Hercule Poirot 100 Years (1916 - 2016)

by Mark Place

  The truth would come out in the end. It would do Sheila no harm if she were what I believed her to be.

  With a brusque movement I pulled a postcard out of my pocket and shoved it across the table.

  ‘Sheila got this through the post.’

  Hardcastle scanned it. It was one of a series of postcards of London buildings. It represented the Central Criminal Court. Hardcastle turned it over. On the right was the address—in neat printing. Miss R. S. Webb, 14, Palmerston Road, Crowdean, Sussex. On the left hand side, also printed, was the word REMEMBER! and below it 4.13.

  ‘4.13,’ said Hardcastle. ‘That was the time the clocks showed that day.’ He shook his head. ‘A picture of the Old Bailey, the word “Remember” and a time—4.13. It must tie up with something.’

  ‘She says she doesn’t know what it means.’ I added: ‘I believe her.’

  Hardcastle nodded.

  ‘I’m keeping this. We may get something from it.’

  ‘I hope you do.’

  There was embarrassment between us. To relieve it, I said: ‘You’ve got a lot of bumf there.’

  ‘All the usual. And most of it no damned good. The dead man hadn’t got a criminal record, his fingerprints aren’t on file. Practically all this stuff is from people who claim to have recognized him.’ He read: “Dear Sir, the picture that was in the paper I’m almost sure is the same as a man who was catching a train at Willesden Junction the other day. He was muttering to himself and looking very wild and excited, I thought when I saw him there must be something wrong.”

  “Dear Sir, I think this man looks very like my husband’s cousin John. He went abroad to South Africa but it maybe that he’s come back. He had a moustache when he went away but of course he could have shaved that off.”

  “Dear Sir, I saw the man in the paper in a tube train last night. I thought at the time there was something peculiar about him.”

  ‘And of course there are all the women who recognize husbands. Women don’t really seem to know what their husbands look like! There are hopeful mothers who recognize sons they have not seen for twenty years.

  ‘And here’s the list of missing persons. Nothing here likely to help us. “George Barlow, 65, missing from home. His wife thinks he must have lost his memory.” And a note below: “Owes a lot of money. Has been seen going about with a red-haired widow. Almost certain to have done a bunk.”

  ‘Next one: “Professor Hargraves, expected to deliver a lecture last Tuesday. Did not turn up and sent no wire or note of excuse.” ’ Hardcastle did not appear to consider Professor Hargraves seriously.

  ‘Thought the lecture was the week before or the week after,’ he said. ‘Probably thought he had told his housekeeper where he was going but hasn’t done so. We get a lot of that.’ The buzzer on Hardcastle’s table sounded. He picked up the receiver.

  ‘Yes?…What?…Who found her? Did she give her name?…I see. Carry on.’ He put down the receiver again. His face as he turned to me was a changed face. It was stern, almost vindictive.

  ‘They’ve found a girl dead in a telephone box on Wilbraham Crescent,’ he said.

  ‘Dead?’ I stared at him. ‘How?’

  ‘Strangled. With her own scarf!’

  I felt suddenly cold. ‘What girl? It’s not—’

  Hardcastle looked at me with a cold, appraising glance that I didn’t like. ‘It’s not your girlfriend,’ he said, ‘if that’s what you’re afraid of. The constable there seems to know who she is. He says she’s a girl who works in the same office as Sheila Webb. Edna Brent her name is.’

  ‘Who found her? The constable?’

  ‘She was found by Miss Waterhouse, the woman from Number 18. It seems she went to the box to make a telephone call as her phone was out of order and found the girl there huddled down in a heap.’

  The door opened and a police constable said:

  ‘Doctor Rigg telephoned that he’s on his way, sir. He’ll meet you at Wilbraham Crescent.’

  Chapter 17

  It was an hour and a half later and Detective Inspector Hardcastle sat down behind his desk and accepted with relief an official cup of tea. His face still held its bleak, angry look.

  ‘Excuse me, sir, Pierce would like a word with you.’

  Hardcastle roused himself.

  ‘Pierce? Oh, all right. Send him in.’

  Pierce entered, a nervous-looking young constable.

  ‘Excuse me, sir, I thought per’aps as I ought to tell you.’

  ‘Yes? Tell me what?’

  ‘It was after the inquest, sir. I was on duty at the door. This girl—this girl that’s been killed. She—she spoke to me.’

  ‘Spoke to you, did she? What did she say?’

  ‘She wanted to have a word with you, sir.’

  Hardcastle sat up, suddenly alert.

  ‘She wanted to have a word with me? Did she say why?’

  ‘Not exactly, sir. I’m sorry, sir, if I—if I ought to have done something about it. I asked her if she could give me a message or—or if perhaps she could come to the station later on. You see, you were busy with the chief constable and the coroner and I thought—’

  ‘Damn!’ said Hardcastle, under his breath. ‘Couldn’t you have told her just to wait until I was free?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir.’ The young man flushed. ‘I suppose if I’d known, I ought to have done so. But I didn’t think it was anything important. I don’t think she thought it was important. It was just something she said she was worried about.’

  ‘Worried?’ said Hardcastle. He was silent for quite a minute turning over in his mind certain facts. This was the girl he had passed in the street when he was going to Mrs Lawton’s house, the girl who had wanted to see Sheila Webb. The girl who had recognized him as she passed him and had hesitated a moment as though uncertain whether to stop him or not. She’d had something on her mind. Yes, that was it. Something on her mind. He’d slipped up. He’d not been quick enough on the ball. Filled with his own purpose of finding out a little more about Sheila Webb’s background, he had overlooked a valuable point. The girl had been worried? Why? Now, probably, they’d never know why. ‘Go on, Pierce,’ he said, ‘tell me all you can remember.’ He added kindly, for he was a fair man: ‘You couldn’t know that it was important.’

  It wasn’t, he knew, any good to pass on his own anger and frustration by blaming it on the boy. How should the boy have known? Part of his training was to uphold discipline, to make sure that his superiors were only accosted at the proper times and in the proper places. If the girl had said it was important or urgent, that would have been different. But she hadn’t been, he thought, remembering his first view of her in the office, that kind of girl. A slow thinker. A girl probably distrustful of her own mental processes. ‘Can you remember exactly what happened, and what she said to you, Pierce?’ he asked.

  Pierce was looking at him with a kind of eager gratitude. ‘Well, sir, she just come up to me when everyone was leaving and she sort of hesitated a moment and looked round just as though she were looking for someone. Not you, sir, I don’t think. Somebody else. Then she come up to me and said could she speak to the police officer, and she said the one that had given evidence. So, as I said, I saw you were busy with the chief constable so I explained to her that you were engaged just now, could she give me a message or contact you later at the station. And I think she said that would do quite well. I said was it anything particular…’

  ‘Yes?’ Hardcastle leaned forward.

  ‘And she said well not really. It was just something, she said, that she didn’t see how it could have been the way she’d said it was.’

  ‘She didn’t see how what she said could have been like that?’ Hardcastle repeated. ‘That’s right, sir. I’m not sure of the exact words. Perhaps it was: “I don’t see how what she said can have been true.” She was frowning and looking puzzled-like. But when I asked her, she said it wasn’t really important.’

  Not really important, the girl ha
d said. The same girl who had been found not long afterwards strangled in a telephone box…

  ‘Was anybody near you at the time she was talking to you?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, there were a good many people, sir, filing out, you know. There’d been a lot of people attending the inquest. It’s caused quite a stir, this murder has, what with the way the Press have taken it up and all.’

  ‘You don’t remember anyone in particular who was near you at the time—any of the people who’d given evidence, for instance?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t recall anyone in particular, sir.’

  ‘Well,’ said Hardcastle, ‘it can’t be helped. All right, Pierce, if you remember anything further, come to me at once with it.’

  Left alone he made an effort to subdue his rising anger and self-condemnation. That girl, that rabbity-looking girl, had known something. No, perhaps not put it as high as known , but she had seen something, heard something. Something that had worried her; and the worry had been intensified after attending the inquest. What could it have been? Something in the evidence? Something, in all probability, in Sheila Webb’s evidence? Had she gone to Sheila’s aunt’s house two days before on purpose to see Sheila? Surely she could have talked to Sheila at the office? Why did she want to see her privately? Did she know something about Sheila Webb that perplexed her? Did she want to ask Sheila for an explanation of whatever it was, somewhere in private—not in front of the other girls? It looked that way.

  It certainly looked like it. He dismissed Pierce. Then he gave a few directions to Sergeant Cray. ‘What do you think the girl went to Wilbraham Crescentfor ?’ Sergeant Cray asked.

  ‘I’ve been wondering about that,’ said Hardcastle. ‘It’s possible, of course, that she just suffered from curiosity—wanted to see what the place looked like. There’s nothing unusual about that—half the population of Crowdean seems to feel the same.’

  ‘Don’t we know it,’ said Sergeant Cray with feeling.

  ‘On the other hand,’ said Hardcastle slowly, ‘she may have gone to see someone who lived there…’

  When Sergeant Cray had gone out again, Hardcastle wrote down three numbers on his blotting pad.

  ‘20,’he wrote, and put a query after it. He added: ‘19?’ and then ‘18?’ He wrote names to correspond.

  Hemming, Pebmarsh, Waterhouse. The three houses in the higher crescent were out of it. To visit one of them Edna Brent would not have gone along the lower road at all.

  Hardcastle studied the three possibilities.

  He took No. 20 first. The knife used in the original murder had been found there. It seemed more likely that the knife had been thrown there from the garden of No. 19 but they didn’t know that it had. It could have been thrust into the shrubbery by the owner of No. 20 herself. When questioned, Mrs Hemming’s only reaction had been indignation. ‘How wicked of someone to throw a nasty knife like that at my cats!’ she had said. How did Mrs Hemming connect up with Edna Brent? She didn’t, Inspector Hardcastle decided. He went on to consider Miss Pebmarsh. Had Edna Brent gone to Wilbraham Crescent to call on Miss Pebmarsh? Miss Pebmarsh had given evidence at the inquest. Had there been something in that evidence which had aroused disbelief in Edna? But she had been worried before the inquest. Had she already known something about Miss Pebmarsh? Had she known, for instance, that there was a link of some kind between Miss Pebmarsh and Sheila Webb? That would fit in with her words to Pierce. ‘It couldn’t have been true what she said.’

  ‘Conjecture, all conjecture,’ he thought angrily. And No. 18? Miss Waterhouse had found the body. Inspector Hardcastle was professionally prejudiced against people who found bodies. Finding the body avoided so many difficulties for a murderer—it saved the hazards of arranging an alibi, it accounted for any overlooked fingerprints. In many ways it was a cast-iron position—with one proviso only. There must be no obvious motive. There was certainly no apparent motive for Miss Waterhouse to do away with little Edna Brent. Miss Waterhouse had not given evidence at the inquest. She might have been there, though. Did Edna perhaps have some reason for knowing, or believing, that it was Miss Waterhouse who had impersonated Miss Pebmarsh over the telephone and asked for a shorthand typist to be sent to No. 19? More conjecture. And there was, of course, Sheila Webb herself…Hardcastle’s hand went to the telephone. He got on to the hotel where Colin Lamb was staying. Presently he got Colin himself on the wire. ‘Hardcastle here—what time was it when you lunched with Sheila Webb today?’ There was a pause before Colin answered:

  ‘How do you know that we lunched together?’

  ‘A damned good guess. You did, didn’t you?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I have lunch with her?’

  ‘No reason at all. I’m merely asking you the time. Did you go off to lunch straight from the inquest?’

  ‘No. She had shopping to do. We met at the Chinese place in Market Street at one o’clock.’

  ‘I see.’

  Hardcastle looked down his notes. Edna Brent had died between 12.30 and one o’clock.

  ‘Don’t you want to know what we had for lunch?’

  ‘Keep your hair on. I just wanted the exact time. For the record.’

  ‘I see. It’s like that.’

  There was a pause. Hardcastle said, endeavouring to ease the strain:

  ‘If you’re not doing anything this evening—’

  The other interrupted.

  ‘I’m off. Just packing up. I found a message waiting for me. I’ve got to go abroad.’

  ‘When will you be back?’

  ‘That’s anybody’s guess. A week at least—perhaps longer—possibly never!’

  ‘Bad luck—or isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Colin, and rang off.

  Chapter 18

  I

  Hardcastle arrived at No. 19, Wilbraham Crescent just as Miss Pebmarsh was coming out of the house.

  ‘Excuse me a minute, Miss Pebmarsh.’

  ‘Oh. Is it—Detective Inspector Hardcastle?’

  ‘Yes. Can I have a word with you?’

  ‘I don’t want to be late at the Institute. Will it take long?’

  ‘I assure you only three or four minutes.’

  She went into the house and he followed.

  ‘You’ve heard what happened this afternoon?’ he said.

  ‘Has anything happened?’

  ‘I thought you might have heard. A girl was killed in the telephone box just down the road.’

  ‘Killed? When?’

  ‘Two hours and three quarters ago.’ He looked at the grandfather clock.

  ‘I’ve heard nothing about it. Nothing,’ said Miss Pebmarsh. A kind of anger sounded momentarily in her voice. It was as though her disability had been brought home to her in some particularly wounding way.

  ‘A girl—killed! What girl?’

  ‘Her name is Edna Brent and she worked at the Cavendish Secretarial Bureau.’

  ‘Another girl from there! Had she been sent for like this girl, Sheila what’s-her-name was?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said the inspector. ‘She did not come to see you here, at your house?’

  ‘Here? No. Certainly not.’

  ‘Would you have been in if she had come here?’

  ‘I’m not sure. What time did you say?’

  ‘Approximately twelve-thirty or a little later.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Miss Pebmarsh. ‘I would have been home by then.’

  ‘Where did you go after the inquest?’

  ‘I came straight back here.’ She paused and then asked, ‘Why did you think this girl might have come to see me?’

  ‘Well, she had been at the inquest this morning and she had seen you there, and she must have had some reason for coming to Wilbraham Crescent. As far as we know, she was not acquainted with anyone in this road.’

  ‘But why should she come to see me just because she had seen me at the inquest?’

  ‘Well—’ the inspector smiled a little, then hastily tr
ied to put the smile in his voice as he realized that Miss Pebmarsh could not appreciate its disarming quality. ‘One never knows with these girls. She might just have wanted an autograph. Something like that.’

  ‘An autograph!’ Miss Pebmarsh sounded scornful. Then she said, ‘Yes…Yes, I suppose you’re right.

  That sort of thing does happen.’ Then she shook her head briskly. ‘I can only assure you, Inspector Hardcastle, that it did not happen today. Nobody has been here since I came back from the inquest.’

  ‘Well, thank you, Miss Pebmarsh. We thought we had better check up on every possibility.’

  ‘How old was she?’ asked Miss Pebmarsh.

  ‘I believe she was nineteen.’

  ‘Nineteen? Very young.’ Her voice changed slightly. ‘Very young…Poor child. Who would want to kill a girl of that age?’

  ‘It happens,’ said Hardcastle.

  ‘Was she pretty—attractive—sexy?’

  ‘No,’ said Hardcastle. ‘She would have liked to be, I think, but she was not.’

  ‘Then that was not the reason,’ said Miss Pebmarsh. She shook her head again. ‘I’m sorry. More sorry than I can say, Inspector Hardcastle, that I can’t help you.’

  He went out, impressed as he always was impressed, by Miss Pebmarsh’s personality.

  II

  Miss Waterhouse was also at home. She was also true to type, opening the door with a suddenness which displayed a desire to trap someone doing what they should not do.

  ‘Oh, it’s you!’ she said. ‘Really, I’ve told your people all I know.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ve replied to all the questions that were asked you,’ said Hardcastle, ‘but they can’t all be asked at once, you know. We have to go into a few more details.’

  ‘I don’t see why. The whole thing was a most terrible shock,’ said Miss Waterhouse, looking at him in a censorious way as though it had been all his doing. ‘Come in, come in. You can’t stand on the mat all day. Come in and sit down and ask me any questions you want to, though really what questions there can be, I cannot see. As I told you, I went out to make a telephone call. I opened the door of the box and there was the girl. Never had such a shock in my life. I hurried down and got the police constable. And after that, in case you want to know, I came back here and I gave myself a medicinal dose of brandy.