Poirot's Early Cases - Agatha Christie [119]
‘No, perhaps you are right. Well, my best thanks to you. It was most amiable of you to ring me up.’
‘Not at all. I’m a man of my word. I could see you were interested. Who knows, you may be able to give me a helping hand before the end.’
‘That would give me great pleasure. It might help you, for instance, if I could lay my hand on a friend of the girl Katrina.’
‘I thought you said she hadn’t got any friends?’ said Inspector Sims, surprised.
‘I was wrong,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘She has one.’
Before the inspector could ask a further question, Poirot had rung off.
With a serious face he wandered into the room where Miss Lemon sat at her typewriter. She raised her hands from the keys at her employer’s approach and looked at him inquiringly.
‘I want you,’ said Poirot, ‘to figure to yourself a little history.’
Miss Lemon dropped her hands into her lap in a resigned manner. She enjoyed typing, paying bills, filing papers and entering up engagements. To be asked to imagine herself in hypothetical situations bored her very much, but she accepted it as a disagreeable part of a duty.
‘You are a Russian girl,’ began Poirot.
‘Yes,’ said Miss Lemon, looking intensely British.
‘You are alone and friendless in this country. You have reasons for not wishing to return to Russia. You are employed as a kind of drudge, nurse-attendant and companion to an old lady. You are meek and uncomplaining.’
‘Yes,’ said Miss Lemon obediently, but entirely failing to see herself being meek to any old lady under the sun.
‘The old lady takes a fancy to you. She decides to leave her money to you. She tells you so.’ Poirot paused.
Miss Lemon said ‘Yes’ again.
‘And then the old lady finds out something; perhaps it is a matter of money—she may find that you have not been honest with her. Or it might be more grave still—a medicine that tasted different, some food that disagreed. Anyway, she begins to suspect you of something and she writes to a very famous detective—enfin, to the most famous detective—me! I am to call upon her shortly. And then, as you say, the dripping will be in the fire. The great thing is to act quickly. And so—before the great detective arrives—the old lady is dead. And the money comes to you…Tell me, does that seem to you reasonable?’
‘Quite reasonable,’ said Miss Lemon. ‘Quite reasonable for a Russian, that is. Personally, I should never take a post as a companion. I like my duties clearly defined. And of course I should not dream of murdering anyone.’
Poirot sighed. ‘How I miss my friend Hastings. He had such imagination. Such a romantic mind! It is true that he always imagined wrong—but that in itself was a guide.’
Miss Lemon was silent. She looked longingly at the typewritten sheet in front of her.
‘So it seems to you reasonable,’ mused Poirot.
‘Doesn’t it to you?’
‘I am almost afraid it does,’ sighed Poirot.
The telephone rang and Miss Lemon went out of the room to answer it. She came back to say ‘It’s Inspector Sims again.’ Poirot hurried to the instrument. ‘ ’Allo, ’allo. What is that you say?’
Sims repeated his statement. ‘We’ve found a packet of strychnine in the girl’s bedroom—tucked underneath the mattress. The sergeant’s just come in with the news. That about clinches it, I think.’
‘Yes,’ said Poirot, ‘I think that clinches it.’ His voice had changed. It rang with sudden confidence.
When he had rung off, he sat down at his writing table and arranged the objects on it in a mechanical manner. He murmured to himself, ‘There was something wrong. I felt it—no, not felt. It must have been something I saw. En avant, the little grey cells. Ponder—reflect. Was everything logical and in order? The girl—her anxiety about the money: Mme Delafontaine; her husband—his suggestion of Russians—imbecile, but he is an imbecile; the room; the garden—ah! Yes, the garden.’
He sat up very stiff. The green light shone in his eyes. He sprang up and went into the adjoining room.
‘Miss Lemon, will you have the kindness to leave what you are doing and make an investigation for me?’
‘An investigation, M.