Hickory Dickory Dock: A Hercule Poirot Mystery

by Agatha Christie

  “You realise, Mr. Chapman, that what you have just told us is very serious? Very serious indeed.”

  “Of course I realise it. I wouldn’t have come here to tell you about it unless I’d felt that it was urgent.”

  “And you say Miss Lane can’t remember exactly when she last saw this bicarbonate bottle containing morphine?”

  “She’s got herself all muddled up. The more she tries to think the more uncertain she gets. She said I flustered her. She’s trying to think it out while I came round to you.”

  “We’d better go round to Hickory Road right away.”

  As the inspector spoke the telephone on the table rang, and the constable who had been taking notes of Nigel’s story stretched out his hand and lifted the receiver.

  “It’s Miss Lane now,” he said, as he listened. “Wanting to speak to Mr. Chapman.”

  Nigel leaned across the table and took the receiver from him.

  “Pat? Nigel here.”

  The girl’s voice came, breathless, eager, the words tumbling over each other.

  “Nigel. I think I’ve got it! I mean, I think I know now who must have taken—you know—taken it from my handkerchief drawer, I mean—you see, there’s only one person who—”

  The voice broke off.

  “Pat. Hallo? Are you there? Who was it?”

  “I can’t tell you now. Later. You’ll be coming round?”

  The receiver was near enough for the constable and the inspector to have heard the conversation clearly, and the latter nodded in answer to Nigel’s questioning look.

  “Tell her ‘at once,’ ” he said.

  “We’re coming round at once,” said Nigel. “On our way this minute.”

  “Oh! Good. I’ll be in my room.”

  “So long, Pat.”

  Hardly a word was spoken during the brief ride to Hickory Road. Sharpe wondered to himself whether this was a break at last. Would Patricia Lane have any definite evidence to offer, or would it be pure surmise on her part? Clearly she had remembered something that had seemed to her important. He supposed that she had been telephoning from the hall, and that therefore she had had to be guarded in her language. At this time in the evening so many people would have been passing through.

  Nigel opened the front door at 26 Hickory Road with his key and they passed inside. Through the open door of the common room, Sharpe could see the rumpled red head of Leonard Bateson bent over some books.

  Nigel led the way upstairs and along the passage to Pat’s room. He gave a short tap on the door and entered.

  “Hallo, Pat. Here we—”

  His voice stopped, dying away in a long choking gasp. He stood motionless. Over his shoulder, Sharpe saw also what there was to see.

  Patricia Lane lay slumped on the floor.

  The inspector pushed Nigel gently aside. He went forward and knelt down by the girl’s huddled body. He raised her head, felt for the pulse, then delicately let the head resume its former position. He rose to his feet, his face grim and set.

  “No?” said Nigel, his voice high and unnatural. “No. No. No.”

  “Yes, Mr. Chapman. She’s dead.”

  “No, no. Not Pat! Dear stupid Pat. How—”

  “With this.”

  It was a simple, quickly improvised weapon. A marble paperweight slipped into a woollen sock.

  “Struck on the back of the head. A very efficacious weapon. If it’s any consolation to you, Mr. Chapman, I don’t think she even knew what happened to her.”

  Nigel sat down shakily on the bed. He said:

  “That’s one of my socks . . . She was going to mend it . . . Oh, God, she was going to mend it. . . .”

  Suddenly he began to cry. He cried like a child—with abandon and without self-consciousness.

  Sharpe was continuing his reconstruction.

  “It was someone she knew quite well. Someone who picked up a sock and just slipped the paperweight into it. Do you recognise the paperweight, Mr. Chapman?”

  He rolled the sock back so as to display it.

  Nigel, still weeping, looked.

  “Pat always had it on her desk. A Lion of Lucerne.”

  He buried his face in his hands.

  “Pat—oh, Pat! What shall I do without you!”

  Suddenly he sat upright, flinging back his untidy fair hair.

  “I’ll kill whoever did this! I’ll kill him! Murdering swine!”

  “Gently, Mr. Chapman. Yes, yes, I know how you feel. A brutal piece of work.”

  “Pat never harmed anybody. . . .”

  Speaking soothingly, Inspector Sharpe got him out of the room. Then he went back himself into the bedroom. He stooped over the dead girl. Very gently he detached something from between her fingers.

  II

  Geronimo, perspiration running down his forehead, turned frightened dark eyes from one face to the other.

  “I see nothing. I hear nothing, I tell you. I do not know anything at all. I am with Maria in kitchen. I put the minestrone on, I grate the cheese—”

  Sharpe interrupted the catalogue.

  “Nobody’s accusing you. We just want to get some times quite clear. Who was in and out of the house the last hour?”

  “I do not know. How should I know?”

  “But you can see very clearly from the kitchen window who goes in and out, can’t you?”

  “Perhaps, yes.”

  “Then just tell us.”

  “They come in and out all the time at this hour of the day.”

  “Who was in the house from six o’clock until six thirty-five when we arrived?”

  “Everybody except Mr. Nigel and Mrs. Hubbard and Miss Hobhouse.”

  “When did they go out?”

  “Mrs. Hubbard she go out before teatime, she has not come back yet.”

  “Go on.”

  “Mr. Nigel goes out about half an hour ago, just before six—look very upset. He come back with you just now—”

  “That’s right, yes.”

  “Miss Valerie, she goes out just at six o’clock. Time signal, pip, pip, pip. Dressed for cocktails, very smart. She still out.”

  “And everybody else is here?”

  “Yes, sir. All here.”

  Sharpe looked down at his notebook. The time of Patricia’s call was noted there. Eight minutes past six, exactly.

  “Everybody else was here, in the house? Nobody came back during that time?”

  “Only Miss Sally. She been down to pillar-box with letter and come back in—”

  “Do you know what time she came in?”

  Geronimo frowned.

  “She came back while the news was going on.”

  “After six, then?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What part of the news was it?”

  “I don’t remember, sir. But before the sport. Because when sport come we switch off.”

  Sharpe smiled grimly. It was a wide field. Only Nigel Chapman, Valerie Hobhouse and Mrs. Hubbard could be excluded. It would mean long and exhaustive questioning. Who had been in the common room, who had left it? And when? Who would vouch for who? Add to that, that many of the students, especially the Asiatic and African ones, were constitutionally vague about times, and the task was no enviable one.

  But it would have to be done.

  III

  In Mrs. Hubbard’s room the atmosphere was unhappy. Mrs. Hubbard herself, still in her outdoor things, her nice round face strained and anxious, sat on the sofa. Sharpe and Sergeant Cobb sat at a small table.

  “I think she telephoned from in here,” said Sharpe. “Around about six-eight several people left or entered the common room, or so they say—and nobody saw or noticed or heard the hall telephone being used. Of course, their times aren’t reliable, half these people never seem to look at a clock. But I think that anyway she’d come in here if she wanted to telephone the police station. You were out, Mrs. Hubbard, but I don’t suppose you lock your door?”

  Mrs. Hubbard shook her head. />
  “Mrs. Nicoletis always did, but I never do—”

  “Well then, Patricia Lane comes in here to telephone, all agog with what’s she’s remembered. Then, whilst she was talking, the door opened and somebody looked in or came in. Patricia stalled and hung up. Was that because she recognised the intruder as the person whose name she was just about to say? Or was it just a general precaution? Might be either. I incline myself to the first supposition.”

  Mrs. Hubbard nodded emphatically.

  “Whoever it was may have followed her here, perhaps listening outside the door. Then came in to stop Pat from going on.”

  “And then—”

  Sharpe’s face darkened. “That person went back to Patricia’s room with her, talking quite normally and easily. Perhaps Patricia taxed her with removing the bicarbonate, and perhaps the other gave a plausible explanation.”

  Mrs. Hubbard said sharply:

  “Why do you say ‘her?’ ”

  “Funny thing—a pronoun! When we found the body, Nigel Chapman said, ‘I’ll kill whoever did this. I’ll kill him.’ ‘Him,’ you notice. Nigel Chapman clearly believed the murder was done by a man. It may be because he associated the idea of violence with a man. It may be that he’s got some particular suspicion pointing to a man, to some particular man. If the latter, we must find out his reasons for thinking so. But speaking for myself, I plump for a woman.”

  “Why?”

  “Just this. Somebody went into Patricia’s room with her—someone with whom she felt quite at home. That points to another girl. The men don’t go to the girls’ bedroom floors unless it’s for some special reason. That’s right, isn’t it, Mrs. Hubbard?”

  “Yes. It’s not exactly a hard and fast rule, but it’s fairly generally observed.”

  “The other side of the house is cut off from this side, except on the ground floor. Taking it that the conversation earlier between Nigel and Pat was overheard, it would in all probability be a woman who overheard it.”

  “Yes, I see what you mean. And some of the girls seem to spend half their time here listening at keyholes.”

  She flushed and added apologetically:

  “That’s rather too harsh. Actually, although these houses are solidly built, they’ve been cut up and partitioned, and all the new work is flimsy as anything, like paper. You can’t help hearing through it. Jean, I must admit, does do a good deal of snooping. She’s the type. And of course, when Genevieve heard Nigel telling Pat his father had murdered his mother, she stopped and listened for all she was worth.”

  The inspector nodded. He had listened to the evidence of Sally Finch and Jean Tomlinson and Genevieve. He said:

  “Who occupies the rooms on either side of Patricia’s?”

  “Genevieve’s is beyond it—but that’s a good original wall. Elizabeth Johnston’s is on the other side, nearer the stairs. That’s only a partition wall.”

  “That narrows it down a bit,” said the inspector.

  “The French girl heard the end of the conversation. Sally Finch was present earlier on before she went out to post her letter. But the fact that those two girls were there automatically excludes anybody else having been able to snoop, except for a very short period. Always with the exception of Elizabeth Johnston, who could have heard everything through the partition wall if she’d been in her bedroom, but it seems to be fairly clear that she was already in the common room when Sally Finch went out to the post.”

  “She did not remain in the common room all the time?”

  “No, she went upstairs again at some period to fetch a book she had forgotten. As usual, nobody can say when.”

  “It might have been any of them,” said Mrs. Hubbard helplessly.

  “As far as their statements go, yes—but we’ve got a little extra evidence.”

  He took a small folded paper packet out of his pocket.

  “What’s that?” demanded Mrs. Hubbard.

  Sharpe smiled.

  “A couple of hairs—I took them from between Patricia Lane’s fingers.”

  “You mean that—”

  There was a tap on the door.

  “Come in,” said the inspector.

  The door opened to admit Mr. Akibombo. He was smiling broadly, all over his black face.

  “Please,” he said.

  Inspector Sharpe said impatiently:

  “Yes, Mr.—er—um, what is it?”

  “I think, please, I have a statement to make. Of first-class importance to elucidation of sad and tragic occurrence.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Now, Mr. Akibombo,” said Inspector Sharpe, resignedly, “let’s hear, please, what all this is about.”

  Mr. Akibombo had been provided with a chair. He sat facing the others who were all looking at him with keen attention.

  “Thank you. I begin now?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Well, it is, you see, that sometimes I have the disquieting sensations in my stomach.”

  “Oh.”

  “Sick to my stomach. That is what Miss Sally calls it. But I am not, you see, actually sick. I do not, that is, vomit.”

  Inspector Sharpe restrained himself with difficulty while these medical details were elaborated.

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “Very sorry, I’m sure. But you want to tell us—”

  “It is, perhaps, unaccustomed food. I feel very full here.” Mr. Akibombo indicated exactly where. “I think myself, not enough meat, and too much what you call cardohydrates.”

  “Carbohydrates,” the inspector corrected him mechanically. “But I don’t see—”

  “Sometimes I take small pill, soda mint; and sometimes stomach powder. It does not matter very much what it is—so that a great pouf comes and much air—like this.” Mr. Akibombo gave a most realistic and gigantic belch. “After that,” he smiled seraphically, “I feel much better, much better.”

  The inspector’s face was becoming a congested purple. Mrs. Hubbard said authoritatively:

  “We understand all about that. Now get on to the next part.”

  “Yes. Certainly. Well, as I say, this happens to me early last week—I do not remember exactly which day. Very good macaroni and I eat a lot, and afterwards feel very bad. I try to do work for my professor but difficult to think with fullness here.” (Again Akibombo indicated the spot.) “It is after supper in the common room and only Elizabeth there and I say to her, ‘Have you bicarbonate or stomach powder, I have finished mine.’ And she says, ‘No. But,’ she says, ‘I saw some in Pat’s drawer when I was putting back a handkerchief I borrowed from her. I will get it for you,’ she says. ‘Pat will not mind.’ So she goes upstairs and comes back with soda bicarbonate bottle. Very little left, at bottom of bottle, almost empty. I thank her and go with it to the bathroom, and I put nearly all of it about a teaspoonful in water and stir it up and drink it.”

  “A teaspoonful? A teaspoonful! My God!”

  The inspector gazed at him fascinated. Sergeant Cobb leaned forward with an astonished face. Mrs. Hubbard said obscurely:

  “Rasputin!”

  “You swallowed a teaspoonful of morphia?”

  “Naturally, I think it is bicarbonate.”

  “Yes, yes, what I can’t understand is why you’re sitting here now!”

  “And then, afterwards, I was ill, but really ill. Not just the fullness. Pain, bad pain in my stomach.”

  “I can’t make out why you’re not dead!”

  “Rasputin,” said Mrs. Hubbard. “They used to give him poison again and again, lots of it, and it didn’t kill him!”

  Mr. Akibombo was continuing.

  “So then, next day, when I am better, I take the bottle and the tiny bit of powder that is left in it to a chemist and I say please tell me what is this I have taken that has made me feel so bad?”

  “Yes?”

  “And he says come back later, and when I do, he says, ‘No wonder! This is not the bicarbonate. It is the borasseek. The acid borasseek. You can put it in
the eyes, yes, but if you swallow a teaspoonful it makes you ill.’ ”

  “Boracic?” The Inspector stared at him stupefied. “But how did boracic get into that bottle? What happened to the morphia?” He groaned. “Of all the haywire cases!”

  “And I have been thinking, please,” went on Akibombo.

  “You have been thinking,” Sharpe said. “And what have you been thinking?”

  “I have been thinking of Miss Celia and how she died and that someone, after she was dead, must have come into her room and left there the empty morphia bottle and the little piece of paper that say she killed herself—”

  Akibombo paused and the inspector nodded.

  “And so I say—who could have done that? And I think if it is one of the girls it will be easy, but if a man not so easy, because he would have to go downstairs in our house and up the other stairs and someone might wake up and hear him or see him. So I think again, and I say, suppose it is someone in our house, but in the next room to Miss Celia’s—only she is in this house, you understand? Outside his window is a balcony and outside hers is a balcony too, and she will sleep with her window open because that is hygienic practice. So if he is big and strong and athletic he could jump across.”

  “The room next to Celia’s in the other house,” said Mrs. Hubbard, “Let me see, that’s Nigel’s and—and. . . .”

  “Len Bateson’s,” said the inspector. His finger touched the folded paper in his hand. “Len Bateson.”

  “He is very nice, yes, said Mr. Akibombo sadly. “And to me most pleasant, but psychologically one does not know what goes on below top surface. That is so, is it not? That is modern theory. Mr. Chandra Lal very angry when his boracic for the eyes disappears and later, when I ask, he says he has been told that it was taken by Len Bateson. . . .”

  “The morphia was taken from Nigel’s drawer and boracic was substituted for it, and when Patricia Lane came along and substituted soda bicarbonate for what she thought was morphia but which was really boracic powder . . . Yes . . . I see. . . .”

  “I have helped you, yes?” Mr. Akibombo asked politely.

  “Yes, indeed, we’re most grateful to you. Don’t—er—repeat any of this.”

  “No, sir. I will be most careful.”

  Mr. Akibombo bowed politely to all and left the room.