Hickory Dickory Dock - Agatha Christie [46]
“Who do you mean by they?”
Mrs. Nicoletis shrugged her large, handsome shoulders and looked sulky.
“You do not understand,” she said, “but it makes me uneasy. Very uneasy.”
“You’d better tell me,” said Mrs. Hubbard. “Then perhaps I can help you.”
“Thank goodness I do not sleep here,” said Mrs. Nicoletis. “These locks on the doors here they are all alike; one key fits any other. No, thanks to heaven, I do not sleep here.”
Mrs. Hubbard said:
“Mrs. Nicoletis, if you are afraid of something, hadn’t you better tell me just what it is?”
Mrs. Nicoletis gave her a flickering look from her dark eyes and then looked away again.
“You have said it yourself,” she said evasively. “You have said there has been a murder in this house, so naturally one is uneasy. Who may be next? One does not even know who the murderer is. That is because the police are so stupid, or perhaps they have been bribed.”
“That’s all nonsense and you know it,” said Mrs. Hubbard. “But tell me, have you got any cause for real anxiety. . . .”
Mrs. Nicoletis flew into one of her tempers.
“Ah, you do not think I have any cause for anxiety? You know best as usual! You know everything! You are so wonderful; you cater, you manage, you spend money like water on food so that the students are fond of you, and now you want to manage my affairs! But that, no! I keep my affairs to myself and nobody shall pry into them, do you hear? No, Mrs. What-do-you-call-it Paul Pry.”
“Please yourself,” said Mrs. Hubbard, exasperated.
“You are a spy—I always knew it.”
“A spy on what?”
“Nothing,” said Mrs. Nicoletis. “There is nothing here to spy upon. If you think there is it is because you made it up. If lies are told about me I shall know who told them.”
“If you wish me to leave,” said Mrs. Hubbard, “you’ve only got to say so.”
“No, you are not to leave. I forbid it. Not at this moment. Not when I have all the cares of the police, of murder, of everything else on my hands, I shall not allow you to abandon me.”
“Oh, all right,” said Mrs. Hubbard helplessly. “But really, it’s very difficult to know what you do want. Sometimes I don’t think you know yourself. You’d better lie down on my bed and have a sleep—”
Chapter Thirteen
Hercule Poirot alighted from a taxi at 26 Hickory Road.
The door was opened to him by Geronimo who welcomed him as an old friend. There was a constable standing in the hall and Geronimo drew Poirot into the dining room and closed the door.
“It is terrible,” he whispered, as he assisted Poirot off with his overcoat. “We have police there all time! Ask questions, go here, go there, look in cupboards, look in drawers, come into Maria’s kitchen even. Maria very angry. She says she like to hit policeman with rolling pin but I say better not. I say policeman not like being hit by rolling pins and they make us more embarrassments if Maria do that.”
“You have the good sense,” said Poirot approvingly. “Is Mrs. Hubbard at liberty?”
“I take you upstairs to her.”
“A little moment.” Poirot stopped him. “Do you remember the day when certain electric lightbulbs disappeared?”
“Oh yes, I remember. But that long time ago now. One—two—three months ago.”
“Exactly what electric lightbulbs were taken?”
“The one in the hall and I think in the common room. Someone make joke. Take all the bulbs out.”
“You don’t remember the exact date?”
Geronimo struck an attitude as he thought.
“I do not remember,” he said. “But I think it was on day when policeman come, some time in February—”
“A policeman? What did a policeman come here for?”
“He come here to see Mrs. Nicoletis about a student. Very bad student, come from Africa. Not do work. Go to labour exchange, get National Assistance, then have woman and she go out with men for him. Very bad that. Police not like that. All this in Manchester, I think, or Sheffield. So he ran away from there and he come here, but police come after him and they talk to Mrs. Hubbard about him. Yes. And she say he not stop here because she no like him and she send him away.”
“I see. They were trying to trace him.”
“Scusi?