Hickory Dickory Dock: A Hercule Poirot Mystery

by Agatha Christie

  “I don’t know—but I feel I ought to know. Oh dear.”

  “You’re quite sure it’s her handwriting?”

  “Oh yes. It’s not that.” Mrs. Hubbard pressed her hands to her eyeballs.

  “I feel so dreadfully stupid this morning,” she said apologetically.

  “It’s all been very trying for you, I know,” said the inspector with gentle sympathy. “I don’t think we’ll need to trouble you further at the moment, Mrs. Hubbard.”

  Inspector Sharpe opened the door and immediately fell over Geronimo, who was pressed against the door outside.

  “Hallo,” said Inspector Sharpe pleasantly. “Listening at doors, eh?”

  “No, no,” Geronimo answered with an air of virtuous indignation. “I do not listen—never, never! I am just coming in with message.”

  “I see. What message?”

  Geronimo said sulkily:

  “Only that there is gentleman downstairs to see la Signora Hubbard.”

  “All right. Go along in, sonny, and tell her.”

  He walked past Geronimo down the passage and then, taking a leaf out of the Italian’s book, turned sharply, and tiptoed noiselessly back. Might as well know if little monkey-face had been telling the truth.

  He arrived in time to hear Geronimo say:

  “The gentleman who came to supper the other night, the gentleman with the moustaches, he is downstairs waiting to see you.”

  “Eh? What?” Mrs. Hubbard sounded abstracted. “Oh, thank you, Geronimo. I’ll be down in a minute or two.”

  “Gentleman with the moustaches, eh,” said Sharpe to himself, grinning. “I bet I know who that is.”

  He went downstairs and into the commom room.

  “Hallo, M. Poirot,” he said. “It’s a long time since we met.”

  Poirot rose without visible discomposure from a kneeling position by the bottom shelf near the fireplace.

  “Aha,” he said. “But surely—yes, it is Inspector Sharpe, is it not? But you were not formerly in this division?”

  “Transferred two years ago. Remember that business down at Crays Hill?”

  “Ah yes. That is a long time ago now. You are still a young man, Inspector—”

  “Getting on, getting on.”

  “—and I am an old one. Alas!” Poirot sighed.

  “But still active, eh, M. Poirot. Active in certain ways, shall we say?”

  “Now what do you mean by that?”

  “I mean that I’d like to know why you came along here the other night to give a talk on criminology to students.”

  Poirot smiled.

  “But there is such a simple explanation. Mrs. Hubbard here is the sister of my much valued secretary, Miss Lemon. So when she asked me—”

  “When she asked you to look into what had been going on here, you came along. That’s it really, isn’t it?”

  “You are quite correct.”

  “But why? That’s what I want to know. What was there in it for you?”

  “To interest me, you mean?”

  “That’s what I mean. Here’s a silly kid who’s been pinching a few things here and there. Happens all the time. Rather small beer for you, M. Poirot, isn’t it?”

  Poirot shook his head.

  “It is not so simple as that.”

  “Why not? What isn’t simple about it?”

  Poirot sat down on a chair. With a slight frown he dusted the knees of his trousers.

  “I wish I knew,” he said simply.

  Sharpe frowned.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “No, and I do not understand. The things that were taken—” He shook his head. “They did not make a pattern—they did not make sense. It is like seeing a trail of footprints and they are not all made by the same feet. There is, quite clearly, the print of what you have called ‘a silly kid’—but there is more than that. Other things happened that were meant to fit in with the pattern of Celia Austin—but they did not fit in. They were meaningless, apparently purposeless. There was evidence, too, of malice. And Celia was not malicious.”

  “She was a kleptomaniac?”

  “I should very much doubt it.”

  “Just an ordinary petty thief, then?”

  “Not in the way you mean. I give it you as my opinion that all this pilfering of petty objects was done to attract the attention of a certain young man.”

  “Colin McNabb?”

  “Yes. She was desperately in love with Colin McNabb. Colin never noticed her. Instead of a nice, pretty, well-behaved young girl, she displayed herself as an interesting young criminal. The result was successful. Colin McNabb immediately fell for her, as they say, in a big way.”

  “He must be a complete fool, then.”

  “Not at all. He is a keen psychologist.”

  “Oh,” Inspector Sharpe groaned. “One of those! I understand now.” A faint grin showed on his face. “Pretty smart of the girl.”

  “Surprisingly so.”

  Poirot repeated, musingly, “Yes, surprisingly so.”

  Inspector Sharpe looked alert.

  “Meaning by that, M. Poirot?”

  “That I wondered—I still wonder—if the idea had been suggested to her by someone else?”

  “For what reason?”

  “How do I know? Altruism? Some ulterior motive? One is in the dark.”

  “Any idea as to who it might have been who gave her the tip?”

  “No—unless—but no—”

  “All the same,” said Sharpe, pondering, “I don’t quite get it. If she’s been simply trying this kleptomania business on, and it’s succeeded, why the hell go and commit suicide?”

  “The answer is that she should not have committed suicide.”

  The two men looked at each other.

  Poirot murmured:

  “You are quite sure that she did?”

  “It’s clear as day, M. Poirot. There’s no reason to believe otherwise and—”

  The door opened and Mrs. Hubbard came in. She looked flushed and triumphant. Her chin stuck out aggressively.

  “I’ve got it,” she said triumphantly. “Good morning, M. Poirot. I’ve got it, Inspector Sharpe. It came to me quite suddenly. Why that suicide note looked wrong, I mean. Celia couldn’t possibly have written it.”

  “Why not, Mrs. Hubbard?”

  “Because it’s written in ordinary blue black ink. And Celia filled her pen with green ink—that ink over there,” Mrs. Hubbard nodded towards the shelf, “at breakfast time yesterday morning.”

  Inspector Sharpe, a somewhat different Inspector Sharpe, came back into the room which he had left abruptly after Mrs. Hubbard’s statement.

  “Quite right,” he said. “I’ve checked up. The only pen in the girl’s room, the one that was by her bed, has green ink in it. Now that green ink—”

  Mrs. Hubbard held up the nearly empty bottle.

  Then she explained, clearly and concisely, the scene at the breakfast table.

  “I feel sure,” she ended, “that the scrap of paper was torn out of the letter she had written to me yesterday—and which I never opened.”

  “What did she do with it? Can you remember?”

  Mrs. Hubbard shook her head.

  “I left her alone in here and went to do my housekeeping. She must, I think, have left it lying somewhere in here, and forgotten about it.”

  “And somebody found it . . . and opened it . . . somebody—”

  He broke off.

  “You realise,” he said, “what this means? I haven’t been very happy about this torn bit of paper all along. There was quite a pile of lecture notepaper in her room—much more natural to write a suicide note on one of them. This means that somebody saw the possibility of using the opening phrase of her letter to you—to suggest something very different. To suggest suicide—”

  He paused and then said slowly:

  “This means—”

  “Murder,” said Hercule Poirot.

  Chapter Eight


  Though personally deprecating le five o’clock as inhibiting the proper appreciation of the supreme meal of the day, dinner, Poirot was now getting quite accustomed to serving it.

  The resourceful George had on this occasion produced large cups, a pot of really strong Indian tea and, in addition to the hot and buttery square crumpets, bread and jam and a large square of rich plum cake.

  All this for the delectation of Inspector Sharpe, who was leaning back contentedly sipping his third cup of tea.

  “You don’t mind my coming along like this, M. Poirot? I’ve got an hour to spare until the time when the students will be getting back. I shall want to question them all—and, frankly, it’s not a business I’m looking forward to. You met some of them the other night and I wondered if you could give me any useful dope—on the foreigners, anyway.”

  “You think I am a good judge of foreigners? But mon cher, there were no Belgians amongst them.”

  “No Belg—oh, I see what you mean! You mean that as you’re a Belgian, all the other nationalities are as foreign to you as they are to me. But that’s not quite true, is it? I mean you probably know more about the Continental types than I do—though not the Indians and the West Africans and that lot.”

  “Your best assistance will probably be from Mrs. Hubbard. She has been there for some months in intimate association with these young people and she is quite a good judge of human nature.”

  “Yes, thoroughly competent woman. I’m relying on her. I shall have to see the proprietress of the place, too. She wasn’t there this morning. Owns several of these places, I understand, as well as some of the student clubs. Doesn’t seem to be much liked.”

  Poirot said nothing for a moment or two, then he asked:

  “You have been to St. Catherine’s?”

  “Yes. The chief pharmacist was most helpful. He was much shocked and distressed by the news.”

  “What did he say of the girl?”

  “She’d worked there for just over a year and was well liked. He described her as rather slow, but very conscientious.” He paused and then added, “The morphia came from there all right.”

  “It did? That is interesting—and rather puzzling.”

  “It was morphine tartrate. Kept in the poison cupboard in the Dispensary. Upper shelf—amongst drugs that were not often used. The hypodermic tablets, of course, are what are in general use, and it appears that morphine hydrochloride is more often used than the tartrate. There seems to be a kind of fashion in drugs like everything else. Doctors seem to follow one another in prescribing like a lot of sheep. He didn’t say that. It was my own thought. There are some drugs in the upper shelf of that cupboard that were once popular, but haven’t been prescribed for years.”

  “So the absence of one small dusty phial would not immediately be noticed?”

  “That’s right. Stocktaking is only done at regular intervals. Nobody remembers any prescription with morphine tartrate in it for a long time. The absence of the bottle wouldn’t be noticed until it was wanted—or until they went over stock. The three dispensers all had keys of the poison cupboard and the dangerous drug cupboard. The cupboards are opened as needed, and as on a busy day (which is practically every day) someone is going to the cupboard every few minutes, the cupboard is unlocked and remains unlocked till the end of work.”

  “Who has access to it, other than Celia herself?”

  “The two other women dispensers, but they have no connection of any kind with Hickory Road. One has been there for four years, the other only came a few weeks ago, was formerly at a hospital in Devon. Good record. Then there are the three senior pharmacists who have all been at St. Catherine’s for years. Those are the people who have what you might call rightful and normal access to the cupboard. Then there’s an old woman who scrubs the floors. She’s there between nine and ten in the morning and she could have grabbed a bottle out of the cupboard if the girls were busy at the outpatients’ hatches, or attending to the ward baskets, but she’s been working for the hospital for years and it seems very unlikely. The lab attendant comes through with stock bottles and he, too, could help himself to a bottle if he watched his opportunity—but none of these suggestions seem at all probable.”

  “What outsiders come into the Dispensary?”

  “Quite a lot, one way or another. They’d pass through the Dispensary to go to the chief pharmacist’s office for instance—or travellers from the big wholesale drug houses would go though it to the manufacturing departments. Then, of course, friends come in occasionally to see one of the dispensers—not a usual thing, but it happens.”

  “That is better. Who came in recently to see Celia Austin?”

  Sharpe consulted his notebook.

  “A girl called Patricia Lane came in on Tuesday of last week. She wanted Celia to come to meet her at the pictures after the Dispensary closed.”

  “Patricia Lane,” said Poirot thoughtfully.

  “She was only there about five minutes and she did not go near the poison cupboard but remained near the outpatients’ windows talking to Celia and another girl. They also remember a coloured girl coming—about two weeks ago—a very superior girl, they said. She was interested in the work and asked questions about it and made notes. Spoke perfect English.”

  “That would be Elizabeth Johnston. She was interested, was she?”

  “It was a Welfare Clinic afternoon. She was interested in the organisation of such things and also in what was prescribed for such ailments as infant diarrhoea and skin infections.”

  Poirot nodded.

  “Anyone else?”

  “Not that can be remembered.”

  “Do doctors come to the Dispensary?”

  Sharpe grinned.

  “All the time. Officially and unofficially. Sometimes to ask about a particular formula, or to see what is kept in stock.”

  “To see what is kept in stock?”

  “Yes, I thought of that. Sometimes they ask advice—about a substitute for some preparation that seems to irritate a patient’s skin or interfere with digestion unduly. Sometimes a physician just strolls in for a chat—slack moment. A good many of the young chaps come in for Vegenin or aspirin when they’ve got a hangover—and occasionally, I’d say, for a flirtatious word or two with one of the girls if the opportunity arises. Human nature is always human nature. You see how it is. Pretty hopeless.”

  Poirot said, “And if I recollect rightly, one or more of the students at Hickory Road is attached to St. Catherine’s—a big, red-haired boy—Bates—Bateman—”

  “Leonard Bateson. That’s right. And Colin McNabb is doing a postgraduate course there. Then there’s a girl, Jean Tomlinson, who works in the physiotherapy department.”

  “And all of these have probably been quite often in the Dispensary?”

  “Yes, and what’s more, nobody remembers when because they’re used to seeing them and know them by sight. Jean Tomlinson was by way of being a friend of the senior dispenser—”

  “It is not easy,” said Poirot.

  “I’ll say it’s not! You see, anyone who was on the staff could take a look in the poison cupboard, and say, ‘Why on earth do you have so much Liquor Arsenicalis?’ or something like that. ‘Didn’t know anybody used it nowadays.’ And nobody would think twice about it or remember it.”

  Sharpe paused and then said:

  “What we are postulating is that someone gave Celia Austin morphia and afterwards put the morphia bottle and the torn-out fragment of letter in her room to make it look like suicide. But why, M. Poirot, why?”

  Poirot shook his head. Sharpe went on:

  “You hinted this morning that someone might have suggested the kleptomania idea to Celia Austin.”

  Poirot moved uneasily.

  “That was only a vague idea of mine. It was just that it seemed doubtful if she would have had the wits to think of it herself.”

  “Then who?”

  “As far as I know, only three of the students would
have been capable of thinking out such an idea. Leonard Bateson would have had the requisite knowledge. He is aware of Colin’s enthusiasm for ‘maladjusted personalities.’ He might have suggested something of the kind to Celia more or less as a joke and coached her in her part. But I cannot really see him conniving at such a thing for month after month—unless, that is, he had an ulterior motive, or is a very different person from what he appears to be. (That is always a thing one must take into account.) Nigel Chapman has a mischievous and slightly malicious turn of mind. He’d think it good fun, and I should imagine would have no scruples whatever. He is a kind of grown up ‘enfant terrible.’ The third person I have in mind is a young woman called Valerie Hobhouse. She has brains, is modern in outlook and education, and has probably read enough psychology to judge Colin’s probable reaction. If she were fond of Celia, she might think it legitimate fun to make a fool of Colin.”

  “Leonard Bateson, Nigel Chapman, Valerie Hobhouse,” said Sharpe, writing down the names. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll remember when I’m questioning them. What about the Indians? One of them is a medical student.”

  “His mind is entirely occupied with politics and persecution mania,” said Poirot. “I don’t think he would be interested enough to suggest kleptomania to Celia Austin and I don’t think she would have accepted such advice from him.”

  “And that’s all the help you can give me, M. Poirot?” said Sharpe, rising to his feet and buttoning away his notebook.

  “I fear so. But I consider myself personally interested—that is if you do not object, my friend?”

  “Not in the least. Why should I?”

  “In my own amateurish way I shall do what I can. For me, there is, I think, only one line of action.”

  “And that is?”

  Poirot sighed.

  “Conversation, my friend. Conversation and again conversation! All the murderers I have ever come across enjoyed talking. In my opinion the strong silent man seldom commits a crime—and if he does it is simple, violent, and perfectly obvious. But our clever subtle murderer—he is so pleased with himself that sooner or later he says something unfortunate and trips himself up. Talk to these people, mon cher, do not confine yourself to simple interrogation. Encourage their views, demand their help, inquire about their hunches—but, bon dieu! I do not need to teach you your business. I remember your abilities well enough.”