Hercule Poirot 100 Years (1916 - 2016)

by Mark Place

  "Because a child told a tall story about a travel trip she never took," said Superintendent Spence, "you can't say that every tall tale she told was a lie."

  "It might not be," said Elspeth, "but I'd say the likelihood was that it usually would be."

  "So you think that if Joyce Reynolds came out with a tale that she'd seen a murder committed, you'd say she was probably lying and you wouldn't believe the story was true?"

  "That's what I'd think," said Mrs McKay.

  "You might be wrong," said her brother.

  "Yes," said Mrs McKay. "Anyone may be wrong. It's like the old story of the boy who cried 'Wolf, wolf,' and he cried it once too often, when it was a real wolf, and nobody believed him, and so the wolf got him."

  "So you'd sum it up -"

  "I'd still say the probabilities are that she wasn't speaking the truth. But I'm a fair woman. She may have been. She may have seen something. Not quite so much as she said she saw, but something."

  "And so she got herself killed," said Superintendent Spence. "You've got to mind that, Elspeth. She got herself killed."

  "That's true enough," said Mrs McKay. "And that's why I'm saying maybe I've misjudged her. And if so, I'm sorry. But ask anyone who knew her and they'll tell you that lies came natural to her. It was a party she was at, remember, and she was excited. She'd want to make an effect."

  "Indeed, they didn't believe her," said Poirot.

  Elspeth McKay shook her head doubtfully.

  "Who could she have seen murdered?" asked Poirot.

  He looked from brother to sister.

  "Nobody," said Mrs McKay with decision.

  "There must have been deaths here, say, over the last three years."

  "Oh that, naturally," said Spence. "Just the usual old folks or invalids or what you'd expect or maybe a hit-and-run motorist -"

  "No unusual or unexpected deaths?"

  "Well " Elspeth hesitated.

  "I mean -" Spence took over. "I've jotted a few names down here." He pushed the paper over to Poirot. "Save you a bit of trouble, asking questions around."

  "Are these suggested victims?"

  "Hardly as much as that. Say within the range of possibility."

  Poirot read aloud.

  "Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe. Charlotte Benfield. Janet White. Lesley Ferrier -" He broke off, looked across the table and repeated the first name. Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe.

  "Could be," said Mrs McKay.

  "Yes, you might have something there." She added a word that sounded like

  "opera".

  "Opera?" Poirot looked puzzled. He had heard of no opera.

  "Went off one night, she did," said Elspeth, "was never heard of again."

  "Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe?"

  "No, no. The opera girl. She could have put something in the medicine easily enough. And she came into all the money, didn't she - or so she thought at the time?"

  Poirot looked at Spence for enlightenment.

  "And never been heard of since," said Mrs McKay. "These foreign girls are all the same."

  The significance of the word "opera" came to Poirot.

  "An au pair girl," he said.

  "That's right. Lived with the old lady, and a week or two after the old lady died, the au pair girl just disappeared."

  "Went off with some man, I'd say," said Spence.

  "Well, nobody knew of him if so," said Elspeth. "And there's usually plenty of talk about here. Usually know just who's going with who."

  "Did anybody think there had been anything wrong about Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe's death?" asked Poirot.

  "No. She'd got heart trouble. Doctor attended her regularly."

  "But you headed your list of possible victims with her, my friend?"

  "Well, she was a rich woman, a very rich woman. Her death was not unexpected but it was sudden. I'd say offhand that Dr Ferguson was surprised, even if only slightly surprised. I think he expected her to live longer. But doctors do have these surprises. She wasn't one to do as the doctor ordered. She'd been told not to overdo things, but she did exactly as she liked. For one thing, she was a passionate gardener, and that doesn't do heart cases any good."

  Elspeth McKay took up the tale. "She came here when her health failed. She was living abroad before. She came here to be near her nephew and niece, Mr and Mrs Drake, and she bought the Quarry House. A big Victorian house which included a disused quarry which attracted her as having possibilities. She spent thousands of pounds on turning that quarry into a sunk garden or whatever they call the thing. Had a landscape gardener down from Wisley or one of these places to design it. Oh, I can tell you, it's something to look at."

  "I shall go and look at it," said Poirot. "Who knows it might give me ideas."

  "Yes, I would go if I were you. It's well worth seeing."

  "And she was rich, you say?" said Poirot.

  "Widow of a big shipbuilder. She had packets of money."

  "Her death was not unexpected because she had a heart condition, but it was sudden," said Spence. "No doubts arose that it was due to anything but natural causes. Cardiac failure, or whatever the longer name is that doctors use. Coronary something."

  "No question of an inquest ever arose?"

  Spence shook his head.

  "It has happened before," said Poirot. "An elderly woman told to be careful, not to run up and down stairs, not to do any intensive gardening, and so on and so on. But if you get an energetic woman who's been an enthusiastic gardener all her life and done as she liked in most ways, then she doesn't always treat these recommendations with due respect."

  "That's true enough. Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe made a wonderful thing of the quarry - or rather, the landscape artist did. Three or four years they worked at it, he and his employer. She'd seen some garden, in Ireland I think it was, when she went on a National Trust tour visiting gardens. With that in her mind, they fairly transformed the place. Oh yes, it has to be seen to be believed."

  "Here is a natural death, then," said Poirot, "certified as such by the local doctor. Is that the same doctor who is here now? And whom I am shortly going to see?"

  "Dr Ferguson - yes. He's a man of about sixty, good at his job and well liked here."

  "But you suspect that her death might have been murder? For any other reasons than those that you've already given me?"

  "The opera girl, for one thing," said Elspeth.

  "Why?"

  "Well, she must have forged the Will. Who forged the Will if she didn't?"

  "You must have more to tell me," said Poirot. "What is all this about a forged Will?"

  "Well, there was a bit of fuss when it came to probating, or whatever you call it, the old lady's Will."

  "Was it a new Will?"

  "It was what they call something that sounds like fish - a cod - a codicil."

  Elspeth looked at Poirot, who nodded. "She'd made Wills before," said Spence. "All much the same. Bequests to charities, legacies to old servants, but the bulk of her fortune always went to her nephew and his wife, who were her near relatives."

  "And this particular codicil?"

  "Left everything to the opera girl," said Elspeth, "because of her devoted care and kindness. Something like that."

  "Tell me, then, more about the au pair girl."

  "She came from some country in the middle of Europe. Some long name."

  "How long had she been with the old lady?"

  "Just over a year."

  "You call her the old lady always. How old was she?"

  "Well in the sixties. Sixty-five or six, say."

  "That is not so very old," said Poirot feelingly.

  "Made several Wills, she had, by all accounts," said Elspeth. "As Bert has told you, all of them much the same. Leaving money to one or two charities and then perhaps she'd change the charities and some different souvenirs to old servants and all that. But the bulk of the money always went to her nephew and his wife, and I think some other old cousin who was dead, though, by the time she died. She left the
bungalow she'd built to the landscape man, for him to live in as long as he liked, and some kind of income for which he was to keep up the quarry garden and let it be walked in by the public. Something like that."

  "I suppose the family claimed that the balance of her mind had been disturbed, that there had been undue influence?"

  "I think probably it might have come to that," said Spence. "But the lawyers, as I say, got on to the forgery sharply. It was not a very convincing forgery, apparently. They spotted it almost at once."

  "Things came to light to show that the opera girl could have done it quite easily," said Elspeth.

  "You see, she wrote a great many of Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe's letters for her and it seems Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe had a great dislike of typed letters being sent to friends or anything like that. If it wasn't a business letter, she'd always say 'write it in handwriting and make it as much like mine as you can and sign it with my name'. Mrs Minden, the cleaning woman, heard her say that one day, and I suppose the girl got used to doing it and copying her employer's handwriting, and then it came to her suddenly that she could do this and get away with it. And that's how it all came about. But as I say, the lawyers were too sharp and spotted it."

  "Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe's own lawyers?"

  "Yes. Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter. Very respectable firm in Medchester. They'd always done all her legal business for her. Anyway, they got experts on to it and questions were asked and the girl was asked questions and got the wind up. Just walked out one day leaving half her things behind her. They were preparing to take proceedings against her, but she didn't wait for that. She just got out. It's not so difficult, really, to get out of this country, if you do it in time. Why, you can go on day trips on the Continent without a passport, and if you've got a little arrangement with someone on the other side, things can be arranged long before there is any real hue and cry. She's probably gone back to her own country or changed her name or gone to friends."

  "But everyone thought that Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe died a natural death?" asked Poirot.

  "Yes, I don't think there was ever any question of that. I only say it's possible because, as I say, these things have happened before where the doctor has no suspicion. Supposing that girl Joyce had heard something, had heard the au pair girl giving medicines to Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe, and the old lady saying 'this medicine tastes different to the usual one'. Or 'this has got a bitter taste' or 'it's peculiar'."

  "Anyone would think you'd been there listening to things yourself, Elspeth," said Superintendent Spence. "This is all your imagination."

  "When did she die?" said Poirot.

  "Morning, evening, indoors, out of doors, at home or away from home?"

  "Oh, at home. She'd come up from doing things in the garden one day, breathing rather heavily. She said she was very tired and she went to lie down on her bed. And to put it in one sentence, she never woke up. Which is all very natural, it seems, medically speaking."

  Poirot took out a little notebook. The page was already headed "Victims". Under, he wrote. "No. 1, suggested, Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe." On the next pages of his book he wrote down the other names that Spence had given him. He said, inquiringly: "Charlotte Benfield?" Spence replied promptly. "Sixteen-year old shop assistant. Multiple head injuries. Found on a footpath near the Quarry Wood. Two young men came under suspicion. Both had walked out with her from time to time. No evidence."

  "They assisted the police in their inquiries?" asked Poirot.

  "As you say. It's the usual phrase. They didn't assist much. They were frightened. Told a few lies, contradicted themselves. They didn't carry conviction as likely murderers. But either of them might have been."

  "What were they like?"

  "Peter Gordon, twenty-one. Unemployed. Had had one or two jobs but never kept them. Lazy. Quite good-looking. Had been on probation once or twice for minor pilferings, things of that kind. No record before of violence. Was in with a rather nasty lot of likely young criminals, but usually managed to keep out of serious trouble."

  "And the other one?"

  "Thomas Hudd. Twenty. Stammered. Shy. Neurotic. Wanted to be a teacher, but couldn't make the grade. Mother a widow. The doting mother type. Didn't encourage girlfriends. Kept him as close to her apron-strings as she could. He had a job in a stationer's. Nothing criminal known against him, but a possibility psychologically, so it seems. The girl played him up a good deal. Jealousy a possible motive, but no evidence that we could prosecute on. Both of them had alibis. Hudd's was his mother's. She would have sworn to kingdom come that he was indoors with her all that evening, and nobody can say he wasn't or had seen him elsewhere or in the neighbourhood of the murder. Young Gordon was given an alibi by some of his less reputable friends. Not worth much, but you couldn't disprove it."

  "This happened when?"

  "Eighteen months ago."

  "And where?"

  "In a footpath in a field not far from Woodleigh Common."

  "Three quarters of a mile," said Elspeth."

  "Near Joyce's house - the Reynolds' house?"

  "No, it was on the other side of the village."

  "It seems unlikely to have been the murder Joyce was talking about," said Poirot thoughtfully. "If you see a girl being bashed on the head by a young man you'd be likely to think of murder straight away. Not to wait for a year before you began to think it was murder."

  Poirot read another name. "Lesley Ferrier."

  Spence spoke again. "Lawyer's clerk, twenty-eight, employed by Messrs. Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter of Market Street, Medchester."

  "Those were Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe's solicitors, I think you said."

  "Yes. Same ones."

  "And what happened to Lesley Ferrier?"

  "He was stabbed in the back. Not far from the Green Swan Pub. He was said to have been having an affair with the wife of the landlord, Harry Griffin. Handsome piece, she was, indeed still is. Getting perhaps a bit long in the tooth. Five or six years older than he was, but she liked them young."

  "The weapon?"

  "The knife wasn't found. Les was said to have broken with her and taken up with some other girl, but what girl was never satisfactorily discovered."

  "Ah. And who was suspected in this case? The landlord or the wife?"

  "Quite right," said Spence. "Might have been either. The wife seemed the more likely. She was half gypsy and a temperamental piece. But there were other possibilities. Our Lesley hadn't led a blameless life. Got into trouble in his early twenties, falsifying his accounts somewhere. With a spot of forgery. Was said to have come from a broken home and all the rest of it. Employers spoke up for him. He got a short sentence and was taken on by Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter when he came out of prison."

  "And after that he'd gone straight?"

  "Well, nothing proved. He appeared to do so as far as his employers were concerned, but he had been mixed up in a few questionable transactions with his friends. He's what you might call a wrong 'un but a careful one."

  "So the alternative was?"

  "That he might have been stabbed by one of his less reputable associates. When you're in with a nasty crowd you've got it coming to you with a knife if you let them down."

  "Anything else?"

  "Well, he had a good lot of money in his bank account. Paid in in cash, it had been. Nothing to show where it came from. That was suspicious in itself."

  "Possibly pinched from Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter?" suggested Poirot. "They say not. They had a chartered accountant to work on it and look into things." "And the police had no idea where else it might have come from?"

  "No." "Again," said Poirot, "not Joyce's murder, I should think." He read the last name, "Janet White."

  "Found strangled on a footpath which was a short cut from the schoolhouse to her home. She shared a flat there with another teacher, Nora Ambrose. According to Nora Ambrose, Janet White had occasionally spoken of being nervous about some man with whom she'd broken off relations a year ag
o, but who had frequently sent her threatening letters. Nothing was ever found out about this man. Nora Ambrose didn't know his name, didn't know exactly where he lived."

  "Aha," said Poirot, "I like this better."

  He made a good, thick black tick against Janet White's name.

  "For what reason?" asked Spence.

  "It is a more likely murder for a girl of Joyce's age to have witnessed. She could have recognised the victim, a schoolteacher whom she knew and who perhaps taught her. Possibly she did not know the attacker. She might have seen a struggle, heard a quarrel between a girl whom she knew and a strange man. But thought no more of it than that at that time. When was Janet White killed?"

  "Two and a half years ago."

  "That again," said Poirot, "is about the right time. Both for not realising that the man she may have seen with his hands round Janet White's neck was not merely necking her, but might have been killing her. But then as she grew more mature, the proper explanation came to her." He looked at Elspeth. "You agree with my reasoning?"

  "I see what you mean," said Elspeth. "But aren't you going at all this the wrong way round? Looking for a victim of a past murder instead of looking for a man who killed a child here in Woodleigh Common not more than three days ago?"

  "We go from the past to the future," said Poirot. "We arrive, shall we say, from two and a half years ago to three days ago. And, therefore, we have to consider what you, no doubt, have already considered - who was there in Woodleigh Common amongst the people who were at the party who might have been connected with an older crime?"

  "One can narrow it down a bit more than that now," said Spence. "That is if we are right in accepting your assumption that Joyce was killed because of what she claimed earlier in the day about seeing murder committed. She said those words during the time the preparations for the party were going on. Mind you, we may be wrong in believing that that was the motive for killing, but I don't think we are wrong. So let us say she claimed to have seen murder, and someone who was present during the preparations for the party that afternoon could have heard her and acted as soon as possible."

  "Who was present?" said Poirot.

  "You know, I presume."

  "Yes, I have the list for you here."