Tanios had confidence.”
“A man of medium height,” I mused.
“You need hardly trouble yourself about his appearance, Hastings. I am quite sure that the man who actually called for the children was some quite unimportant personage. The real agent kept himself in the background!”
“And the note was from this third person?”
“Yes.”
“Someone in whom Mrs. Tanios had confidence?”
“Obviously.”
“And the note is now burnt?”
“Yes, she was instructed to burn it.”
“What about that résumé of the case that you gave her?”
Poirot’s face looked unusually grim.
“That, too, is burned. But that does not matter!”
“No?”
“No. For you see—it is all in the head of Hercule Poirot.”
He took me by the arm.
“Come, Hastings, let us leave here. Our concern is not with the dead but with the living. It is with them I have to deal.”
Twenty-nine
INQUEST AT LITTLEGREEN HOUSE
It was eleven o’clock the following morning.
Seven people were assembled at Littlegreen House.
Hercule Poirot stood by the mantelpiece. Charles and Theresa were on the sofa, Charles on the arm of it with his hand on Theresa’s shoulder. Dr. Tanios sat in a grandfather chair. His eyes were red rimmed and he wore a black band round his arm.
On an upright chair by a round table sat the owner of the house, Miss Lawson. She, too, had red eyes. Her hair was even untidier than usual. Dr. Donaldson sat directly facing Poirot. His face was quite expressionless.
My interest quickened as I looked at each face in turn.
In the course of my association with Poirot I had assisted at many such a scene. A little company of people, all outwardly composed with well-bred masks for faces. And I had seen Poirot strip the mask from one face and show it for what it was—the face of a killer!
Yes, there was no doubt of it. One of these people was a murderer! But which? Even now I was not sure.
Poirot cleared his throat—a little pompously as was his habit—and began to speak.
“We are assembled here, ladies and gentlemen, to inquire into the death of Emily Arundell on the first of May last. There are four possibilities—that she died naturally—that she died as the result of an accident—that she took her own life—or lastly that she met her death at the hands of some person known or unknown.
“No inquest was held at the time of her death, since it was assumed that she died from natural causes and a medical certificate to that effect was given by Dr. Grainger.
“In a case where suspicion arises after burial has taken place