Sad cypress - Agatha Christie [51]
‘No more does Ted Bigland – and he has lived here all his life and Mary’s. No more does Mrs Bishop; for if she knew anything unpleasant about the girl, she would not have been able to keep it to herself ! Eh bien, there is one more hope.’
‘Yes?’
‘I am seeing the other nurse, Nurse O’Brien, today.’
Peter Lord said, shaking his head:
‘She doesn’t know much about this part of the world. She was only here for a month or two.’
Poirot said:
‘I am aware of that. But, my friend, Nurse Hopkins, we have been told, has the long tongue. She has not gossiped in the village, where such talk might have done Mary Gerrard harm. But I doubt if she could refrain from giving at least a hint about something that was occupying her mind to a stranger and a colleague! Nurse O’Brien may know something.’
Chapter 10
Nurse O’Brien tossed her red head and smiled widely across the tea-table at the little man opposite her.
She thought to herself:
‘It’s the funny little fellow he is – and his eyes green like any cat’s, and with all that Dr Lord saying he’s the clever one!’
Hercule Poirot said:
‘It is a pleasure to meet someone so full of health and vitality. Your patients, I am sure, must all recover.’
Nurse O’Brien said:
‘I’m not one for pulling a long face, and not many of my patients die on me, I’m thankful to say.’
Poirot said:
‘Of course, in Mrs Welman’s case, it was a merciful release.’
‘Ah! It was that, the poor dear.’ Her eyes were shrewd as she looked at Poirot and asked:
‘Is it about that you want to talk to me? I was after hearing that they’re digging her up.’
Poirot said:
‘You yourself had no suspicion at the time?’
‘Not the least in the world, though indeed I might have had, with the face Dr Lord had on him that morning, and him sending me here, there and everywhere for things he didn’t need! But he signed the certificate, for all that.’
Poirot began, ‘He had his reasons –’ but she took the words out of his mouth.
‘Indeed and he was right. It does a doctor no good to think things and offend the family, and then if he’s wrong it’s the end of him, and no one would be wishing to call him in any more. A doctor’s got to be sure!’
Poirot said:
‘There is a suggestion that Mrs Welman might have committed suicide.’
‘She? And her lying there helpless? Just lift one hand, that was all she could do!’
‘Someone might have helped her?’
‘Ah! I see now what you’re meaning. Miss Carlisle, or Mr Welman, or maybe Mary Gerrard?’
‘It would be possible, would it not?’
Nurse O’Brien shook her head. She said:
‘They’d not dare – any of them!’
Poirot said slowly:
‘Perhaps not.’
Then he said:
‘When was it Nurse Hopkins missed the tube of morphine?’
‘It was that very morning. “I’m sure I had it here,” she said. Very sure she was at first; but you know how it is, after a while your mind gets confused, and in the end she made sure she’d left it at home.’
Poirot murmured:
‘And even then you had no suspicion?’
‘Not the least in the world! Sure, it never entered my head for a moment that things weren’t as they should be. And even now ’tis only a suspicion they have.’
‘The thought of that missing tube never caused either you or Nurse Hopkins an uneasy moment?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say that…I do remember that it came into my head – and into Nurse Hopkins’ head, too, I believe – in the Blue Tit Café, we were at the time. And I saw the thought pass into her mind from mine. “It couldn’t be any other way than that I left it on the mantelpiece and it fell into the dustbin, could it?” she says. And “No, indeed, that was the way of it,” I said to her; and neither of us saying what was in our minds and the fear that was on us.’
Hercule Poirot asked:
‘And what do you think now?’
Nurse O’Brien said:
‘If they find morphine in her there’ll be little doubt who took that tube, nor what it was used for – though I’ll not be believing she sent the old lady the same road till it’s proved there’s morphine in her.’
Poirot said:
‘You have no doubt at all that Elinor Carlisle killed Mary Gerrard?’
‘There’s no question of it at all, in my opinion!