by Mark Place
"In desperate trouble. Must see you. Come to flat 4.30 without all. Our code Goliath." He heard the doorbell ring just as he called out: "Georges, a taxi," slipped on his overcoat, and went into the hall just as George was opening the front door and colliding with Mrs. Oliver. All three of them struggled to disentangle themselves in the narrow hall.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
FRANCES GARY, carrying her overnight bag, walked down Mandeville Road, chattering with the friend she had just met on the corner, towards the bulk of Borodene Mansions.
"Really, Frances, it's like living in a prison block, that building. Wormwood Scrubs or something."
"Nonsense, Eileen. I tell you, they're frightfully comfortable, these flats. I'm very lucky and Claudia is a splendid person to share with -- never bothers you. And she's got a wonderful daily. The flat's really very nicely run."
"Are there just the two of you? I forget. I thought you had a third girl?"
"Oh well, she seems to have walked out on us."
"You mean she doesn't pay her rent?"
"Oh, I think the rent's all right. I think she's probably having some affair with a boyfriend."
Eileen lost interest. Boy friends were too much a matter of course. "Where are you coming back from now?"
"Manchester. Private view was on. Great success."
"Are you really going to Vienna next month?"
"Yes, I think so. It's pretty well fixed up by now. Rather fun."
"Wouldn't it be awful if some of the pictures got stolen?"
"Oh, they're all insured," said Frances.
"All the really valuable ones, anyway."
"How did your friend Peter's show go?"
"Not terribly well, I'm afraid. But there was quite a good review by the critic of The Artist, and that counts a lot." Frances turned into Borodene Mansions, and her friend went on her way to her own small mews house farther down the road. Frances said "Good-evening" to the porter, and went up in the lift to the sixth floor. She walked along the passage, humming a little tune to herself. She inserted her key in the door of the flat. The light in the hall was not on yet. Claudia was not due back from the office for another hour and a half. But in the sitting-room, the door of which was ajar, the light was on. Frances said aloud: "Light's on. That's funny." She slipped out of her coat, dropped her overnight bag, pushed the sitting-room door farther open and went in. Then she stopped dead. Her mouth opened and then shut. She stiffened all over — her eyes staring at the prone figure on the floor; then they rose slowly to the mirror on the wall that reflected back at her own horror-stricken face.
Then she drew a deep breath. The momentary paralysis over, she flung back her head and screamed. Stumbling over her bag on the hall floor and kicking it aside, she ran out of the flat and along the passage and beat frenziedly at the door of the next flat. An elderly woman opened it.
"What on earth — "
"There's someone dead — someone dead. And I think it's someone I know. David Baker. He's lying there on the floor... I think he's stabbed... he must have been stabbed. There's blood—blood everywhere." She began to sob hysterically. Miss Jacobs shook her, steadied her, lowered her on to a sofa and said authoritatively: "Be quiet now. I'll get you some brandy." She shoved a glass into her hand. ^Stay there and drink it." Frances sipped obediently. Miss Jacobs went rapidly out of the door along the passage and through the open door from which the light was pouring out. The living-room door was wide open and Miss Jacobs went straight through it. She was not the kind of woman who screams. She stood just within the doorway, her lips pursed hard together. What she was looking at had a nightmarish quality. On the floor lay a handsome young man, his arms flung wide, his chestnut hair falling on his shoulders. He wore a crimson velvet coat, and his white shirt was dappled with blood. She was aware with a start that there was a second figure with her in the room. A girl was standing pressed back against the wall, the great Harlequin above seeming to be leaping across the painted sky.
The girl had a white woollen shift dress on, and her pale brown hair hung limp on either side of her face. In her hand she was holding a kitchen knife. Miss Jacobs stared at her and she stared back at Miss Jacobs. Then she said in a quiet reflective voice, as though she was answering what someone had said to her: "Yes, I've killed him... The blood got on my hands from the knife... I went into the bathroom to wash it off—but you can't really wash things like that off, can you? And then I came back in here to see if it was really true... But it is... Poor David... But I suppose I had to do it." Shock forced unlikely words from Miss Jacobs. As she said them, she thought how ridiculous they sounded! "Indeed? Why did you have to do anything of the kind?"
"I don't know... At least — I suppose I do—really. He was in great trouble. He sent for me — and I came... But I wanted to be free of him. I wanted to get away from him. I didn't really love him." She laid the knife carefully on the table and sat down on a chair.
"It isn't safe, is it?" she said. "To hate anyone... It isn't safe because you never know what you might do. Like Louise..." Then she said quietly: "Hadn't you better ring up the police?" Obediently, Miss Jacobs dialled 999.
II
There were six people now in the room with the Harlequin on the wall. A long time had passed. The police had come and gone. Andrew Restarick sat like a man stunned. Once or twice he said the same words. "I can't believe it..."
Telephoned for, he had come from his office, and Claudia Reece-Holland had come with him. In her quiet way, she had been ceaselessly efficient. She had put through telephone calls to lawyers, had rung Crosshedges and two firms of estate agents to try and get in touch with Mary Restarick. She had given Frances Cary a sedative and sent her to lie down. Hercule Poirot and Mrs. Oliver sat side by side on a sofa. They had arrived together at the same time as the police.
Last of all to arrive, when nearly everyone else had gone, had been a quiet man with grey hair and a gentle manner, Chief Inspector Neele of Scotland Yard who had greeted Poirot with a slight nod, and been introduced to Andrew Restarick. A tall red-haired young man was standing by the window staring down into the courtyard. What were they all waiting for? Mrs. Oliver wondered. The body had been removed, the photographers and other police officers had done their work, they themselves, after being herded into Claudia's bedroom, had been readmitted into the sitting-room, where they had been waiting, she supposed, for the Scotland Yard man to arrive.
"If you want me to go," Mrs. Oliver said to him uncertainly -- "Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, aren't you? No, if you have no objection, I'd rather you remained. I know it hasn't been pleasant -- "
"It didn't seem real."
Mrs. Oliver shut her eyes -- seeing the whole thing again. The Peacock Boy, so picturesquely dead that he had seemed like a stage figure. And the girl--the girl had been different -- not the uncertain Norma from Crosshedges -- the unattractive Ophelia, as Poirot had called her--but some quiet figure of tragic dignity -- accepting her doom. Poirot had asked if he might make two telephone calls. One had been to Scotland Yard, and that had been agreed to, after the sergeant had made a preliminary suspicious enquiry on the phone. The sergeant had directed Poirot to the extension in Claudia's bedroom, and he had made his call from there, closing the door behind him. The sergeant had continued to look doubtful, murmuring to his subordinate. "They say it's all right. Wonder who he is? Odd-looking little bloke." "Foreign, isn't he? Might be Special Branch?"
"Don't think so. It was Chief Inspector Neele he wanted." His assistant raised his eyebrows and suppressed a whistle.
After making his calls, Poirot had reopened the door and beckoned Mrs. Oliver from where she was standing uncertainly inside the kitchen, to join him. They had sat down side by side on Claudia Reece-Holland's bed.
"I wish we could do something," said Mrs. Oliver — always one for action.
"Patience, chere Madame." "Surely you can do something?" "I have. I have rung up the people it is necessary to ring up. We can do nothing here until the police h
ave finished their preliminary investigations."
"Who did you ring up after the inspector man? Her father? Couldn't he come and bail her out or something?" "Bail is not likely to be granted where murder is concerned," said Poirot dryly.
"The police have already notified her father. They got his number from Miss Cary."
"Where is she?"
"Having hysterics in the flat of a Miss Jacobs next door, I understand. She was the one who discovered the body. It seems to have upset her. She rushed out of here screaming."
"She's the arty one, isn't she? Claudia would have kept her head."
"I agree with you. A very—poised young woman."
"Who did you ring up, then?"
"First, as perhaps you heard. Chief Inspector Neele of Scotland Yard."
"Will this lot like his coming and meddling?"
"He is not coming to meddle. He has of late been making certain enquiries for me, which may throw light on this matter."
"Oh -- I see... Who else did you ring up?"
"Dr. John Stillingfleet."
"Who's he? To say that poor Norma is potty and can't help killing people?"
"His qualifications would entitle him to give evidence to that effect in court if necessary."
"Does he know anything about her?"
"A good deal, I should say. She has been in his care since the day you found her in the Shamrock cafe."
"Who sent her there?" Poirot smiled.
"I did. I made certain arrangements by telephone before I came to join you at the cafe."
"What? All the time I was so disappointed in you and kept urging you to do something -- you had done something? And you never told me! Really, M. Poirot! Nor a word! How could you be so—so mean."
"Do not enrage yourself, Madame, I beg. What I did, I did for the best."
"People always say that when they have done something particularly maddening. What else did you do?" "I arranged that my services should be retained by her father, so that I could make the necessary arrangements for her safety."
"Meaning this Doctor Stillingwater?"
"Stilling. Yes."
"How on earth did you manage that?
I shouldn't have thought for a moment that you would be the kind of person that her father would choose to make all these arrangements. He looks the kind of man who would be very suspicious of foreigners."
"I forced myself upon him — as a conjurer forces a card. I called upon him, purporting to have received a letter from him asking me to do so."
"And did he believe you?"
"Naturally. I showed the letter to him. It was typed on his office stationery and signed with his name—though as he pointed out to me, the handwriting was not his."
"Do you mean you had actually written that letter yourself." "Yes. I judged correctly that it would awaken his curiosity, and that he would want to see me. Having got so far, I trusted to my own talents." "You told him what you were going to do about this Dr. Stillingfleet?" "No. I told no one. There was danger, you see."
"Danger to Norma?"
"To Norma, or Norma was dangerous to someone else. From the very beginning there have always been the two possibilities. The facts could be interpreted in either way. The attempted poisoning of Mrs. Restarick was not convincing--it was delayed too long, it was not a serious attempt to kill. Then there was an indeterminate story of a revolver shot fired here in Borodene Mansions -- and another tale of flick-knives and bloodstains. Every time these things happen, Norma knows nothing about them, cannot remember, etcetera. She finds arsenic in a drawer -- but does not remember putting it there.
Claims to have had lapses of memory, to have lost long periods of time when she does not remember what she has been doing. So one has to ask oneself— is what she says true, or did she, for some reason of her own, invent it? Is she a potential victim of some monstrous and perhaps crazy plot or is it she herself who is the moving spirit? Is she painting a picture of herself as a girl suffering from mental instability, or has she murder in mind, with a defence of diminished responsibility."
"She was different today," said Mrs. Oliver slowly. "Did you notice? Quite different. Not — not scatty any longer." Poirot nodded.
"Not Ophelia — Iphigeneia." A sound of added commotion outside in the flat diverted the attention of both of them.
"Do you think — " Mrs. Oliver stopped.
Poirot had gone to the window and was looking down to the courtyard far below. An ambulance was drawn up there.
"Are they going to take It away?" asked Mrs. Oliver in a shaky voice. And then added in a sudden rush of pity: "Poor Peacock."
"He was hardly a likeable character," said Poirot coldly.
"He was very decorative... And so young," said Mrs. Oliver.
"That is sufficient for les femmes." Poirot was opening the bedroom door a careful crack, as he peered out.
"Excuse me," he said, "if I leave you for a moment."
"Where are you going?" demanded Mrs. Oliver suspiciously.
"I understood that that was not a question considered delicate in this country," said Poirot reproachfully.
"Oh, I beg your pardon."
"And that's not the way to the loo," she breathed sotto voce after him, as she too applied an eye to the crack of the door. She went back to the window to observe what was going on below.
"Mr. Restarick has just driven up in a taxi," she observed when Poirot slipped back quietly into the room a few minutes later, "and Claudia has come with him. Did you manage to get into Norma's room, or wherever you really wanted to go?"
"Norma’s room is in the occupation of the police."
"How annoying for you. What are you carrying in that kind of black folder thing you've got in your hand?" Poirot in his turn asked a question.
"What have you got in that canvas bag with Persian horses on it?"
"My shopping bag? Only a couple of Avocado pears, as it happens."
"Then if I may, I will entrust this folder to you. Do not be rough with it, or squeeze it, I beg."
"What is it?"
"Something that I hoped to find -- and that I have found-- Ah, things begin to pass themselves" He referred to increased sounds of activities. Poirot's words struck Mrs. Oliver as being much more exactly descriptive than English words would have been. Restarick, his voice loud and angry. Claudia coming in to telephone. A glimpse of a police stenographer on an excursion to the flat next door to take statements from Frances Cary and a mythical person called Miss Jacobs. A coming and going of ordered business, and a final departure of two men with cameras. Then unexpectedly the sudden incursion into Claudia's bedroom of a tall loosely jointed young man with red hair. Without taking any notice of Mrs. Oliver, he spoke to Poirot.
"What's she done? Murder? Who is it? The boy friend?"
"Yes."
"She admits it?"
"It would seem so."
"Not good enough. Did she say so in definite words?"
"I have not heard her do so. I have had no chance of asking her anything myself." A policeman looked in.
"Dr. Stillingfleet?" he asked. "The police surgeon would like a word with you." Dr. Stillingfleet nodded and followed him out of the room.
"So that's Dr. Stillingfleet," said Mrs. Oliver. She considered for a moment or two. "Quite something, isn't he?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHIEF INSPECTOR NEELE drew a sheet of paper towards him, jotted one or two notes on it; and looked round at the other five people in the room. His voice was crisp and formal.
"Miss Jacobs?" he said. He looked towards the policeman who stood by the door. "Sergeant Conolly, I know, has taken her statement. But, I'd like to ask her a few questions myself." Miss Jacobs was ushered into the room a few minutes later. Neele rose courteously to greet her.
"I am Chief Inspector Neele," he said, shaking hands with her. "I am sorry to trouble you for a second time. But this time it is quite informal I just want to get a clearer picture of exactly what you saw and heard.
I'm afraid it may be painful"
"Painful, no," said Miss Jacobs, accepting the chair he offered her.
"It was a shock, of course. But no emotions were involved." She added: "You seem to have tidied up things." He presumed she was referring to the removal of the body.
Her eyes, both observant and critical, passed lightly over the assembled people, registering, for Poirot frank astonishment (What on earth is this^) for Mrs. Oliver, mild curiosity; appraisement for the back of Dr. Stillingfleet's red head, neighbourly recognition for Claudia to whom she vouchsafed a slight nod, and finally dawning sympathy for Andrew Restarick.
"You must be the girl's father," she said to him. "There's not much point to condolences from a total stranger. They're better left unsaid. It's a sad world we live in nowadays — or so it seems to me. Girls study too hard in my opinion." Then she turned her face composedly towards Neele.
"Yes?" "I would like you. Miss Jacobs, to tell me in your own words exactly what you saw and heard." "I expect it will vary from what I said before," said Miss Jacobs unexpectedly.
"Things do, you know. One tries to make one's description as accurate as possible, and so one uses more words. I don't think one is any more accurate, I think, unconsciously, one adds things that you think you may have seen or ought to have seen -- or heard. But I will do my best. "It started with screams. I was startled. I thought someone must have been hurt. So I was already coming to the door when someone began beating on it, and still screaming. I opened it and saw it was one of my next-door neighbours - the three girls who live in 67. I'm afraid I don't know her name, though I know her by sight."