“Only what?”
A faintly wary look came into Celia’s eyes.
“I don’t know—really I don’t. I’m all mixed up.”
Colin cut in in a peremptory manner.
“I’ll be thankful if you’ll not catechise her. I can promise you that there will be no recurrence of this business. From now on I’ll definitely make myself responsible for her.”
“Oh, Colin, you are good to me.”
“I’d like you to tell me a great deal about yourself, Celia. Your early home life, for instance. Did your father and mother get on well together?”
“Oh no, it was awful—at home—”
“Precisely. And—”
Mrs. Hubbard cut in. She spoke with the voice of authority.
“That will do now, both of you. I’m glad, Celia, that you’ve come and owned up. You’ve caused a great deal of worry and anxiety, though, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself. But I’ll say this. I accept your word that you didn’t spill ink deliberately on Elizabeth’s notes. I don’t believe you’d do a thing like that. Now take yourself off, you and Colin. I’ve had enough of you both for this evening.”
As the door closed behind them, Mrs. Hubbard drew a deep breath.
“Well,” she said. “What do you think of that?”
There was a twinkle in Hercule Poirot’s eye. He said:
“I think—that we have assisted at a love scene—modern style.”
Mrs. Hubbard made an ejaculation of disapproval.
“Autres temps, autres mæurs,” murmured Poirot. “In my young days the young men lent the girls books on theosophy or discussed Maeterlinck’s ‘Bluebird.’ All was sentiment and high ideals. Nowadays it is the maladjusted lives and the complexes which bring a boy and girl together.”
“All such nonsense,” said Mrs. Hubbard.
Poirot dissented.
“No, it is not all nonsense. The underlying principles are sound enough—but when one is an earnest young researcher like Colin one sees nothing but complexes and the victim’s unhappy home life.”
“Celia’s father died when she was four years old,” said Mrs. Hubbard. “And she’s had a very agreeable childhood with a nice but stupid mother.”
“Ah, but she is wise enough not to say so to the young McNabb! She will say what he wants to hear. She is very much in love.”
“Do you believe all this hooey, M. Poirot?”
“I do not believe that Celia had a Cinderella complex or that she stole things without knowing what she was doing. I think she took the risk of stealing unimportant trifles with the object of attracting the attention of the earnest Colin McNabb—in which object she has been successful. Had she remained a pretty, shy, ordinary girl he might never have looked at her. In my opinion,” said Poirot, “a girl is entitled to attempt desperate measures to get her man.”
“I shouldn’t have thought she had the brains to think it up,” said Mrs. Hubbard.
Poirot did not reply. He frowned. Mrs. Hubbard went on:
“So the whole thing’s been a mare’s nest! I really do apologise, M. Poirot, for taking up your time over such a trivial business. Anyway, all’s well that ends well.”
“No, no.” Poirot shook his head. “I do not think we are at the end yet. We have cleared out of the way something rather trivial that was at the front of the picture. But there are things still that are not explained; and me, I have the impression that we have here something serious—really serious.”
“Oh, M. Poirot, do you really think so?”
“It is my impression . . . I wonder, madame, if I could speak to Miss Patricia Lane. I would like to examine the ring that was stolen.”
“Why, of course, M. Poirot. I’ll go down and send her up to you. I want to speak to Len Bateson about something.”
Patricia Lane came in shortly afterwards with an inquiring look on her face.
“I am so sorry to disturb you, Miss Lane.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I wasn’t busy. Mrs. Hubbard said you wanted to see my ring.”
She slipped it off her finger and held it out to him.
“It’s quite a large diamond really, but of course it’s an old-fashioned setting. It was my mother’s engagement ring.”
Poirot, who was examining the ring, nodded his head.
“She is alive still, your mother?”
“No. Both my parents are dead.”
“That is sad.”
“Yes. They were both very nice people but somehow I was never quite so close to them as I ought to have been. One regrets that afterwards. My mother wanted a frivolous pretty daughter, a daughter who was fond of clothes and social things. She was very disappointed when I took up archaeology.”
“You have always been of a serious turn of mind?”
“I think so, really. One feels life is so short one ought really to be doing something worthwhile.”
Poirot looked at her thoughtfully.
Patricia Lane was, he guessed, in her early thirties. Apart from a smear of lipstick, carelessly applied, she wore no makeup. Her mouse-coloured hair was combed back from her face and arranged without artifice. Her quite pleasant blue eyes looked at you seriously through glasses.
“No allure, bon Dieu,” said Poirot to himself with feeling. “And her clothes! What is it they say? Dragged through a hedge backwards? Ma foi, that expresses it exactly!”
He was disapproving. He found Patricia’s well-bred unaccented tones wearisome to the ear. “She is intelligent and cultured, this girl,” he said to himself, “and, alas, every year she will grow more boring! In old age—” His mind darted for a fleeting moment to the memory of Countess Vera Rossakoff. What exotic splendour there, even in decay! These girls of nowadays—
“But that is because I grow old,” said Poirot to himself. “Even this excellent girl may appear a veritable Venus to some man.” But he doubted that.
Patricia was saying:
“I’m really very shocked about what happened to Bess—to Miss Johnston. Using that green ink seems to me to be a deliberate attempt to make it look as though it was Nigel’s doing. But I do assure you, M. Poirot, Nigel would never do a thing like that.”
“Ah.” Poirot looked at her with more interest. She had become flushed and quite eager.
“Nigel’s not easy to understand,” she said earnestly. “You see, he had a very difficult home life as a child.”
“Mon Dieu, another of them!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing. You were saying—”
“About Nigel. His being difficult. He’s always had the tendency to go against authority of any kind. He’s very clever—brilliant really, but I must admit that he sometimes has a very unfortunate manner. Sneering—you know. And he’s much too scornful ever to explain or defend himself. Even if everybody in this place thinks he did that trick with the ink, he won’t go out of his way to say he didn’t. He’ll just say, ‘Let them think it if they want to.’ And that attitude is really so utterly foolish.”
“It can be misunderstood, certainly.”
“It’s a kind of pride, I think. Because he’s been so much misunderstood always.”
“You have known him for many years?”
“No, only for about a year. We met on a tour of the Châteaux of the Loire. He went down with flu which turned to pneumonia and I nursed him through it. He’s very delicate and he takes absolutely no care of his own health. In some ways, in spite of his being so independent, he needs looking after like a child. He really needs someone to look after him.”
Poirot sighed. He felt, suddenly, very tired of love . . . First there had been Celia, with the adoring eyes of a spaniel. And now here was Patricia looking like an earnest Madonna. Admittedly there must be love, young people must meet and pair off, but he, Poirot, was mercifully past all that. He rose to his feet.
“Will you permit me, mademoiselle, to retain your ring? It shall be returned to you tomorrow without fail.”
“Certa
inly, if you like,” said Patricia, rather surprised.
“You are very kind. And please, mademoiselle, be careful.”
“Careful? Careful of what?”
“I wish I knew,” said Hercule Poirot.
He was still worried.
Chapter Six
The following day Mrs. Hubbard found exasperating in every particular. She had awoken with a considerable sense of relief. The nagging doubt about recent occurrences was at last relieved. A silly girl, behaving in that silly modern fashion (with which Mrs. Hubbard had no patience) had been responsible. And from now on, order would reign.
Descending to breakfast in this comfortable assurance, Mrs. Hubbard found her newly attained ease menaced. The students chose this particular morning to be particularly trying, each in his or her way.
Mr. Chandra Lal who had heard of the sabotage to Elizabeth’s papers became excited and voluble. “Oppression,” he spluttered, “deliberate oppression of native races. Contempt and prejudice, colour prejudice. It is here well authenticated example.”
“Now, Mr. Chandra Lal,” said Mrs. Hubbard sharply. “You’ve no call to say anything of that kind. Nobody knows who did it or why it was done.”
“Oh but, Mrs. Hubbard, I thought Celia had come to you herself and really faced up,” said Jean Tomlinson. “I thought it splendid of her. We must all be very kind to her.”
“Must you be so revoltingly pi, Jean,” demanded Valerie Hobhouse angrily.
“I think that’s a very unkind thing to say.”
“Faced up,” said Nigel, with a shudder. “Such an utterly revolting term.”
“I don’t see why. The Oxford Group use it and—”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, have we got to have the Oxford Group for breakfast?”
“What’s all this, Ma? It is Celia who’s been pinching those things, do you say? Is that why she’s not down to breakfast?”
“I do not understand, please,” said Mr. Akibombo.
Nobody enlightened him. They were all too anxious to say their own piece.
“Poor kid,” Len Bateson went on. “Was she hard up or something?”
“I’m not really surprised, you know,” said Sally slowly. “I always had a sort of idea. . . .”
“You are saying that it was Celia who spilt ink on my notes?” Elizabeth Johnston looked incredulous. “That seems to be surprising and hardly credible.”
“Celia did not throw ink on your work,” said Mrs. Hubbard. “And I wish you would all stop discussing this. I meant to tell you all quietly later but—”
“But Jean was listening outside the door last night,” said Valerie.
“I was not listening. I just happened to go—”
“Come now, Bess,” said Nigel. “You know quite well who spilt the ink. I, said bad Nigel, with my little green phial, I spilt the ink.”
“He didn’t. He’s only pretending. Oh, Nigel, how can you be so stupid?”
“I’m being noble and shielding you, Pat. Who borrowed my ink yesterday morning? You did.”
“I do not understand, please,” said Mr. Akibombo.
“You don’t want to,” Sally told him. “I’d keep right out of it if I were you.”
Mr. Chandra Lal rose to his feet.
“You ask why is the Mau Mau? You ask why does Egypt resent the Suez Canal?”
“Oh, hell!” said Nigel violently, and crashed his cup down on his saucer. “First the Oxford Group and now politics! At breakfast! I’m going.”
He pushed back his chair violently and left the room.
“There’s a cold wind. Do take your coat.” Patricia rushed after him.
“Cluck, cluck, cluck,” said Valerie unkindly. “She’ll grow feathers and flap her wings soon.”
The French girl, Genevieve, whose English was as yet not equal to following rapid exchanges of English, had been listening to explanations hissed into her ear by René. She now burst into rapid French, her voice rising to a scream.
“Comment donc? C’est cette petite qui m’a volé mon compact? Ah, par example! J’irai à la police. Je ne supporterai pas une pareille. . . .”
Colin McNabb had been attempting to make himself heard for some time, but his deep superior drawl had been drowned by the higher pitched voices. Abandoning his superior attitude he now brought down his fist with a heavy crash on the table and startled everyone into silence. The marmalade pot skidded off the table and broke.
“Will you hold your tongues, all of you, and hear me speak. I’ve never heard more crass ignorance and unkindness! Don’t any of you have even a nodding acquaintance with psychology? The girl’s not to be blamed, I tell you. She’s been going through a severe emotional crisis and she needs treating with the utmost sympathy and care—or she may remain unstable for life. I’m warning you. The utmost care—that’s what she needs.”
“But after all,” said Jean, in a clear, priggish voice, “although I quite agree about being kind—we oughtn’t to condone that sort of thing, ought we? Stealing, I mean.”
“Stealing,” said Colin. “This wasn’t stealing. Och! You make me sick—all of you.”
“Interesting case, is she, Colin?” said Valerie, and grinned at him.
“If you’re interested in the workings of the mind, yes.”
“Of course, she didn’t take anything of mine,” began Jean, “but I do think—”
“No, she didn’t take anything of yours,” said Colin, turning to scowl at her. “And if you knew in the least what that meant you’d maybe not be too pleased about it.”
“Really, I don’t see—”
“Oh, come on, Jean,” said Len Bateson. “Let’s stop nagging and nattering. I’m going to be late and so are you.”
They went out together. “Tell Celia to buck up,” he said over his shoulder.
“I should like to make formal protest,” said Mr. Chandra Lal. “Boracic powder, very necessary for my eyes which much inflamed by study, was removed.”
“And you’ll be late too, Mr. Chandra Lal,” said Mrs. Hubbard firmly.
“My professor is often unpunctual,” said Mr. Chandra Lal gloomily, but moving towards the door. “Also, he is irritable and unreasonable when I ask many questions of searching nature.”
“Mais il faut qu’elle me le rende, ce compact,” said Genevieve.
“You must speak English, Genevieve—you’ll never learn English if you go back into French whenever you’re excited. And you had Sunday dinner in this week and you haven’t paid me for it.”
“Ah, I have not my purse just now. Tonight—Viens, René, nous serons en retard.”
“Please,” said Mr. Akibombo, looking round him beseechingly. “I do not understand.”
“Come along, Akibombo,” said Sally. “I’ll tell you about it on the way to the Institute.”
She nodded reassuringly to Mrs. Hubbard and steered the bewildered Akibombo out of the room.
“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Hubbard, drawing a deep breath. “Why in the world I ever took this job on!”
Valerie, who was the only person left, grinned in a friendly fashion.
“Don’t worry, Ma,” she said. “It’s a good thing it’s all come out. Everyone was getting on the jumpy side.”
“I must say I was very surprised.”
“That it turned out to be Celia?”
“Yes. Weren’t you?”
Valerie said in a rather absent voice:
“Rather obvious, really, I should have thought.”
“Have you been thinking so all along?”
“Well, one or two things made me wonder. At any rate she’s got Colin where she wants him.”
“Yes. I can’t help feeling that it’s wrong.”
“You can’t get a man with a gun,” Valerie laughed. “But a spot of kleptomania does the trick? Don’t worry, Mum. And for God’s sake make Celia give Genevieve back her compact, otherwise we shall never have any peace at meals.”
Mrs. Hubbard said with a sigh:
“Nigel has
cracked his saucer and the marmalade pot is broken.”
“Hell of a morning, isn’t it?” said Valerie. She went out. Mrs. Hubbard heard her voice in the hall saying cheerfully:
“Good morning, Celia. The coast’s clear. All is known and all is going to be forgiven—by order of Pious Jean. As for Colin, he’s been roaring like a lion on your behalf.”
Celia came into the dining room. Her eyes were reddened with crying.
“Oh, Mrs. Hubbard.”
“You’re very late, Celia. The coffee’s cold and there’s not much left to eat.”
“I didn’t want to meet the others.”
“So I gather. But you’ve got to meet them sooner or later.”
“Oh, yes, I know, But I thought—by this evening—it would be easier. And of course I shan’t stop here. I’ll go at the end of the week.”
Mrs. Hubbard frowned.
“I don’t think there’s any need for that. You must expect a little unpleasantness—that’s only fair—but they’re generous-minded young people on the whole. Of course you’ll have to make reparation as far as possible.”
Celia interrupted her eagerly.
“Oh, yes, I’ve got my cheque book here. That’s one of the things I wanted to say to you.” She looked down. She was holding a cheque book and an envelope in her hand. “I’d written to you in case you weren’t about when I got down, to say how sorry I was and I meant to put in a cheque, so that you could square up with people—but my pen ran out of ink.”
“We’ll have to make a list.”
“I have—as far as possible. But I don’t know whether to try and buy new things or just to give the money.”
“I’ll think it over. It’s difficult to say offhand.”
“Oh, but do let me give you a cheque now. I’d feel so much better.”
About to say uncompromisingly “Really? And why should you be allowed to make yourself feel better?” Mrs. Hubbard reflected that since the students were always short of ready cash, the whole affair would be more easily settled that way. It would also placate Genevieve who otherwise might make trouble with Mrs. Nicoletis. (There would be trouble enough there anyway).
“All right,” she said. She ran her eye down the list of objects. “It’s difficult to say how much offhand—”
Hickory Dickory Dock: A Hercule Poirot Mystery Page 5