“AND now,” said Poirot as we reentered the car. “What do we do next?”

Warned by experience I did not this time suggest a return to town. After all, if Poirot was enjoying himself in his own fashion why should I object?

I suggested some tea.

“Tea, Hastings? What an idea! Regard the time.”

“I have regarded it---looked at it, I mean. It’s half past five. Tea is clearly indicated.”

Poirot sighed. “Always the afternoon tea with you English! No, mon ami, no tea for us. In a book of etiquette I read the other day that one must not make the afternoon call after six o’clock. To do so is to commit the solecism. We have, therefore, but half an hour in which to accomplish our purpose.”

“How social you are today, Poirot! On whom are we calling now?”

“Les demoiselles Tripp.”

“Are you writing a book on spiritualism now? Or is it still the life of General Arundell?”

“It will be simpler than that, my friend. But we must inquire where these ladies live.”

Directions were forthcoming readily enough, but of a somewhat confused nature involving as they did a series of lanes. The abode of the Misses Tripp turned out to be a picturesque cottage---so extremely old-
world and picturesque that it looked as though it might collapse any minute.

A child of fourteen or thereabouts opened the door and with difficulty squeezed herself against the wall sufficiently to allow us to pass inside.

The interior was very rich in old oak beams---there was a big open fireplace and such very small windows that it was difficult to see clearly.

All the furniture was of pseudo simplicity---ye olde oake for ye cottage dweller---there was a good deal of fruit in wooden bowls and large numbers of photographs---most of them, I noticed, of the same two people represented in different poses---usually with bunches of flowers clasped to their breasts or clutching large leghorn picture hats.

The child who had admitted us had murmured something and disappeared, but her voice was clearly audible in an upper story.

“Two gentlemen to see you. Miss.”

A sort of twitter of female voices arose and presently with a good deal of creaking and rustling a lady descended the staircase and came graciously towards us.

She was nearer fifty than forty, her hair was parted in the middle in Madonna fashion, her eyes were brown and slightly prominent. She wore a sprigged muslin dress that conveyed an odd suggestion of fancy dress.

Poirot stepped forward and started the conversation in his most flourishing manner.

“I must apologize for intruding upon you, mademoiselle, but I am in somewhat of a predicament. I came here to find a certain lady, but she has left Market Basing and I was told that you would certainly have her address.”

“Really? Who was that?”

“Miss Lawson.”

“Oh, Minnie Lawson. Of course! We are the greatest friends. Do sit down, Mr.---er----?”

“Parotti---my friend. Captain Hastings.”

Miss Tripp acknowledged the introductions and began to fuss a little.

“Sit here, won’t you---no, please---really, I always prefer an upright chair myself. Now, are you sure you are comfortable there? Dear Minnie Lawson---oh, here is my sister.”

More creaking and rustling and we were joined by a second lady, dressed in green gingham that would have been suitable for a girl of sixteen.

“My sister Isabel---Mr.---er---Parrot---and---er---Captain Hawkins. Isabel dear, these gentlemen are friends of Minnie Lawson’s.”

Miss Isabel Tripp was less buxom than her sister. She might indeed have been described as scraggy. She had very fair hair done up into a large quantity of rather messy curls. She cultivated a girlish manner and was easily recognizable as the subject of most of the flower poses in the photography. She clasped her hands now in girlish excitement. “How delightful! Dear Minnie! You have seen her lately?”

“Not for some years,” explained Poirot. “We have quite lost touch with each other. I have been travelling. That is why I was so astonished and delighted to hear of the good fortune that had befallen my old friend.”

“Yes, indeed. And so well deserved! Minnie is such a rare soul. So simple---so earnest.”

“Julia,” cried Isabel.

“Yes, Isabel?”

“How remarkable. P. You remember the planchette distinctly insisted on P. last night. A visitor from over the water and the initial P.”

“So it did,” agreed Julia.

Both ladies looked at Poirot in rapt and delighted surprise.

“It never lies,” said Miss Julia softly.

“Are you interested at all in the occult, Mr. Parrot?”

“I have little experience, mademoiselle, but---like anyone who has travelled much in the East, I am bound to admit that there is much one does not understand and that cannot be explained by natural means.”

“So true,” said Julia. “Profoundly true.”

“The East,” murmured Isabel. “The home of mysticism and the occult.”

Poirot’s travellings in the East, as far as I knew, consisted of one journey to Syria extended to Iraq, and which occupied perhaps a few weeks. To judge by his present conversation one would swear that he had spent most of his life in jungles and bazaars and in intimate converse with fakirs, dervishes, and mahatmas.

As far as I could make out the Misses Tripp were vegetarians, theosophists, British Israelites, Christian Scientists, spiritualists and enthusiastic amateur photographers.

“One sometimes feels,” said Julia with a sigh, “that Market Basing is an impossible place to live. There is no beauty here---no soul. One must have soul, don’t you think so. Captain Hawkins?”

“Quite,” I said slightly embarrassed. “Oh, quite.”

“Where there is no vision the people perish,” quoted Isabel with a sigh. “I have often tried to discuss things with the vicar, but find him painfully narrow. Don’t you think, Mr. Parrot, that any definite creed is bound to be narrowing?”

“And everything is so simple, really,” put in her sister. “As we know so well, everything is joy and love!”

“As you say, as you say,” said Poirot. “What a pity it seems that misunderstandings and quarrels should arise---especially over money.”

“Money is too sordid,” sighed Julia.

“I gather that the late Miss Arundell was one of your converts?” said Poirot.

The two sisters looked at each other.

“I wonder,” said Isabel.

“We were never quite sure,” breathed Julia. “One minute she seemed to be convinced and then she would say something---so---so ribald.”

“Ah, but you remember that last manifestation,” said Julia. “That was really most remarkable.” She turned to Poirot. “It was the night dear Miss Arundell was taken ill. My sister and I went round after dinner and we had a sitting---just the four of us. And you know we saw---we all three saw---most distinctly, a kind of halo round Miss Arundell’s head.”

“Comment?”

“Yes. It was a kind of luminous haze.” She turned to her sister. “Isn’t that how you would describe it, Isabel?”

“Yes. Yes, just that. A luminous haze gradually surrounding Miss Arundell’s head---an aureole of faint light. It was a sign---we know that now---a sign that she was about to pass over to the other side.”

“Remarkable,” said Poirot in a suitably impressed voice. “It was dark in the room, yes?”

“Oh, yes, we always get better results in the dark, and it was quite a warm evening so we didn’t even have the fire on.”

“A most interesting spirit spoke to us,” said Isabel. “Fatima, her name was. She told us she had passed over in the time of the Crusades. She gave us a most beautiful message.”

“She actually spoke to you?”

“No, not direct voice. She rapped it out. Love. Hope. Life. Beautiful words.”

“And Miss Arundell was actually taken ill at the seance?”

“It was just after. Some sandwiches and port wine were brought in, and dear Miss Arundell said she wouldn’t have any as she wasn’t feeling very well. That was the beginning of her illness. Mercifully, she did not have to endure much suffering.”

“She passed over four days later,” said Isabel. “And we have already had messages from her,” said Julia eagerly. “Saying that she is very happy and that everything is beautiful and that she hopes that there is love and peace among all her dear ones.”

Poirot coughed.

“That---er---is hardly the case, I fear?”

“The relations have behaved disgracefully to poor Minnie,” said Isabel. Her face flushed with indignation.

“Minnie is the most unworldly soul,” chimed in Julia.

“People have gone about saying the unkindest things---that she schemed for this money to be left her!”

“When really it was the greatest surprise to her----”

“She could hardly believe her ears when the lawyer read the will----”

“She told us so herself. ‘Julia,’ she said to me. ‘My dear, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Just a few bequests to the servants and then Littlegreen House and the residue of my estate to Wilhelmina Lawson.’ She was so flabbergasted she could hardly speak. And when she could she asked
how much it would be---thinking perhaps it would be a few thousand pounds---and Mr. Purvis, after humming and hawing and talking about confusing things like gross and net personalities, said it would be in the neighbourhood of three hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds. Poor Minnie nearly fainted, she told us.”

“She had no idea,” the other sister reiterated. “She never thought of such a thing happening!”

“That is what she told you, yes?”

“Oh, yes, she repeated it several times. And that’s what makes it so wicked of the Arundell family to go on as they have done---cold-shouldering her and treating her with suspicion. After all, this is a free country----”

“English people seem to labour under that misapprehension,” murmured Poirot.

“And I should hope anyone can leave their money exactly as they choose! I think Miss Arundell acted very wisely. Obviously she mistrusted her own relatives and I daresay she had her reasons.”

“Ah?” Poirot leant forward with interest. “Indeed?”

This flattering attention encouraged Isabel to proceed. “Yes, indeed. Mr. Charles Arundell, her nephew, is a thoroughly bad lot. That’s well known! I believe he’s even wanted by the police in some foreign country. Not at all a desirable character. As for his sister, well, I’ve not actually spoken to her, but she’s a very queer-looking girl. Ultra modern, of course, and terribly made-up. Really, the sight of her mouth
made me quite ill. It looked like blood. And I rather suspect she takes drugs---her manner was so odd sometimes. She’s by way of being engaged to that nice young Dr. Donaldson, but I fancy even he looked disgusted sometimes. Of course, she is attractive in her way, but I hope that he will come to his senses in time and marry some nice English girl who is fond of country life and outdoor pursuits.”

“And the other relations?”

“Well, there you are again. Very undesirable. Not that I’ve anything to say against Mrs. Tanios---she’s quite a nice woman---but absolutely stupid and completely under her husband’s thumb. Of course, he’s really a Turk, I believe---rather dreadful for an English girl to marry a Turk, I think, don’t you? It shows a certain lack of fastidiousness. Of course, Mrs. Tanios is a very good mother, though the children are singularly unattractive, poor little things.”

“So altogether you think Miss Lawson was a more worthy recipient of Miss Arundell’s fortune?”

Julia said serenely: “Minnie Lawson is a thoroughly good woman. And so unworldly. It isn’t as though she had ever thought about money. She was never grasping.”

“Still, she has never thought of refusing to accept the legacy?”

Isabel drew back a little. “Oh, well---one would hardly do that.”

Poirot smiled. “No, perhaps not. . . .”

“You see, Mr. Parrot,” put in Julia. “She regards it as a trust---a sacred trust.”

“And she is quite willing to do something for Mrs. Tanios or for the Tanios children,” went on Isabel. “Only she doesn’t want him to get hold of it.”

“She even said she would consider making Theresa an allowance.”

“And that, I think, was very generous of her---considering the offhand way that girl has always treated her.”

“Indeed, Mr. Parrot, Minnie is the most generous of creatures. But there now, you know her, of course!”

“Yes,” said Poirot. “I know her. But I still do not know---her address.”

“Of course! How stupid of me! Shall I write it down for you?”

“I can write it down.”

Poirot produced the invariable notebook.

“17, Clanroyden Mansions, W.2. Not very far from Whiteleys. You’ll give her our love, won’t you? We haven’t heard from her just lately.”

Poirot rose and I followed suit.

“I have to thank you both very much,” he declared, “for a most charming talk as well as for your kindness in supplying me with my friend’s address.”

“I wonder they didn’t give it to you at the house,” exclaimed Isabel. “It must be that Ellen! Servants are so jealous and so small-minded. They used to be quite rude to Minnie sometimes.”

Julia shook hands in a grande dame manner.

“We have enjoyed your visit,” she declared graciously. “I wonder----”

She flashed a glance of inquiry at her sister. “You would, perhaps---” Isabel flushed a little. “Would you, that is to say, stay and share our evening meal? A very simple one---some shredded raw vegetables, brown bread and butter, fruit.”

“It sounds delicious,” Poirot said hastily. “But alas! my friend and I have to return to London.”

With renewed handshaking and messages to be delivered to Miss Lawson, we at last made our exit.

“IS it really necessary to tell such elaborate lies, Poirot?” I asked as we walked away.

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

“If one is going to tell a lie at all---and I notice, by the way, that your nature is very much averse to lying---now, me, it does not trouble at all----”

“So I’ve noticed,” I interjected.

“---As I was remarking, if one is going to tell a lie at all, it might as well be an artistic lie, a romantic lie, a convincing lie!”

“Do you consider this a convincing lie? Do you think Dr. Donaldson was convinced?”

“That young man is of a sceptical nature,” admitted Poirot, thoughtfully.

“He looked definitely suspicious to me.”

“I do not see why he should be so. Imbeciles are writing the lives of other imbeciles every day. It is as you say, done.”

“First time I’ve heard you call yourself an imbecile,” I said, grinning.

“I can adopt a role, I hope, as well as anyone,” said Poirot coldly. “I am sorry you do not think my little fiction well imagined. I was rather pleased with it myself.”

I changed the subject.

“What do we do next?”

“That is easy. We get into your car and pay a visit to Morton Manor.”

Morton Manor proved to be an ugly substantial house of the Victorian period. A decrepit butler received us somewhat doubtfully and presently returned to ask if “we had an appointment.”

“Please tell Miss Peabody that we come from Dr. Grainger,” said Poirot.

After a wait of a few minutes the door opened and a short fat woman waddled into the room. Her sparse white hair was neatly parted in the middle. She wore a black velvet dress, the nap of which was completely rubbed off in various places, and some really beautiful fine point lace was fastened at her neck with a large cameo brooch.

She came across the room peering at us shortsightedly. Her first words were somewhat of a surprise.

“Got anything to sell?”

“Nothing, madame,” said Poirot.

“Sure?”

“But absolutely.”

“No vacuum cleaners?”

“No.”

“No stockings?”

“No.”

“No rugs?”

“No.”

“Oh, well,” said Miss Peabody, settling herself in a chair. “I suppose it’s all right. You’d better sit down then.”

We sat obediently.

“You’ll excuse my asking,” said Miss Peabody with a trace of apology in her manner. “Got to be careful. You wouldn’t believe the people who come along. Servants are no good. They can’t tell. Can’t blame ’em either. Right voices, right clothes, right names. How are they to tell? Commander Ridgeway, Mr. Scot Edgerton, Captain d’Arcy Fitzherbert. Nice-looking fellows, some of ’em. But before you know where you are they’ve shoved a cream-making machine under your nose.”

Poirot said earnestly: “I assure you, madame, that we have nothing whatever of that kind.”

“Well, you should know,” said Miss Peabody.

Poirot plunged into his story. Miss Peabody heard him out without comment, blinking once or twice out of her small eyes. At the end she said: “Goin’ to write a book, eh?”

“Yes.”

“In English?”

“Certainly---in English.”

“But you’re a foreigner. Eh? Come now, you’re a foreigner, aren’t you?”

“That is true.”

She transferred her gaze to me.

“You are his secretary, I suppose?”

“Er---yes,” I said doubtfully.

“Can you write decent English?”

“I hope so.”

“H’m---where did you go to school?”

“Eton.”

“Then you can’t.”

I was forced to let this sweeping charge against an old and venerable centre of education pass unchallenged as Miss Peabody turned her attention once more to Poirot.

“Goin’ to write a life of General Arundell, eh?”

“Yes. You knew him, I think.”

“Yes, I knew John Arundell. He drank.”

There was a momentary pause. Then Miss Peabody went on musingly: “Indian Mutiny, eh? Seems a bit like flogging a dead horse to me. But that’s your business.”

“You know, madame, there is a fashion in these things. At the moment India is the mode.”

“Something in that. Things do come round. Look at sleeves.”

We maintained a respectful silence.

“Leg o’ muttons were always ugly,” said Miss Peabody. “But I always looked well in Bishops.” She fixed a bright eye on Poirot. “Now then, what do you want to know?”

Poirot spread out his hands.

“Anything! Family history. Gossip. Home life.”

“Can’t tell you anything about India,” said Miss Peabody. “Truth is, I didn’t listen. Rather boring these old men and their anecdotes. He was a very stupid man---but I daresay none the worse General for that. I’ve always heard that intelligence didn’t get you far in the army. Pay attention to your Colonel’s wife and listen respectfully to your superior officers and you’ll get on---that’s what my father used to say.”

Treating this dictum respectfully, Poirot allowed a moment or two to elapse before he said: “You knew the Arundell family intimately, did you not?”

“Knew ’em all,” said Miss Peabody. “Matilda, she was the eldest. A spotty girl. Used to teach in Sunday School. Was sweet on one of the curates. Then there was Emily. Good seat on a horse, she had. She was the only one who could do anything with her father when he had one of his bouts on. Cartloads of bottles used to be taken out of that house. Buried them at night, they did. Then, let me see, who came next, Arabella or Thomas? Thomas, I think. Always felt sorry for Thomas. One man and four women. Makes a man look a fool. He was a bit of an old woman himself, Thomas was. Nobody thought he’d ever marry. Bit of a shock when he did.”

She chuckled---a rich Victorian fruity chuckle.

It was clear that Miss Peabody was enjoying herself. As an audience we were almost forgotten. Miss Peabody was well away in the past. “Then came Arabella. Plain girl. Face like a scone. She married all right though, even if she were the plainest of the family. Professor at Cambridge. Quite an old man. Must have been sixty if he was a day. He gave a series of lectures here---on the wonders of Modern Chemistry I think it was. I went to ’em. He mumbled, I remember. Had a beard. Couldn’t hear much of what he said. Arabella used to stay behind and ask questions. She wasn’t a chicken herself. Must have been getting on for forty. Ah well, they’re both dead now. Quite a happy marriage it was. There’s something to be said for marrying a plain woman---you know the worst at once and she’s not so likely to be flighty. Then there was Agnes. She was the youngest---the pretty one. Rather gay we used to think her. Almost fast! Odd, you’d think if any of them had married it would have been Agnes, but she didn’t. She died not long after the war.”

Poirot murmured: “You said that Mr. Thomas’s marriage was rather unexpected.”

Again Miss Peabody produced that rich, throaty chuckle. “Unexpected? I should say it was! Made a nine days’ scandal. You’d never have thought it of him---such a quiet, timid, retiring man and devoted
to his sisters.”

She paused a minute. “Remember a case that made rather a stir in the late nineties? Mrs. Varley? Supposed to have poisoned her husband with arsenic. Good-looking woman. Made a big do, that case. She was acquitted. Well, Thomas Arundell quite lost his head. Used to get all the papers and read about the case and cut out the photographs of Mrs. Varley. And would you believe it, when the trial was over, off he went to London and asked her to marry him? Thomas! Quiet, stay at home Thomas! Never can tell with men, can you? They’re always liable to break out.”

“And what happened?”

“Oh, she married him all right.”

“It was a great shock to his sisters?”

“I should think so! They wouldn’t receive her. I don’t know that I blame them, all things considered. Thomas was mortally offended. He went off to live in the Channel Islands and nobody heard any more of him. Don’t know whether his wife poisoned her first husband. She didn’t poison Thomas. He survived her by three years. There were two children, boy and girl. Good-looking pair---took after their mother.”

“I suppose they came here to their aunt a good deal?”

“Not till after their parents died. They were at school and almost grown up by then. They used to come for holidays. Emily was alone in the world then and they and Bella Biggs were the only kith and kin she had.”

“Biggs?”

“Arabella’s daughter. Dull girl---some years older than Theresa. Made a fool of herself though. Married some Dago who was over at the University. A Greek doctor. Dreadful-looking man---got rather a charming manner, though, I must admit. Well, I don’t suppose poor Bella had many chances. Spent her time helping her father or holding wool for her mother. This fellow was exotic. It appealed to her.”

“Has it been a happy marriage?”

Miss Peabody snapped out: “I wouldn’t like to say for certain about any marriage! They seem quite
happy. Two rather yellow-looking children. They live in Smyrna.”

“But they are now in England, are they not?”

“Yes, they came over in March. I rather fancy they’ll be going back soon.”

“Was Miss Emily Arundell fond of her niece?”

“Fond of Bella? Oh, quite. She’s a dull woman---wrapped up in her children and that sort of thing.”

“Did she approve of the husband?”

Miss Peabody chuckled.

“She didn’t approve of him, but I think she rather liked the rascal. He’s got brains, you know. If you ask me, he was jockeying her along very nicely. Got a nose for money that man.”

Poirot coughed. “I understand Miss Arundell died a rich woman?” he murmured.

Miss Peabody settled herself more comfortably in her chair.

“Yes, that’s what made all the pother! Nobody dreamed she was quite as well off as she was. How it came about was this way. Old General Arundell left quite a nice little income---divided equally among his son and daughters. Some of it was reinvested, and I think every investment has done well. There were some original shares of Mortauld. Now, of course, Thomas and Arabella took their shares with them when they married. The other three sisters lived here, and they didn’t spend a tenth part of their joint income, it all went back and was reinvested. When Matilda died, she left her money to be divided between Emily and Agnes, and when Agnes died she left hers to Emily. And Emily still went on spending very little. Result, she died a rich woman---and the Lawson woman gets it all!”

Miss Peabody brought out the last sentence as a kind of triumphal climax.

“Did that come as a surprise to you. Miss Peabody?”

“To tell you the truth, it did! Emily had always given out quite openly that at her death her money was to be divided between her nieces and her nephew. And as a matter of fact that was the way it was in the original will. Legacies to the servants and so on and then to be divided between Theresa, Charles and Bella. My goodness, there was a to-do when, after her death, it was found she’d made a new will leaving it all to poor Miss Lawson!”

“Was the will made just before her death?”

Miss Peabody directed a sharp glance at him.

“Thinking of undue influence. No, I’m afraid that’s no use. And I shouldn’t think poor Lawson had the brains or the nerve to attempt anything of the sort. To tell you the truth, she seemed as much surprised as anybody---or said she was!”

Poirot smiled at the addition.

“The will was made about ten days before her death,” went on Miss Peabody. “Lawyer says it’s all right. Well---it may be.”

“You mean---” Poirot leaned forward.

“Hanky-panky, that’s what I say,” said Miss Peabody. “Something fishy somewhere.”

“Just what exactly is your idea?”

“Haven’t got one! How should I know where the hanky-panky comes in? I’m not a lawyer. But there’s something queer about it, mark my words.”

Poirot said, slowly: “Has there been any question of contesting the will?”

“Theresa’s taken counsel’s opinion, I believe. A lot of good that’ll do her! What’s a lawyer’s opinion nine times out of ten? ‘Don’t!’ Five lawyers advised me once against bringing an action. What did I do? Paid no attention. Won my case too. They had me in the witness box and a clever young whippersnapper from London tried to make me contradict myself. But he didn’t manage it. ‘You can hardly identify these furs positively. Miss Peabody,’ he said. ‘There is no furrier’s mark on them.’ “‘That may be,’ I said. ‘But there’s a darn on the lining and if anyone can do a darn like that nowadays I’ll eat my umbrella.’ Collapsed utterly, he did.”

Miss Peabody chuckled heartily.

“I suppose,” said Poirot cautiously, “that---er---feeling—runs rather high between Miss Lawson and members of Miss Arundell’s family?”

“What do you expect? You know what human nature is. Always trouble after a death, anyway. A man or woman is hardly cold in their coffin before most of the mourners are scratching each other’s eyes out.”

Poirot sighed. “Too true.”

“That’s human nature,” said Miss Peabody tolerantly.

Poirot changed to another subject. “Is it true that Miss Arundell dabbled in spiritualism?”

Miss Peabody’s penetrating eye observed him very acutely. “If you think,” she said, “that the spirit of John Arundell came back and ordered Emily to leave her money to Minnie Lawson and that Emily
obeyed, I can tell you that you’re very much mistaken. Emily wouldn’t be that kind of fool. If you ask me, she found spiritualism one degree better than playing patience or cribbage. Seen the Tripps?”

“No.”

“If you had, you’d realize just the sort of silliness it was. Irritating women. Always giving you messages from one or other of your relations---and always totally incongruous ones. They believe it all. So did Minnie Lawson. Oh, well, one way of passing your evenings is as good as another, I suppose.”

Poirot tried yet another tack. “You know young Charles Arundell, I presume? What kind of person is
he?”

“He’s no good. Charmin’ fellow. Always hard up---always in debt---always returning like a bad penny from all over the world. Knows how to get round women all right.” She chuckled. “I’ve seen too many like him to be taken in! Funny son for Thomas to have had, I must say. He was a staid old fogy if you like. Model of rectitude. Ah, well, bad blood somewhere. Mind you, I like the rascal---but he’s the kind who would murder his grandmother for a shilling or two quite cheerfully. No moral sense. Odd the way some people seem to be born without it.”

“And his sister?”

“Theresa?” Miss Peabody shook her head and said slowly: “I don’t know. She’s an exotic creature. Not usual. She’s engaged to that namby-pamby doctor down here. You’ve seen him, perhaps?”

“Dr. Donaldson.”

“Yes. Clever in his profession, they say. But he’s a poor stick in other ways. Not the sort of young man I’d fancy if I were a young girl. Well, Theresa should know her mind. She’s had her experiences. I’ll be bound.”

“Dr. Donaldson did not attend Miss Arundell?”

“He used to when Grainger was away on holiday.”

“But not in her last illness.”

“Don’t think so.”

Poirot said, smiling: “I gather. Miss Peabody, that you don’t think much of him as a doctor?”

“Never said so. As a matter of fact you’re wrong. He’s sharp enough, and clever enough in his way---but it’s not my way. Take an instance. In the old days when a child ate too many green apples it had a bilious attack and the doctor called it a bilious attack and went home and sent you along a few pills from the surgery. Nowadays, you’re told the child suffers from pronounced acidosis, that its diet must be supervised and you get the same medicine, only it’s in nice little white tablets put up by manufacturing
chemists and costs you about three times as much! Donaldson belongs to that school, and mind you, most young mothers prefer it. It sounds better. Not that that young man will be in this place long ministering to measles and bilious attacks. He’s got his eye on London. He’s ambitious. He means to specialize.”

“In any particular line?”

“Serum therapeutics. I think I’ve got it right. The idea being that you get one of these nasty hypodermic needles stuck into you no matter how well you feel, just in case you should catch something. I don’t hold with all these messy injections myself.”

“Is Dr. Donaldson experimenting with any particular disease?”

“Don’t ask me. All I know is a G.P.’s practice isn’t good enough for him. He wants to set up in London. But to do that he’s got to have money and he’s as poor as a church mouse, whatever a church mouse may be.”

Poirot murmured: “Sad that real ability is so often baulked by lack of money. And yet there are people who do not spend a quarter of their incomes.”

“Emily Arundell didn’t,” said Miss Peabody. “It was quite a surprise to some people when that will was read. The amount, I mean, not the way it was left.”

“Was it a surprise, do you think, to the members of her own family?”

“That’s telling,” said Miss Peabody screwing up her eyes with a good deal of enjoyment. “I wouldn’t say yes, and I wouldn’t say no. One of ’em had a pretty shrewd idea.”

“Which one?”

“Master Charles. He’d done a bit of calculation on his own account. He’s no fool, Charles.”

“But a little bit of a rogue, eh?”

“At any rate, he isn’t a namby-pamby stick,” said Miss Peabody viciously.

She paused a minute and then asked: “Going to get in touch with him?”

“That was my intention.” Poirot went on solemnly, “It seems to me possible that he might have certain family papers relating to his grandfather.”

“More likely to have made a bonfire of them. No respect for his elders, that young man.”

“One must try all avenues,” said Poirot sententiously.

“So it seems,” said Miss Peabody drily.

There was a momentary glint in her blue eye that seemed to affect Poirot disagreeably.

He rose. “I must not trespass any longer on your time, madame. I am most grateful for what you have been able to tell me.”

“I’ve done my best,” said Miss Peabody. “Seem to have got rather a long way from the Indian Mutiny, don’t we?”

She shook hands with us both.

“Let me know when the book comes out,” was her parting remark. “I shall be so interested.”

And the last thing we heard as we left the room was a rich, throaty chuckle.

“WELL, Poirot,” I said, as the gate of Littlegreen House closed behind us. “You are satisfied now, I hope!”

“Yes, my friend. I am satisfied.”

“Thank heavens for that! All the mysteries explained! The Wicked Companion and the Rich Old Lady myth exploded. The delayed letter and even the famous incident of the dog’s ball shown in their true colours.
Everything settled satisfactorily and according to Cocker!”

Poirot gave a dry little cough and said: “I would not use the word satisfactorily, Hastings.”

“You did a minute ago.”

“No, no. I did not say the matter was satisfactory. I said that, personally, my curiosity was satisfied. I know the truth of the Dog’s Ball incident.”

“And very simple it was too!”

“Not quite so simple as you think.” He nodded his head several times. Then he went on: “You see, I know one little thing which you do not.”

“And what is that?” I asked somewhat sceptically.

“I know that there is a nail driven into the skirting board at the top of the stairs.”

I stared at him. His face was quite grave.

“Well,” I said after a minute or two. “Why shouldn’t there be?”

“The question is, Hastings, why should there be.”

“How do I know. Some household reason, perhaps. Does it matter?”

“Certainly it matters. And I think of no household reason for a nail to be driven in at the top of the skirting board in that particular place. It was carefully varnished, too, so as not to show.”

“What are you driving at, Poirot? Do you know the reason?”

“I can imagine it quite easily. If you wanted to stretch a piece of strong thread or wire across the top of the stairs about a foot from the ground, you could tie it on one side to the balusters, but on the inner wall side you would need something like a nail to attach the thread to.”

“Poirot!” I cried. “What on earth are you driving at?”

“Mon cher ami, I am reconstructing the incident of the Dog’s Ball! Would you like to hear my reconstruction?”

“Go ahead.”

“Eh bien, here it is. Someone had noticed the habit Bob had of leaving his ball at the top of the stairs. A dangerous thing to do---it might lead to an accident.” Poirot paused a minute, then said in a slightly different tone. “If you wished to kill someone, Hastings, how would you set about it?”

“I---well really---I don’t know. Fake up some alibi or something, I suppose.”

“A proceeding, I assure you, both difficult and dangerous. But then you are not the type of a cold-blooded cautious murderer. Does it not strike you that the easiest way of removing someone you want to remove from your path is to take advantage of accident? Accidents are happening all the time. And sometimes---Hastings---they can be helped to happen!”

He paused a minute then went on: “I think the dog’s ball left so fortuitously at the top of the stairs gave our murderer an idea. Miss Arundell was in the habit of coming out of her room in the night and wandering about---her eyesight was not good, it was quite within the bounds of probability that she might stumble over it and fall headlong down those stairs. But a careful murderer does not leave things to chance. A thread stretched across the top of the stairs would be a much better way. It would send her pitching head foremost. Then, when the household come rushing out---there, plain to see, is the cause of the accident---Bob’s ball!”

“How horrible!” I cried.

Poirot said, gravely: “Yes, it was horrible . . . It was also unsuccessful . . . Miss Arundell was very little hurt though she might easily have broken her neck. Very disappointing for our unknown friend! But Miss Arundell was a sharp-witted old lady. Everyone told her she had slipped on the ball, and there the ball was in evidence, but she herself recalling the happening felt that the accident had arisen differently. She had not slipped on the ball. And in addition she remembered something else. She remembered hearing Bob barking for admission at five o’clock the next morning.

“This, I admit, is something in the way of guesswork but I believe I am right. Miss Arundell had put away Bob’s ball herself the evening before in its drawer. After that he went out and did not return. In that case it was not Bob who put that ball on the top of the stairs.”

“That is pure guesswork, Poirot,” I objected.

He demurred. “Not quite, my friend. There are the significant words uttered by Miss Arundell when she was delirious---something about Bob’s ball and a ‘picture ajar.’ You see the point, do you not?”

“Not in the least.”

“Curious. I know your language well enough to realize that one does not talk of a picture being ajar. A door is ajar. A picture is awry.”

“Or simply crooked.”

“Or simply crooked, as you say. Sol realized at once that Ellen has mistaken the meaning of the words she heard. It is not ajar---but a or the jar that was meant. Now in the drawing room there is a rather noticeable china jar. There, I have already observed a picture of a dog on it. With the remembrance of these delirious ravings in my mind I go up and examine it more closely. I find that it deals with the subject of a dog who has been out all night. You see the trend of the feverish woman’s thoughts? Bob was like the dog in the picture on the jar---out all night---so it was not he who left the ball on the stairs.”

I cried out, feeling some admiration in spite of myself. “You’re an ingenious devil, Poirot! How you think of these things beats me!”

“I do not ‘think of them.’ They are there---plain---for anyone to see. Eh bien, you realize the position? Miss Arundell, lying in bed after her fall, becomes suspicious. That suspicion she feels is perhaps fanciful and absurd but there it is. ‘Since the incident of the dog’s ball I have been increasingly
uneasy.’ And so---and so she writes to me, and by a piece of bad luck her letter does not reach me until over two months have gone by. Tell me, does her letter not fit in perfectly with these facts?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “It does.”

Poirot went on: “There is another point worthy of consideration. Miss Lawson was exceedingly anxious that the fact of Bob’s being out all night should not get to Miss Arundell’s ears.”

“You think that she----”

“I think that the fact should be noted very carefully.”

I turned the thing over in my mind for a minute or two.

“Well,” I said at last with a sigh. “It’s all very interesting---as a mental exercise that is. And I take off my hat to you. It’s been a masterful piece of reconstruction. It’s almost a pity really that the old lady has died.”

“A pity---yes. She wrote to me that someone had attempted to murder her (that is what it amounts to, after all) and a very short time after, she was dead.”

“Yes,” I said. “And it’s a grand disappointment to you that she died a natural death, isn’t it? Come, admit it.”

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

“Or perhaps you think she was poisoned,” I said maliciously. Poirot shook his head somewhat despondently.

“It certainly seems,” he admitted, “as though Miss Arundell died from natural causes.”

“And therefore,” I said, “we return to London with our tail between our legs.”

“Pardon, my friend, but we do not return to London.”

“What do you mean, Poirot,” I cried.

“If you show the dog the rabbit, my friend, does he return to London? No, he goes into the rabbit hole.”

“What do you mean?”

“The dog hunts rabbits. Hercule Poirot hunts murderers. We have here a murderer---a murderer whose crime failed, yes, perhaps, but nevertheless a murderer. And I, my friend, am going into the burrow after him---or her as the case may be.”

He turned sharply in at the gate.

“Where are you off to, Poirot?”

“Into the burrow, my friend. This is the house of Dr. Grainger who attended Miss Arundell in her last illness.”

+++

Dr. Grainger was a man of sixty odd. His face was thin and bony with an aggressive chin, bushy eyebrows, and a pair of very shrewd eyes. He looked keenly from me to Poirot.

“Well, what can I do for you?” he asked abruptly.

Poirot swept into speech in the most flamboyant manner. “I must apologize. Dr. Grainger, for this intrusion. I must confess straightaway that I do not come to consult you professionally.”

Dr. Grainger said drily: “Glad to hear it. You look healthy enough!”

“I must explain the purpose of my visit,” went on Poirot. “The truth of the matter is that I am writing a book---the life of the late General Arundell who I understand lived in Market Basing for some years before his death.”

The doctor looked rather surprised.

“Yes, General Arundell lived here till his death. At Littlegreen House---just up the road past the Bank---you’ve been there, perhaps?” Poirot nodded assent. “But you understand that was a good bit before my time. I came here in 1919.”

“You knew his daughter, however, the late Miss Arundell?”

“I knew Emily Arundell well.”

“You comprehend, it has been a severe blow to me to find that Miss Arundell has recently died.”

“End of April.”

“So I discovered. I counted, you see, on her giving me various personal details and reminiscences of her father.”

“Quite---quite. But I don’t see what I can do about it.”

Poirot asked: “General Arundell has no other sons or daughters living?”

“No. All dead, the lot of them.”

“How many were there?”

“Five. Four daughters, one son.”

“And in the next generation?”

“Charles Arundell and his sister Theresa. You could get onto them. I doubt, though, if it would be much use to you. The younger generation doesn’t take much interest in its grandfathers. And there’s a Mrs. Tanios, but I doubt if you’d get much there either.”

“They might have family papers---documents?”

“They might have. Doubt it, though. A lot of stuff was cleared out and burnt after Miss Emily’s death, I know.”

Poirot uttered a groan of anguish.

Grainger looked at him curiously.

“What’s the interest in old Arundell? I never heard he was a big pot in any way?”

“My dear sir.” Poirot’s eyes gleamed with the excitement of the fanatic. “Is there not a saying that History knows nothing of its greatest men? Recently certain papers have come to light which throw an entirely different light on the whole subject of the Indian Mutiny. There is a secret history there. And in that secret history John Arundell played a big part. The whole thing is fascinating---fascinating! And let me tell you, my dear sir, it is of especial interest at the present time. India---the English policy in regard to it
---is the burning question of the hour.”

“H’m,” said the doctor. “I have heard that old General Arundell used to hold forth a good deal on the subject of the Mutiny. As a matter of fact, he was considered a prize bore on the subject.”

“Who told you that?”

“A Miss Peabody. You might call on her, by the way. She’s our oldest inhabitant---knew the Arundells intimately. And gossip is her chief recreation. She’s worth seeing for her own sake---a character.”

“Thank you. That is an excellent idea. Perhaps, too, you would give me the address of young Mr. Arundell, the grandson of the late General Arundell.”

“Charles? Yes, I can put you onto him. But he’s an irreverent young devil. Family history means nothing to him.”

“He is quite young?”

“He’s what an old fogy like me calls young,” said the doctor with a twinkle. “Early thirties. The kind of young man that’s born to be a trouble and responsibility to their families. Charm of personality and nothing else. He’s been shipped about all over the world and done no good anywhere.”

“His aunt was doubtless fond of him?” ventured Poirot. “It is often that way.”

“H’m---I don’t know. Emily Arundell was no fool. As far as I know he never succeeded in getting any money out of her. Bit of a tartar that old lady. I liked her. Respected her too. An old soldier every inch of her.”

“Was her death sudden?”

“Yes, in a way. Mind you, she’d been in poor health for some years. But she’d pulled through some narrow squeaks.”

“There was some story---I apologize for repeating gossip---” Poirot spread out his hands deprecatingly---“that she had quarrelled with her family?”

“She didn’t exactly quarrel with them,” said Dr. Grainger slowly. “No, there was no open quarrel as far as I know.”

“I beg your pardon. I am, perhaps, being indiscreet.”

“No, no. After all, the information’s public property.”

“She left her money away from her family, I understand?”

“Yes, left it all to a frightened, fluttering hen of a companion. Odd thing to do. Can’t understand it myself. Not like her.”

“Ah, well,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “One can imagine such a thing happening. An old lady, frail and in ill health. Very dependent on the person who attends and cares for her. A clever woman with a certain amount of personality could gain a great ascendency that way.”

The word ascendency seemed to act like a red rag to a bull.

Dr. Grainger snorted out: “Ascendency? Ascendency? Nothing of the kind! Emily Arundell treated Minnie Lawson worse than a dog. Characteristic of that generation! Anyway, women who earn their living as companions are usually fools. If they’ve got brains they’re earning a better living some other way. Emily
Arundell didn’t suffer fools gladly. She usually wore out one poor devil a year. Ascendency? Nothing of the sort!”

Poirot hastened off the treacherous ground.

“It is possible, perhaps,” he suggested, “that there are old family letters and documents in this Miss---er---Lawson’s possession?”

“Might be,” agreed Grainger. “Usually are a lot of things tucked away in an old maid’s house. I don’t suppose Miss Lawson’s been through half of it yet.”

Poirot rose. “Thank you very much. Dr. Grainger. You have been most kind.”

“Don’t thank me,” said the doctor. “Sorry I can’t do anything helpful. Miss Peabody’s your best chance. Lives at Morton Manor---about a mile out.”

Poirot was sniffing at a large bouquet of roses on the doctor’s table. “Delicious,” he murmured.

“Yes, I suppose so. Can’t smell ’em myself. Lost my sense of smell when I had flu four years ago. Nice admission for a doctor, eh? ‘Physician, heal thyself.’ Damned nuisance. Can’t enjoy a smoke as I used to.”

“Unfortunate, yes. By the way, you will give me young Arundell’s address?”

“I can get it for you, yes.” He ushered us out into the hall and called: “Donaldson.”

“My partner,” he explained. “He should have it all right. He’s by way of being engaged to Charles’s sister, Theresa.”

He called again: “Donaldson.”

A young man came out from a room at the back of the house. He was of medium height and of rather colourless appearance. His manner was precise. A greater contrast to Dr. Grainger could not be imagined. 
The latter explained what he wanted.

Dr. Donaldson’s eyes, very pale blue eyes slightly prominent, swept over us appraisingly. When he spoke it was in a dry, precise manner. “I don’t know exactly where Charles is to be found,” he said. “I can give you Miss Theresa Arundell’s address. Doubtless she will be able to put you in touch with her brother.”

Poirot assured him that that would do perfectly.

The doctor wrote down an address on a page of his notebook, tore it out and handed it to Poirot. Poirot thanked him and said good-bye to both doctors. As we went out of the door I was conscious of Dr. Donaldson standing in the hall peering after us with a slightly startled look on his face.

ON leaving the churchyard, Poirot led the way briskly in the direction of Littlegreen House. I gathered that his role was still that of the prospective purchaser. Carefully holding the various orders to view in his hand, with the Littlegreen House one uppermost, he pushed open the gate and walked up the path to the front door.

On this occasion our friend the terrier was not to be seen, but the sound of barking could be heard inside the house, though at some distance---I guessed in the kitchen quarters.

Presently we heard footsteps crossing the hall and the door was opened by a pleasant-faced woman of between fifty and sixty, clearly the old-fashioned type of servant seldom seen nowadays.

Poirot presented his credentials.

“Yes, sir, the house agent telephoned. Will you step this way, sir?”

The shutters which I had noticed were closed on our first visit to spy out the land, were now all thrown open in preparation for our visit. Everything, I observed, was spotlessly clean and well kept. Clearly our guide was a thoroughly conscientious woman.

“This is the morning room, sir.”

I glanced round approvingly. A pleasant room with its long windows giving on the street. It was furnished with good, solid, old-fashioned furniture, mostly Victorian, but there was a Chippendale bookcase and a set of attractive Hepplewhite chairs.

Poirot and I behaved in the customary fashion of people being shown over houses. We stood stock-still, looking a little ill at ease, murmuring remarks such as “very nice.” “A very pleasant room.” “The morning room, you say?”

The maid conducted us across the hall and into the corresponding room on the other side. This was much larger.

“The dining room, sir.”

This room was definitely Victorian. A heavy mahogany dining table, a massive sideboard of almost purplish mahogany with great clusters of carved fruit, solid leather-covered dining room chairs. On the wall hung what were obviously family portraits.

The terrier had continued to bark in some sequestered spot. Now the sound suddenly increased in volume. With a crescendo of barking he could be heard galloping across the hall.

“Who’s come into the house? I’ll tear him limb from limb,” was clearly the “burden of his song.”

He arrived in the doorway, sniffing violently.

“Oh, Bob, you naughty dog,” exclaimed our conductress. “Don’t mind him, sir. He won’t do you no harm.”

Bob, indeed, having discovered the intruders, completely changed his manner. He fussed in and introduced himself to us in an agreeable manner.

“Pleased to meet you. I’m sure,” he observed as he sniffed round our ankles. “Excuse the noise, won’t you, but I have my job to do. Got to be careful who we let in, you know. But it’s a dull life and I’m really quite pleased to see a visitor. Dogs of your own, I fancy?”

This last was addressed to me as I stooped and patted him.

“Nice little fellow,” I said to the woman. “Needs plucking a bit, though.”

“Yes, sir, he’s usually plucked three times a year.”

“Is he an old dog?”

“Oh, no, sir. Bob’s not more than six. And sometimes he behaves just like a puppy. Gets hold of cook’s slippers and prances about with them. And he’s very gentle though you wouldn’t believe it to hear the noise he makes sometimes. The only person he goes for is the postman. Downright scared of him the postman is.”

Bob was now investigating the legs of Poirot’s trousers. Having learned all he could he gave vent to a prolonged sniff (“H’m, not too bad, but not really a doggy person”) and returned to me cocking his head on one side and looking at me expectantly.

“I don’t know why dogs always go for postmen, I’m sure,” continued our guide.

“It’s a matter of reasoning,” said Poirot. “The dog, he argues from reason. He is intelligent, he makes his deductions according to his point of view. There are people who may enter a house and there are people who may not---that a dog soon learns. Eh bien, who is the person who most persistently tries to gain admission, rattling on the door twice or three times a day---and who is never by any chance admitted? The postman. Clearly, then, an undesirable guest from the point of view of the master of the house. He is always sent about his business, but he persistently returns and tries again. Then a dog’s duty is clear, to aid in driving this undesirable man away, and to bite him if possible. A most reasonable proceeding.”

He beamed on Bob.

“And a most intelligent person, I fancy.”

“Oh, he is, sir. He’s almost human, Bob is.”

She flung open another door.

“The drawing room, sir.”

The drawing room conjured up memories of the past. A faint fragrance of potpourri hung about it. The chintzes were worn, their pattern faded garlands of roses. On the walls were prints and water-colour drawings. There was a good deal of china---fragile shepherds and shepherdesses. There were cushions worked in crewel stitch. There were faded photographs in handsome silver frames. There were many inlaid workboxes and tea caddies. Most fascinating of all to me were two exquisitely cut tissue paper ladies under glass stands. One with a spinning wheel, one with a cat on her knee.

The atmosphere of a bygone day, a day of leisure, of refinement, of “ladies and gentlemen” closed round me. This was indeed a “withdrawing room.” Here ladies sat and did their fancywork, and if a cigarette was ever smoked by a favoured member of the male sex, what a shaking out of curtains and general airing of the room there would be afterwards!

My attention was drawn by Bob. He was sitting in an attitude of rapt attention close beside an elegant little table with two drawers in it.

As he saw that I was noticing him, he gave a short, plaintive yelp, looking from me to the table.

“What does he want?” I asked.

Our interest in Bob was clearly pleasing to the maid, who obviously was very fond of him.

“It’s his ball, sir. It was always kept in that drawer. That’s why he sits there and asks.”

Her voice changed. She addressed Bob in a high falsetto. “It isn’t there any longer, beautiful. Bob’s ball is in the kitchen. In the kitchen, Bobsie.”

Bob shifted his gaze impatiently to Poirot. “This woman’s a fool,” he seemed to be saying. “You look a brainy sort of chap. Balls are kept in certain places---this drawer is one of those places. There always has been a ball here. Therefore there should be a ball there now. That’s obvious dog logic, isn’t it?”

“It’s not there now, boy,” I said.

He looked at me doubtfully. Then, as we went out of the room he followed slowly in an unconvinced manner.

We were shown various cupboards, a downstairs cloakroom, and a small pantry place, “where the mistress used to do the flowers, sir.”

“You were with your mistress a long time?” asked Poirot.

“Twenty-two years, sir.”

“You are alone here caretaking?”

“Me and cook, sir.”

“She was also a long time with Miss Arundell?”

“Four years, sir. The old cook died.”

“Supposing I were to buy the house, would you be prepared to stay on?”

She blushed a little. “It’s very kind of you, sir. I’m sure, but I’m going to retire from service. The mistress left me a nice little sum, you see, and I’m going to my brother. I’m only remaining here as a convenience to Miss Lawson until the place is sold---to look after everything.”

Poirot nodded.

In the momentary silence a new sound was heard.

“Bump, bump, BUMP.”

A monotonous sound increasing in volume and seeming to descend from above.

“It’s Bob, sir.” She was smiling. “He’s got hold of his ball and he’s bumping it down the stairs. It’s a little game of his.”

As we reached the bottom of the stairs a black rubber ball arrived with a thud on the last step. I caught it and looked up. Bob was lying on the top step, his paws splayed out, his tail gently wagging. I threw it up to him. He caught it neatly, chewed it for a minute or two with evident relish, then laid it between his paws and gently edged it forward with his nose till he finally bunted it over and it bumped once more down the stairs, Bob wagging his tail furiously as he watched its progress.

“He’ll stay like that for hours, sir. Regular game of his. He’d go on all day at it. That’ll do now, Bob. The gentlemen have got something else to do than play with you.”

A dog is a great promoter of friendly intercourse. Our interest and liking for Bob had quite broken down the natural stiffness of the good servant. As we went up to the bedroom floors, our guide was talking quite garrulously as she gave us accounts of Bob’s wonderful sagacity. The ball had been left at the foot of the stairs. As we passed him, Bob gave us a look of deep disgust and stalked down in a dignified fashion to retrieve it. As we turned to the right I saw him slowly coming up again with it in his mouth, his gait that of an extremely old man forced by unthinking persons to exert himself unduly.

As we went round the bedrooms, Poirot began gradually to draw our conductress out.

“There were four Miss Arundells lived here, did they not?” he asked.

“Originally, yes, sir, but that was before my time. There was only Miss Agnes and Miss Emily when I came and Miss Agnes died soon afterwards. She was the youngest of the family. It seemed odd she should go before her sister.”

“I suppose she was not so strong as her sister?”

“No, sir, it’s odd that. My Miss Arundell, Miss Emily, she was always the delicate one. She’d had a lot to do with doctors all her life. Miss Agnes was always strong and robust and yet she went first and Miss Emily who’d been delicate from a child outlived all the family. Very odd the way things happen.”

“Astonishing how often that is the case.”

Poirot plunged into (I feel sure) a wholly mendacious story of an invalid uncle which I will not trouble to repeat here. It suffices to say that it had its effect. Discussions of death and such matters do more to unlock the human tongue than any other subject. Poirot was in a position to ask questions that would have been regarded with suspicious hostility twenty minutes earlier.

“Was Miss Arundell’s illness a long and painful one?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that, sir. She’d been ailing, if you know what I mean, for a long time---ever since two winters before. Very bad she was then---this here jaundice. Yellow in the face they go and the whites of their eyes----”

“Ah, yes, indeed----” (Anecdote of Poirot’s cousin who appeared to have been the Yellow Peril in person.)

“That’s right---just as you say, sir. Terribly ill she was, poor dear. Couldn’t keep anything down. If you ask me. Dr. Grainger hardly thought she’d pull through. But he’d a wonderful way with her---bullying, you
know. ‘Made up your mind to lie back and order your tombstone?’ he’d say. And she’d say, ’I’ve a bit of fight in me still, doctor,’ and he’d say, ‘That’s right---that’s what I like to hear.’ A hospital nurse we had, and she made up her mind that it was all over---even said to the doctor once that she supposed she’d better not worry the old lady too much by forcing her to take food---but the doctor rounded on her. ‘Nonsense,’ he said, ‘Worry her? You’ve got to bully her into taking nourishment.’ Valentine’s beef juice at
such and such a time. Brand’s essence---teaspoonfuls of brandy. And at the end he said something that I’ve never forgotten. ‘You’re young, my girl,’ he said to her, ‘you don’t realize what fine fighting material there is in age. It’s young people who turn up their toes and die because they’re not interested enough to live. You show me anyone who’s lived to over seventy and you show me a fighter---someone who’s got the will to live.’ And it’s true, sir---we’re always saying how wonderful old people are---their vitality and the way they’ve kept their faculties---but as the doctor put it that’s just why they’ve lived so long and got to be so old.”

“But it is profound what you say there---very profound! And Miss Arundell was like that? Very alive. Very interested in life?”

“Oh, yes, indeed, sir. Her health was poor, but her brain was as keen as anything. And as I was saying, she got over that illness of hers---surprised the nurse, it did. A stuck-up young thing she was, all starched collars and cuffs and the waiting on she had to have and tea at all hours.”

“A fine recovery.”

“Yes, indeed, sir. Of course, the mistress had to be very careful as to diet at first, everything boiled and steamed, no grease in the cooking, and she wasn’t allowed to eat eggs either. Very monotonous it was for her.”

“Still the main thing is she got well.”

“Yes, sir. Of course, she had her little turns. What I’d call bilious attacks. She wasn’t always very careful about her food after a time---but still they weren’t very serious until the last attack.”

“Was it like her illness of two years before?”

“Yes, just the same sort of thing, sir. That nasty jaundice---an awful yellow colour again---and the terrible sickness and all the rest of it. Brought it on herself I’m afraid she did, poor dear. Ate a lot of things she shouldn’t have done. That very evening she was took bad she’d had curry for supper
and as you know, sir, curry’s rich and a bit oily.”

“Her illness came on suddenly, did it?”

“Well, it seemed so, sir, but Dr. Grainger he said it had been working up for some time. A chill---the weather had been very changeable---and too rich feeding.”

“Surely her companion---Miss Lawson was her companion was she not---could have dissuaded her from rich dishes?”

“Oh, I don’t think Miss Lawson would have much say. Miss Arundell wasn’t one to take orders from anyone.”

“Had Miss Lawson been with her during her previous illness?”

“No, she came after that. She’d been with her about a year.”

“I suppose she’d had companions before that?”

“Oh, quite a number, sir.”

“Her companions didn’t stay as long as her servants,” said Poirot, smiling.

The woman flushed.

“Well, you see, sir, it was different. Miss Arundell didn’t get out much and what with one thing and another----” she paused.

Poirot eyed her for a minute then he said: “I understand a little the mentality of elderly ladies. They crave, do they not, for novelty. They get, perhaps, to the end of a person.”

“Well, now, that’s very clever of you, sir. You’ve hit it exactly. When a new lady came Miss Arundell was always interested to start with---about her life and her childhood and where she’d been and what she thought about things, and then, when she knew all about her, well, she’d get---well, I suppose bored is the real word.”

“Exactly. And between you and me, these ladies who go as companions, they are not usually very interesting---very amusing, eh?”

“No, indeed, sir. They’re poor-spirited creatures, most of them. Downright foolish, now and then. Miss Arundell soon got through with them, so to speak. And then she’d make a change and have someone else.”

“She must have been unusually attached to Miss Lawson, though.”

“Oh, I don’t think so, sir.”

“Miss Lawson was not in any way a remarkable woman?”

“I shouldn’t have said so, sir. Quite an ordinary person.”

“You liked her, yes?”

The woman shrugged her shoulders slightly.

“There wasn’t anything to like or dislike. Fussy she was---a regular old maid and full of this nonsense about spirits.”

“Spirits?” Poirot looked alert.

“Yes, sir, spirits. Sitting in the dark round a table and dead people came back and spoke to you. Downright irreligious I call it---as if we didn’t know departed souls had their rightful place and aren’t likely to leave it.”

“So Miss Lawson was a spiritualist! Was Miss Arundell a believer too?”

“Miss Lawson would have liked her to be!” snapped the other. There was a spice of satisfied malice in her tone.

“But she wasn’t?” Poirot persisted.

“The mistress had too much sense.” She snorted. “Mind you, I don’t say it didn’t amuse her. ‘I’m willing to be convinced,’ she’d say. But she’d often look at Miss Lawson as much as to say, ‘My poor dear, what a fool you are to be so taken in!’ ”

“I comprehend. She did not believe in it, but it was a source of amusement to her.”

“That’s right, sir. I sometimes wondered if she didn’t---well have a bit of quiet fun, so to speak, pushing the table and that sort of thing. And the others all as serious as death.”

“The others?”

“Miss Lawson and the two Miss Tripps.”

“Miss Lawson was a very convinced spiritualist?”

“Took it all for gospel, sir.”

“And Miss Arundell was very attached to Miss Lawson, of course.”

It was the second time Poirot had made this certain remark and he got the same response.

“Well, hardly that, sir.”

“But surely,” said Poirot. “If she left her everything. She did, did she not?”

The change was immediate. The human being vanished. The correct maidservant returned. The woman drew herself up and said in a colourless voice that held reproof for familiarity in it: “The way the mistress left her money is hardly my business, sir.”

I felt that Poirot had bungled the job. Having got the woman in a friendly mood, he was now proceeding to throw away his advantage. He was wise enough to make no immediate attempt to recover lost ground. After a commonplace remark about the size and number of the bedrooms he went towards the head of the stairs.

Bob had disappeared, but as I came to the stairhead, I stumbled and nearly fell. Catching at the baluster to steady myself I looked down and saw that I had inadvertently placed my foot on Bob’s ball which he had left lying on the top of the stairs.

The woman apologized quickly.

“I’m sorry, sir. It’s Bob’s fault. He leaves his ball there. And you can’t see it against the dark carpet. Death of someone some day it’ll be. The poor mistress had a nasty fall through it. Might easily have been the death of her.”

Poirot stopped suddenly on the stairs.

“She had an accident you say?”

“Yes, sir. Bob left his ball there, as he often did, and the mistress came
out of her room and fell over it and went right down the stairs. Might have
been killed.”

“Was she much hurt?”

“Not as much as you’d think. Very lucky she was, Dr. Grainger said.

Cut her head a little, and strained her back, and of course there were bruises and it was a nasty shock. She was in bed for about a week, but it wasn’t serious.”

“Was this long ago?”

“Just a week or two before she died.”

Poirot stooped to recover something he had dropped.

“Pardon---my fountain pen---ah, yes, there it is.”

He stood up again. “He is careless, this Master Bob,” he observed.

“Ah well, he don’t know no better, sir,” said the woman in an indulgent voice. “Nearly human he may be, but you can’t have everything. The mistress, you see, usedn’t to sleep well at night and often she’d get up and wander downstairs and round and about the house.”

“She did that often?”

“Most nights. But she wouldn’t have Miss Lawson or anyone fussing after her.”

Poirot had turned into the drawing room again. “A beautiful room this,” he observed. “I wonder, would there be space in this recess for my bookcase? What do you think, Hastings?”

Quite fogged I remarked cautiously that it would be difficult to say.

“Yes, sizes are so deceptive. Take, I pray you, my little rule and measure the width of it and I will write it down.”

Obediently I took the folding rule that Poirot handed me and took various measurements under his direction whilst he wrote on the back of an envelope.

I was just wondering why he adopted such an untidy and uncharacteristic method instead of making a neat entry in his little pocketbook when he handed the envelope to me, saying: “That is right, is it not? Perhaps you had better verify it.”

There were no figures on the envelope. Instead was written: “When we go upstairs again, pretend to remember an appointment and ask if you can telephone. Let the woman come with you and delay her as long as you can.”

“That’s all right,” I said, pocketing the envelope. “I should say both bookcases would go in perfectly.”

“It is as well to be sure though. I think, if it is not too much trouble, I would like to look at the principal bedroom again. I am not quite sure of the wall space there.”

“Certainly, sir. It’s no trouble.”

We went up again. Poirot measured a portion of wall, and was just commenting aloud on the respective possible positions of bed, wardrobe and writing table, when I looked at my watch, gave a somewhat
exaggerated start and exclaimed: “By Jove, do you know it’s three o’clock already? What will Anderson
think? I ought to telephone to him.” I turned to the woman. “I wonder if I might use your telephone if you have one.”

“Why, certainly, sir. It’s in the little room off the hall. I’ll show you.”

She bustled down with me, indicating the instrument, and then I got her to help me in finding a number in the telephone directory. In the end I made a cal---to a Mr. Anderson in the neighbouring town of Harchester. Fortunately he was out and I was able to leave a message saying it was unimportant and that I would ring up later!

When I emerged Poirot had descended the staircase and was standing in the hall. His eyes had a slightly green tinge. I had no clue to his excitement but I realized that he was excited.

Poirot said: “That fall from the top of the stairs must have given your mistress a great shock. Did she seem perturbed about Bob and his ball after it?”

“It’s funny your saying that, sir. It worried her a lot. Why, just as she was dying, she was delirious and she rambled on a lot about Bob and his ball and something about a picture that was ajar.”

“A picture that was ajar,” said Poirot thoughtfully.

“Of course, it didn’t make sense, sir, but she was rambling, you see.”

“One moment---I must just go into the drawing room once more.”

He wandered round the room examining the ornaments. In especial, one big jar with a lid on it seemed to attract him. It was not, I fancy, a particularly good bit of china. A piece of Victorian humour---it had on it a rather crude picture of a bulldog sitting outside a front door with a mournful expression on its face. Below was written: Out all night and no key.

Poirot, whose taste I have always been convinced, is hopelessly Bourgeois, seemed lost in admiration.

“Out all night and no key,” he murmured. “It is amusing, that! Is that true of our Master Bob? Does he sometimes stay out all night?”

“Very occasional, sir. Oh, very occasional. He’s a very good dog. Bob is.”

“I am sure he is. But even the best of dogs----”

“Oh, it’s quite true, sir. Once or twice he’s gone off and come home perhaps at four in the morning. Then he sits down on the step and barks till he’s let in.”

“Who lets him in---Miss Lawson?”

“Well, anyone who hears him, sir. It was Miss Lawson, sir, last time. It was the night of the mistress’s accident. And Bob came home about five. Miss Lawson hurried down to let him in before he could make a noise. She was afraid of waking up the mistress and hadn’t told her Bob was missing for fear of worrying her.”

“I see. She thought it was better Miss Arundell shouldn’t be told?”

“That’s what she said, sir. She said, ‘He’s sure to come back. He always does, but she might worry and that would never do.’ So we didn’t say anything.”

“Was Bob fond of Miss Lawson?”

“Well, he was rather contemptuous of her if you know what I mean, sir. Dogs can be. She was kind to him. Called him a good doggie and a nice doggie, but he used to look at her kind of scornful like and he didn’t pay any attention at all to what she told him to do.”

Poirot nodded. “I see,” he said.

Suddenly he did something which startled me.

He pulled a letter from his pocket---the letter he had received this morning.

“Ellen,” he said, “do you know anything about this?”

The change that came over Ellen’s face was remarkable. Her jaw dropped and she stared at Poirot with an almost comical expression of bewilderment.

“Well,” she ejaculated. “I never did!”

The observation lacked coherency, perhaps, but it left no doubt of Ellen’s meaning.

Gathering her wits about her she said slowly: “Are you the gentleman that letter was written to then?”

“I am. I am Hercule Poirot.”

Like most people, Ellen had not glanced at the name on the order Poirot had held out to her on his arrival. She nodded her head slowly.

“That was it,” she said. “Hercules Poirot.” She added an S to the Christian name and sounded the T of the surname.

“My word!” she exclaimed. “Cook will be surprised.”

Poirot said, quickly: “Would it not be advisable, perhaps, for us to go to the kitchen and there,
in company with your friend, we could talk this matter over?”

“Well---if you don’t mind, sir.”

Ellen sounded just a little doubtful. This particular social dilemma was clearly new to her. But Poirot’s matter-of-fact manner reassured her and we departed forthwith to the kitchen, Ellen elucidating the situation to a large, pleasant-faced woman who was just lifting a kettle from a gas ring.

“You’ll never believe it, Annie. This is actually the gentleman that letter was to. You know, the one I found in the blotter.”

“You must remember I am in the dark,” said Poirot. “Perhaps you will tell me how the letter came to be posted so late in the day?”

“Well, sir, to tell the truth I didn’t know what to do. Neither of us did, did we?”

“Indeed, we didn’t,” the cook confirmed.

“You see, sir, when Miss Lawson was turning out things after the mistress’s death a good lot of things were given away or thrown away. Among them was a little papier-mache, I think they call it, blotter. Very pretty it was, with a lily of the valley on it. The mistress always used it when she wrote in bed. Well, Miss Lawson didn’t want it so she gave it to me along with a lot of other little odds and ends that had belonged to the mistress. I put it away in a drawer, and it wasn’t till yesterday that I took it out. I was going to put some new blotting paper in it so that it was ready for me to use. There was a sort of pocket inside and I just slipped my hand in it when what should I find but a letter in the mistress’s handwriting, tucked away.

“Well, as I say I didn’t know rightly what to do about it. It was the mistress’s hand all right, and I saw as she’d written it and slipped it in there waiting to post it the next day and then she’d forgot, which is the kind of thing she did many a time, poor dear. Once it was a dividend warrant to her bank and no one could think where it had got to, and at last it was found pushed right back in the pigeonholes of the desk.”

“Was she untidy?”

“Oh, no, sir, just the opposite. She was always putting things away and clearing them up. That was half the trouble. If she’d left things about it would really have been better. It was their being tidied away and then forgotten that was always happening.”

“Things like Bob’s ball, for instance?” asked Poirot with a smile.

The sagacious terrier had just trotted in from outdoors and greeted us anew in a very friendly manner.

“Yes, indeed, sir. As soon as Bob finished playing with his ball she’d put it away. But that was all right because it had its own place---in the drawer I showed you.”

“I see. But I interrupted you. Pray go on. You discovered the letter in the blotter?”

“Yes, sir, that was the way of it, and I asked Annie what she thought I’d better do. I didn’t like to put it in the fire---and of course, I couldn’t take upon myself to open it, and neither Annie nor I could see that it was any business of Miss Lawson’s so after we’d talked it over a bit, I just put a stamp on it and ran out to the postbox and posted it.”

Poirot turned slightly to me.

“Voila,” he murmured.

I could not help saying, maliciously: “Amazing how simple an explanation can be!”

I thought he looked a little crestfallen, and rather wished I hadn’t been so quick to try and rub it in.

He turned again to Ellen. “As my friend says: How simple an explanation can be! You understand, when I received a letter dated over two months ago, I was somewhat surprised.”

“Yes, I suppose you must have been, sir. We didn’t think of that.”

“Also---” Poirot coughed. “I am in a little dilemma. That letter, you see---it was a commission with which Miss Arundell wished to entrust me. A matter of a somewhat private character.” He cleared his throat importantly. “Now that Miss Arundell is dead I am in some doubt how to act. Would Miss Arundell have wished me to undertake the commission in these circumstances or not? It is difficult---very difficult.”

Both women were looking at him respectfully.

“I shall have, I think, to consult Miss Arundell’s lawyer. She had a lawyer, did she not?”

Ellen answered, quickly. “Oh, yes, sir. Mr. Purvis from Harchester.”

“He knew all her affairs?”

“I think so, sir. He’s done everything for her ever since I can remember. It was him she sent for after the fall she had.”

“The fall down the stairs?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now let me see when was that exactly?”

The cook broke in.

“Day after Bank Holiday it was. I remember that well. I stayed in to oblige on Bank Holiday seeing she had all those people staying and I had the day on Wednesday instead.”

Poirot whipped out his pocket almanac. “Precisely---precisely. Easter Bank Holiday, I see, fell on the thirteenth this year. Then Miss Arundell had her accident on the fourteenth. This letter to me was written three days later. A pity it was never sent. However, it may still not be too late----” he paused. “I rather fancy that the---er---commission she wished me to perform was connected with one of the---er---guests you mentioned just now.”

This remark, which could only have been a pure shot in the dark, met with immediate response. A quick look of intelligence passed across Ellen’s face. She turned to the cook who gave her back an answering glance.

“That’ll be Mr. Charles,” she said.

“If you would tell me just who was there----” Poirot suggested.

“Dr. Tanios and his wife. Miss Bella that was, and Miss Theresa and Mr. Charles.”

“They were all nephews and nieces?”

“That’s right, sir. Dr. Tanios, of course, is no relation. In fact he’s a foreigner, a Greek or something of the sort, I believe. He married Miss Bella, Miss Arundell’s niece, her sister’s child. Mr. Charles and Miss
Theresa are brother and sister.”

“Ah, yes, I see. A family party. And when did they leave?”

“On the Wednesday morning, sir. And Dr. Tanios and Miss Bella came down again the next weekend because they were worried about Miss Arundell.”

“And Mr. Charles and Miss Theresa?”

“They came the weekend after. The weekend before she died.”

Poirot’s curiosity, I felt, was quite insatiable. I could see no point in these continued questions. He'd got the explanation of his mystery, and in my opinion the sooner he retired with dignity the better.

The thought seemed to go from my brain to his.

“Eh bien,” he said. “This information you have given me is very helpful. I must consult this Mr. Purvis, I think you said? Thank you very much for all your help.”

He stooped and patted Bob.

“Brave chien, va! You loved your mistress.”

Bob responded amiably to these overtures and, hopeful of a little play, went and fetched a large piece of coal. For this he was reproved and the coal removed from him. He sent me a glance in search of sympathy.

“These women,” he seemed to say. “Generous with the food, but not really sportsmen!”

AS we emerged into the market square, I remarked that Mr. Gabler lived up to his name! Poirot assented with a smile.

“He’ll be rather disappointed when you don’t return,” I said. “I think he feels he has as good as sold you that house already.”

“Indeed, yes, I fear there is a deception in store for him.”

“I suppose we might as well have lunch here before returning to London, or shall we lunch at some more likely spot on our way back?”

“My dear Hastings, I am not proposing to leave Market Basing so quickly. We have not yet accomplished that which we came to do.”

I stared.

“Do you mean---but, my dear fellow, that’s all a washout. The old lady is dead.”

“Exactly.”

The tone of that one word made me stare at him harder than ever. It was evident that he had some bee in his bonnet over this incoherent letter.

“But if she’s dead, Poirot,” I said gently, “what’s the use? She can’t tell you anything now. Whatever the trouble was, it’s over and finished with.”

“How lightly and easily you put the matter aside! Let me tell you that no matter is finished with until Hercule Poirot ceases to concern himself with it!”

I should have known from experience that to argue with Poirot is quite useless. Unwarily I proceeded.

“But since she is dead----”

“Exactly, Hastings. Exactly---exactly---exactly . . . You keep repeating the significant point with a magnificently obtuse disregard of its significance. Do you not see the importance of the point? Miss Arundell is dead.”

“But my dear Poirot, her death was perfectly natural and ordinary! There wasn’t anything odd or unexplained about it. We have old Gabler’s word for that.”

“We have his word that Littlegreen House is a bargain at £2,850. Do you accept that as gospel also?”

“No, indeed. It struck me that Gabler was all out to get the place sold---it probably needs modernizing from top to toe. I’d swear he---or rather his client---will be willing to accept a very much lower figure than that. These large Georgian houses fronting right on the street must be the devil to get rid of.”

“Eh bien, then,” said Poirot. “Do not say, ‘But Gabler says so!’ as though he were an inspired prophet who could not lie.”

I was about to protest further, but at this minute we passed the threshold of the George and with an emphatic “Chut!” Poirot put a damper on further conversation.

We were directed to the coffee room, a room of fine proportions, tightly shut windows and an odour of stale food. An elderly waiter attended to us, a slow, heavy-breathing man. We appeared to be the only lunchers. We had some excellent mutton, large slabs of watery cabbage and some dispirited potatoes. Some rather tasteless stewed fruit and custard followed. After gorgonzola and biscuits the waiter brought us two cups of a doubtful fluid called coffee.

At this point Poirot produced his orders to view and invited the waiter’s aid.

“Yes, sir. I know where most of these are. Hemel Down is three miles away---on the Much Benham road---quite a little place. Naylor’s Farm is about a mile away. There’s a kind of lane goes off to it not long after the King’s Head. Bisset Grange? No, I’ve never heard of that. Littlegreen House is just close by, not more than a few minutes’ walk.”

“Ah, I think I have already seen it from the outside. That is the most possible one, I think. It is in good repair---yes?”

“Oh, yes, sir. It’s in good condition---roof and drains and all that. Old-fashioned, of course. It’s never been modernized in any way. The gardens are a picture. Very fond of her garden Miss Arundell was.”

“It belongs, I see, to a Miss Lawson.”

“That’s right, sir. Miss Lawson, she was Miss Arundell’s companion and when the old lady died everything was left to her---house and all.”

“Indeed? I suppose she had no relations to whom to leave it?”

“Well, it was not quite like that, sir. She had nieces and nephews living. But, of course. Miss Lawson was with her all the time. And, of course, she was an old lady and---well---that’s how it was.”

“In any case I suppose there was just the house and not much money?”

I have often had occasion to notice how, where a direct question would fail to elicit a response, a false assumption brings instant information in the form of a contradiction.

“Very far from that, sir. Very far indeed. Everyone was surprised at the amount the old lady left. The will was in the paper and the amount and everything. It seems she hadn’t lived up to her income for many a long year. Something like three or four hundred thousand pounds she left.”

“You astonish me,” cried Poirot. “It is like a fairy tale---eh? The poor companion suddenly becomes unbelievably wealthy. Is she still young, this Miss Lawson? Can she enjoy her newfound wealth?”

“Oh, no, sir, she’s a middle-aged person, sir.”

His enunciation of the word person was quite an artistic performance. It was clear that Miss Lawson, ex-companion, had cut no kind of a figure in Market Basing.

“It must have been disappointing for the nephews and nieces,” mused Poirot.

“Yes, sir, I believe it came as somewhat of a shock to them. Very unexpected. There’s been feeling over it here in Market Basing. There are those who hold it isn’t right to leave things away from your own flesh and blood. But, of course, there’s others as hold that everyone’s got a right to do as they like with their own. There’s something to be said for both points of view, of course.”

“Miss Arundell had lived for many years here, had she not?”

“Yes, sir. She and her sisters and old General Arundell, their father, before them. Not that I remember him, naturally, but I believe he was quite a character. Was in the Indian Mutiny.”

“There were several daughters?”

“Three of them that I remember, and I believe there was one that married. Yes, Miss Matilda, Miss Agnes, and Miss Emily. Miss Matilda, she died first, and then Miss Agnes, and finally Miss Emily.”

“That was quite recently?”

“Beginning of May---or it may have been the end of April.”

“Had she been ill some time?”

“On and off---on and off. She was on the sickly side. Nearly went off a year ago with that there jaundice. Yellow as an orange she was for sometime after. Yes, she’d had poor health for the last five years of her
life.”

“I suppose you have some good doctors down here?”

“Well, there’s Dr. Grainger. Been here close on forty years, he has, and folks mostly go to him. He’s a bit crotchety and he has his fancies but he’s a good doctor, none better. He’s got a young partner. Dr. Donaldson. He’s more the newfangled kind. Some folk prefer him. Then, of course, there’s Dr. Harding, but he doesn’t do much.”

“Dr. Grainger was Miss Arundell’s doctor, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes. He’s pulled her through many a bad turn. He’s the kind that fair bullies you into living whether you want to or not.”

Poirot nodded.

“One should learn a little about a place before one comes to settle in it,” he remarked. “A good doctor is one of the most important people.”

“That’s very true, sir.”

Poirot then asked for his bill to which he added a substantial tip.

“Thank you, sir. Thank you very much, sir. I’m sure I hope you’ll settle here, sir.”

“I hope so, too,” said Poirot mendaciously.

We set forth from the George.

“Satisfied yet, Poirot?” I asked as we emerged into the street.

“Not in the least, my friend.”

He turned in an unexpected direction.

“Where are you off to now, Poirot?”

“The church, my friend. It may be interesting. Some brasses---an old monument.” I shook my head doubtfully.

Poirot’s scrutiny of the interior of the church was brief. Though an attractive specimen of what the guidebook calls Early Perp., it had been so conscientiously restored in Victorian vandal days that little of interest remained.

Poirot next wandered seemingly aimlessly about the churchyard reading some of the epitaphs, commenting on the number of deaths in certain families, occasionally exclaiming over the quaintness of a name.

I was not surprised, however, when he finally halted before what I was pretty sure had been his objective from the beginning. An imposing marble slab bore a partly effaced inscription:

SACRED
TO THE MEMORY OF
JOHN LAVERTON ARUNDELL
GENERAL 24TH SIKHS
WHO FELL ASLEEP IN CHRIST MAY 19TH 1888
AGED 69
“FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT WITH ALL THY MIGHT”

ALSO OF
MATILDA ANN ARUNDELL
DIED MARCH 10TH 1912
“I WILL ARISE AND GO TO MY FATHER”

ALSO OF
AGNES GEORGINA MARY ARUNDELL
DIED NOVEMBER 20TH 1921
“ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE”

Then came a brand new piece of lettering, evidently just done:

ALSO OF
EMILY HARRIET LAVERTON ARUNDELL DIED MAY 1ST 1936
“THY WILL BE DONE”

Poirot stood looking for some time.

He murmured softly:

“May 1st . . . May 1st . . . And today, June 28th, I receive her letter. You see, do you not, Hastings, that that fact has got to be explained?”

I saw that it had.

That is to say, I saw that Poirot was determined that it should be explained.

I DON’T know what Poirot felt like in his coat and muffler but I myself felt roasted before we got out of London. An open car in traffic is far from being a refreshing place on a hot summer’s day.

Once we were outside London, however, and getting a bit of pace on the Great West Road my spirits rose.

Our drive took us about an hour and a half, and it was close upon twelve o’clock when we came into the little town of Market Basing. Originally on the main road, a modern bypass now left it some three miles to the north of the main stream of traffic and in consequence it had kept an air of old-fashioned dignity and quietude about it. Its one wide street and ample market square seemed to say, “I was a place of importance once and to any person of sense and breeding I am still the same. Let this modern speeding world dash along their newfangled road; I was built to endure in a day when solidarity and beauty went hand in hand.”

There was a parking area in the middle of the big square, though there were only a few cars occupying it. I duly parked the Austin, Poirot divested himself of his superfluous garments, assured himself that his moustaches were in their proper condition of symmetrical flamboyance and we were then ready to proceed.

For once in a way our first tentative inquiry did not meet with the usual response, “Sorry, but I’m a stranger in these parts.” It would seem indeed probable that there were no strangers in Market Basing! It had that effect! Already, I felt, Poirot and myself (and especially Poirot) were somewhat noticeable. We tended to stick out from the mellow background of an English market town secure in its traditions.

“Littlegreen House?” The man, a burly, ox-eyed fellow, looked us over thoughtfully. “You go straight up the High Street and you can’t miss it. On your left. There’s no name on the gate, but it’s the first big house after the bank.” He repeated again, “You can’t miss it.”

His eyes followed us as we started on our course.

“Dear me,” I complained. “There is something about this place that makes me feel extremely conspicuous. As for you, Poirot, you look positively exotic.”

“You think it is noticed that I am a foreigner---yes?”

“The fact cries aloud to heaven,” I assured him.

“And yet my clothes are made by an English tailor,” mused Poirot.

“Clothes are not everything,” I said. “It cannot be denied, Poirot, that you have a noticeable personality. I have often wondered that it has not hindered you in your career.”

Poirot sighed.

“That is because you have the mistaken idea implanted in your head that a detective is necessarily a man who puts on a false beard and hides behind a pillar! The false beard, it is vieux jeu, and shadowing is only done by the lowest branch of my profession. The Hercule Poirots, my friend, need only to sit back in a chair and think.”

“Which explains why we are walking along this exceedingly hot street on an exceedingly hot morning.”

“That is very neatly replied, Hastings. For once, I admit, you have made the score off me.”

We found Littlegreen House easily enough, but a shock awaited us---a house agent’s board.

As we were staring at it, a dog’s bark attracted my attention.

The bushes were thin at that point and the dog could be easily seen. He was a wirehaired terrier, somewhat shaggy as to coat. His feet were planted wide apart, slightly to one side, and he barked with an obvious enjoyment of his own performance that showed him to be actuated by the most amiable
motives.

“Good watchdog, aren’t I?” he seemed to be saying. “Don’t mind me! This is just my fun! My duty too, of course. Just have to let ’em know there’s a dog about the place! Deadly dull morning. Quite a blessing to have something to do. Coming into our place? Hope so. It’s darned dull. I could do with a little conversation.”

“Hallo, old man,” I said and shoved forward a fist.

Craning his neck through the railings he sniffed suspiciously, then gently wagged his tail, uttering a few short staccato barks.

“Not been properly introduced, of course, have to keep this up! But I see you know the proper advances to make.”

“Good old boy,” I said.

“Wuff,” said the terrier amiably.

“Well, Poirot?” I said, desisting from this conversation and turning to my friend.

There was an odd expression on his face---one that I could not quite fathom. A kind of deliberately suppressed excitement seems to describe it best.

“The Incident of the Dog’s Ball,” he murmured. “Well, at least, we have here a dog.”

“Wuff,” observed our new friend. Then he sat down, yawned widely and looked at us hopefully.

“What next?” I asked.

The dog seemed to be asking the same question.

“Parbleu, to Messrs---what is it---Messrs Gabler and Stretcher.”

“That does seem indicated,” I agreed.

We turned and retraced our steps, our canine acquaintance sending a few disgusted barks after us.

The premises of Messrs Gabler and Stretcher were situated in the Market Square. We entered a dim outer office where we were received by a young woman with adenoids and a lacklustre eye.

“Good morning,” said Poirot politely.

The young woman was at the moment speaking into a telephone but she indicated a chair and Poirot sat down. I found another and brought it forward.

“I couldn’t say, I’m sure,” said the young woman into the telephone vacantly. “No, I don’t know what the rates would be . . . Pardon? Oh, main water, I think, but, of course, I couldn’t be certain . . . I’m very sorry, I’m sure . . . No, he’s out . . . No, I couldn’t say . . . Yes, of course I’ll ask him . . . Yes . . . 8135? I’m afraid I haven’t quite got it. Oh . . . 8935 . . . 39 . . . Oh, 5135 . . . Yes, I’ll ask him to ring you . . . after six . . . Oh, pardon, before six . . . Thank you so much.”

She replaced the receiver, scribbled 5319 on the blotting pad and turned a mildly inquiring but uninterested gaze on Poirot.

Poirot began briskly.

“I observe that there is a house to be sold just on the outskirts of this town. Littlegreen House, I think is the name.”

“Pardon?”

“A house to be let or sold,” said Poirot slowly and distinctly. “Littlegreen House.”

“Oh, Littlegreen House,” said the young woman vaguely. “Littlegreen House, did you say?”

“That is what I said.”

“Littlegreen House,” said the young woman, making a tremendous mental effort. “Oh, well, I expect Mr. Gabler would know about that.”

“Can I see Mr. Gabler?”

“He’s out,” said the young woman with a kind of faint, anaemic satisfaction as of one who says, “A point to me.”

“Do you know when he will be in?”

“I couldn’t say. I’m sure,” said the young woman.

“You comprehend, I am looking for a house in this neighbourhood,” said Poirot.

“Oh, yes,” said the young woman, uninterested.

“And Littlegreen House seems to me just what I am looking for. Can you give me particulars?”

“Particulars?” The young woman seemed startled.

“Particulars of Littlegreen House.”

Unwillingly she opened a drawer and took out an untidy file of papers.

Then she called, “John.”

A lanky youth sitting in a corner looked up. “Yes, miss.”

“Have we got any particulars of---what did you say?”

“Littlegreen House,” said Poirot distinctly.

“You’ve got a large bill of it here,” I remarked, pointing to the wall.

She looked at me coldly. Two to one, she seemed to think, was an unfair way of playing the game. She called up her own reinforcements.

“You don’t know anything about Littlegreen House, do you, John?”

“No, miss. Should be in the file.”

“I’m sorry,” said the young woman without looking so in the least. “I rather fancy we must have sent all the particulars out.”

“C’est dommage.”

“Pardon?”

“A pity.”

“We’ve a nice bungalow at Hemel End, two bed., one sitt.”

She spoke without enthusiasm, but with the air of one willing to do her duty by her employer.

“I thank you, no.”

“And a semidetached with small conservatory. I could give you particulars of that.”

“No, thank you. I desired to know what rent you were asking for Littlegreen House.”

“It’s not to be rented,” said the young woman, abandoning her position of complete ignorance of anything to do with Littlegreen House in the pleasure of scoring a point. “Only to be sold outright.”

“The board says, To be Let or Sold.’”

“I couldn’t say as to that, but it’s for sale only.”

At this stage in the battle the door opened and a grey-haired, middle-aged man entered with a rush. His eye, a militant one, swept over us with a gleam. His eyebrows asked a question of his employee.

“This is Mr. Gabler,” said the young woman.

Mr. Gabler opened the door of an inner sanctum with a flourish.

“Step in here, gentlemen.” He ushered us in, an ample gesture swept us into chairs and he himself was facing us across a flat-topped desk.

“And now what can I do for you?”

Poirot began again perseveringly.

“I desired a few particulars of Littlegreen House----”

He got no further. Mr. Gabler took command. “Ah! Littlegreen House---there’s a property! An absolute bargain. Only just come into the market. I can tell you gentlemen, we don’t often get a house of that class going at the price. Taste’s swinging round. People are fed up with jerry-building. They want sound stuff. Good, honest building. A beautiful property---character---feeling---Georgian throughout. That’s what people want nowadays---there’s a feeling for period houses if you understand what I mean. Ah, yes, Littlegreen House won’t be long in the market. It’ll be snapped up. Snapped up! A member of parliament came to look at it only last Saturday. Liked it so much he’s coming down again this weekend. And there’s a stock exchange gentleman after it too. People want quiet nowadays when they come to the country, want to be well away from main roads. That’s all very well for some people, but we attract class here. And that’s what that house has got. Class! You’ve got to admit, they knew how to build for gentlemen in those days. Yes, we shan’t have Littlegreen long on our books.”

Mr. Gabler, who, it occurred to me, lived up to his name very happily, paused for breath.

“Has it changed hands often in the last few years?” inquired Poirot.

“On the contrary. Been in one family over fifty years. Name of Arundell. Very much respected in the town. Ladies of the old school.”

He shot up, opened the door and called: “Particulars of Littlegreen House, Miss Jenkins. Quickly now.”

He returned to the desk.

“I require a house about this distance from London,” said Poirot. “In the country, but not in the dead country, if you understand me----”

“Perfectly---perfectly. Too much in the country doesn’t do. Servants don’t like it for one thing. Here, you have the advantages of the country but not the disadvantages.” Miss Jenkins flitted in with a typewritten sheet of paper which she placed in front of her employer who dismissed her with a nod.

“Here we are,” said Mr. Gabler, reading with practised rapidity. “Period House of character: four recep., eight bed and dressing, usual offices, commodious kitchen premises, ample outbuildings, stables, etc. Main water, old-world gardens, inexpensive upkeep, amounting in all to three acres, two summerhouses, etc., etc. Price £2,850 or near offer.”

“You can give me an order to view?”

“Certainly, my dear sir.” Mr. Gabler began writing in a flourishing fashion. “Your name and address?”

Slightly to my surprise, Poirot gave his name as Mr. Parotti.

“We have one or two other properties on our books which might interest you,” Mr. Gabler went on.

Poirot allowed him to add two further additions.

“Littlegreen House can be viewed anytime?” he inquired.

“Certainly, my dear sir. There are servants in residence. I might perhaps ring up to make certain. You will be going there immediately? Or after lunch?”

“Perhaps after lunch would be better.”

“Certainly---certainly. I’ll ring up and tell them to expect you about two o’clock---eh? Is that right?”

“Thank you. Did you say the owner of the house---a Miss Arundell, I think you said?”

“Lawson. Miss Lawson. That is the name of the present owner. Miss Arundell, I am sorry to say, died a short time ago. That is how the place has come into the market. And I can assure you it will be snapped up. Not a doubt of it. Between you and me, just in confidence, if you do think of making an offer I should make it quickly. As I’ve told you, there are two gentlemen after it already, and I shouldn’t be surprised to get an offer for it any day from one or other of them. Each of them knows the other’s after it, you see. And there’s no doubt that competition spurs a man on. Ha, ha! I shouldn’t like you to be disappointed.”

“Miss Lawson is anxious to sell, I gather.”

Mr. Gabler lowered his voice confidentially. “That’s just it. The place is larger than she wants---one middle-aged lady living by herself. She wants to get rid of this and take a house in London. Quite understandable. That’s why the place is going so ridiculously cheap.”

“She would be open, perhaps, to an offer?”

“That’s the idea, sir. Make an offer and set the ball rolling. But you can take it from me that there will be no difficulty in getting a price very near the figure named. Why, it’s ridiculous! To build a house like that nowadays would cost every penny of six thousand, let alone the land value and the valuable frontages.”

“Miss Arundell died very suddenly, didn’t she?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Anno domini—anno domini. She had passed her threescore and ten some time ago. And she’d been ailing for a long time. The last of her family---you know something about the family, perhaps?”

“I know some people of the same name who have relations in this part of the world. I fancy it must be the same family.”

“Very likely. Four sisters there were. One married fairly late in life and the other three lived on here. Ladies of the old school. Miss Emily was the last of them. Very highly thought of in the town.”

He leant forward and handed Poirot the orders.

“You’ll drop in again and let me know what you think of it, eh? Of course, it may need a little modernizing here and there. That’s only to be expected. But I always say, ‘What’s a bathroom or two? That’s easily
done.’”

We took our leave and the last thing we heard was the vacant voice of Miss Jenkins saying: “Mrs. Samuels rang up, sir. She’d like you to ring her---Holland 5391.”

As far as I could remember that was neither the number Miss Jenkins had scribbled on her pad nor the number finally arrived at through the telephone.

I felt convinced that Miss Jenkins was having her revenge for having been forced to find the particulars of Littlegreen House.

THE events which I have just narrated were not, of course, known to me until a long time afterwards. But by questioning various members of the family in detail, I have, I think, set them down accurately enough.

Poirot and I were drawn into the affair only when we received Miss Arundell’s letter.

I remember the day well. It was a hot, airless morning towards the end of June.

Poirot had a particular routine when opening his morning correspondence. He picked up each letter, scrutinized it carefully and neatly slit the envelope open with his paper cutter. Its contents were perused and then placed in one of four piles beyond the chocolate pot. (Poirot always drank chocolate for breakfast---a revolting habit.) All this with a machinelike regularity!

So much was this the case that the least interruption of the rhythm attracted one’s attention.

I was sitting by the window, looking out at the passing traffic. I had
recently returned from Argentina and there was something particularly
exciting to me in being once more in the roar of London.

Turning my head, I said with a smile: “Poirot, I---the humble Watson---am going to hazard a deduction.”

“Enchanted, my friend. What is it?”

I struck an attitude and said pompously: “You have received this morning one letter of particular interest!”

“You are indeed the Sherlock Holmes! Yes, you are perfectly right.”

I laughed.

“You see, I know your methods, Poirot. If you read a letter through twice it must mean that it is of special interest.”

“You shall judge for yourself, Hastings.”

With a smile my friend tendered me the letter in question.

I took it with no little interest, but immediately made a slight grimace. It was written in one of those old-fashioned spidery handwritings, and it was, moreover, crossed on two pages.

“Must I read this, Poirot?” I complained.

“Ah, no, there is no compulsion. Assuredly not.”

“Can’t you tell me what it says?”

“I would prefer you to form your own judgement. But do not trouble if it bores you.”

“No, no, I want to know what it’s all about,” I protested.

My friend remarked drily: “You can hardly do that. In effect, the letter says nothing at all.”

Taking this as an exaggeration I plunged without more ado into the letter.

M. Hercule Poirot
Dear Sir,

After much doubt and indecision, I am writing (the last word was crossed out and the letter went on) I am emboldened to write to you in the hope that you may be able to assist me in a matter of a strictly
private nature. (The words strictly private were underlined three times.) I may say that your name is not unknown to me. It was mentioned to me by a Miss Fox of Exeter, and although Miss Fox was not herself
acquainted with you, she mentioned that her brother-in-law’s sister (whose name I cannot, I am sorry to say, recall) had spoken of your kindness and discretion in the highest terms (highest terms underlined
once). I did not inquire, of course, as to the nature (nature underlined) of the inquiry you had conducted on her behalf, but I understood from Miss Fox that it was of a painful and confidential nature (last four
words underlined heavily).

I broke off my difficult task of spelling out the spidery words.

“Poirot,” I said. “Must I go on? Does she ever get to the point?”

“Continue, my friend. Patience.”

“Patience!” I grumbled. “It’s exactly as though a spider had got into an inkpot and was walking over a sheet of notepaper! I remember my Great-Aunt Mary’s writing used to be much the same!”

Once more I plunged into the epistle.

In my present dilemma, it occurs to me that you might undertake the necessary investigations on my behalf. The matter is such, as you will readily understand, as calls for the utmost discretion and I may,
in fact---and I need hardly say how sincerely I hope and pray (pray underlined twice) that this may be the case---I may, in fact, be completely mistaken. One is apt sometimes to attribute too much significance to facts capable of a natural explanation.

“I haven’t left out a sheet?” I murmured in some perplexity.

Poirot chuckled. “No, no.”

“Because this doesn’t seem to make sense. What is it she is talking
about?”

“Continuez toujours.”

“The matter is such, as you will readily understand---No, I’d got past that. Oh! here we are. In the circumstances as I am sure you will be the first to appreciate, it is quite impossible for me to consult anyone in Market Basing (I glanced back at the heading of the letter. Littlegreen House, Market Basing, Berks), but at the same time you will naturally understand that I feel uneasy (uneasy underlined). During the last few days I have reproached myself with being unduly fanciful (fanciful underlined three times) but have only felt increasingly perturbed. I may be attaching undue importance to what is, after all, a trifle (trifle underlined twice) but my uneasiness remains. I feel definitely that my mind must be set at rest on the matter. It is actually preying on my mind and affecting my health, and naturally I am in a difficult position as I can say nothing to anyone (nothing to anyone underlined with heavy lines). In your wisdom you may say, of course, that the whole thing is nothing but a mare's nest. The facts may be capable of a perfectly innocent explanation (innocent underlined). Nevertheless, however trivial it may seem, ever since the incident of the dog's ball, I have felt increasingly doubtful and alarmed. I should therefore welcome your views and counsel on the matter. It would, I feel sure, take a great weight off my mind. Perhaps you would kindly let me know what your fees are and what you advise me to do in the matter?

I must impress on you again that nobody here knows anything at all. The facts are, I know, very trivial and unimportant, but my health is not too good and my nerves (nerves underlined three times) are not what they used to be. Worry of this kind, I am convinced, is very bad for me, and the more I think over the matter, the more I am convinced that I was quite right and no mistake was possible. Of course, I shall not dream of saying anything (underlined) to anyone (underlined).

Hoping to have your advice in the matter at an early date.
I remain, Yours faithfully,
Emily Arundell. ”

I turned the letter over and scanned each page closely. “But, Poirot,” I expostulated, “what is it all about?”

My friend shrugged his shoulders.

“What indeed?”

I tapped the sheets with some impatience.

“What a woman! Why can’t Mrs.---or Miss Arundell----”

“Miss, I think. It is typically the letter of a spinster.”

“Yes,” I said. “A real, fussy old maid. Why can’t she say what she’s talking about?”

Poirot sighed. “As you say---a regrettable failure to employ order and method in the mental processes, and without order and method, Hastings----”

“Quite so,” I interrupted hastily. “Little grey cells practically nonexistent.”

“I would not say that, my friend.”

“I would. What’s the sense of writing a letter like that?”

“Very little---that is true,” Poirot admitted.

“A long rigmarole all about nothing,” I went on. “Probably some upset to her fat lapdog---an asthmatic pug or a yapping Pekinese!” I looked at my friend curiously. “And yet you read that letter through twice. I do not understand you, Poirot.”

Poirot smiled. “You, Hastings, you would have put it straight in the wastepaper basket?”

“I’m afraid I should.” I frowned down on the letter. “I suppose I’m being dense, as usual, but I can’t see anything of interest in this letter!”

“Yet there is one point in it of great interest---a point that struck me at once.”

“Wait,” I cried. “Don’t tell me. Let me see if I can’t discover it for myself.”

It was childish of me, perhaps. I examined the letter very thoroughly. Then I shook my head. “No, I don’t see it. The old lady’s got the wind up, I realize that---but then, old ladies often do! It may be about nothing---it may conceivably be about something, but I don’t see that you can tell that that is so. Unless your instinct----”

Poirot raised an offended hand.

“Instinct! You know how I dislike that word. ‘Something seems to tell me’---that is what you infer. Jamais de la vie! Me, I reason. I employ the little grey cells. There is one interesting point about that letter which you have overlooked utterly, Hastings.”

“Oh, well,” I said wearily. “I’ll buy it.”

“Buy it? Buy what?”

“An expression. Meaning that I will permit you to enjoy yourself by telling me just where I have been a fool.”

“Not a fool, Hastings, merely unobservant.”

“Well, out with it. What’s the interesting point? I suppose, like the ‘incident of the dog’s ball,’ the point is that there is no interesting point!”

Poirot disregarded this sally on my part. He said quietly and calmly: “The interesting point is the date.”

“The date?”

I picked up the letter. On the top left-hand corner was written April 17th.

“Yes,” I said slowly. “That is odd. April 17th.”

“And we are today June 28th. C’est curieux, n’est ce pas? Over two months ago.”

I shook my head doubtfully.

“It probably doesn’t mean anything. A slip. She meant to put June and
wrote April instead.”

“Even then it would be ten or eleven days old---an odd fact. But actually you are in error. Look at the colour of the ink. That letter was written more than ten or eleven days ago. No, April 17th is the date
assuredly. But why was the letter not sent?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“That’s easy. The old pussy changed her mind.”

“Then why did she not destroy the letter? Why keep it over two months and post it now?”

I had to admit that that was harder to answer. In fact I couldn’t think of a really satisfactory answer. I merely shook my head and said nothing.

Poirot nodded. “You see---it is a point! Yes, decidedly a curious point.”

“You are answering the letter?” I asked.

“Oui, mon ami.”

The room was silent except for the scratching of Poirot’s pen. It was a hot, airless morning. A smell of dust and tar came in through the window.

Poirot rose from his desk, the completed letter in his hand. He opened a drawer and drew out a little square box. From this he took out a stamp. Moistening this with a little sponge he prepared to affix it to the letter.

Then suddenly he paused, stamp in hand, shaking his head with vigour.

“Non!” he exclaimed. “That is the wrong thing I do.” He tore the letter across and threw it into the wastepaper basket.

“Not so must we tackle this matter! We will go, my friend.”

“You mean to go down to Market Basing?”

“Precisely. Why not? Does not one stifle in London today? Would not the country air be agreeable?”

“Well, if you put it like that,” I said. “Shall we go in the car?”

I had acquired a secondhand Austin.

“Excellent. A very pleasant day for motoring. One will hardly need the muffler. A light overcoat, a silk scarf----”

“My dear fellow, you’re not going to the North Pole!” I protested.

“One must be careful of catching the chill,” said Poirot sententiously.

“On a day like this?”

Disregarding my protests, Poirot proceeded to don a fawn-coloured overcoat and wrap his neck up with a white silk handkerchief. Having carefully placed the wetted stamp face downwards on the blotting paper to dry, we left the room together.

IT was Friday.

The relations had left.

They left on the Wednesday as originally planned. One and all, they had offered to stay on. One and all they had been steadfastly refused. Miss Arundell explained that she preferred to be “quite quiet.”

During the two days that had elapsed since their departure, Emily Arundell had been alarmingly meditative. Often she did not hear what Minnie Lawson said to her. She would stare at her and curtly order her to begin all over again.

“It’s the shock, poor dear,” said Miss Lawson.

And she added with the kind of gloomy relish in disaster which brightens so many otherwise drab lives: “I daresay she’ll never be quite herself again.”

Dr. Grainger, on the other hand, rallied her heartily. He told her that she’d be downstairs again by the end of the week, that it was a positive disgrace she had no bones broken, and what kind of patient was she for a struggling medical man? If all his patients were like her, he might as well take down his plate straight away.

Emily Arundell replied with spirit---she and old Dr. Grainger were allies of long-standing. He bullied and she defied---they always got a good deal of pleasure out of each other’s company!

But now, after the doctor had stumped away, the old lady lay with a frown on her face, thinking---thinking---responding absentmindedly to Minnie Lawson’s well-meant fussing---and then suddenly coming back to consciousness and rending her with a vitriolic tongue.

“Poor little Bobsie,” twittered Miss Lawson, bending over Bob who had a rug spread on the corner of his mistress’s bed. “Wouldn’t little Bobsie be unhappy if he knew what he’d done to his poor, poor Missus?”

Miss Arundell snapped: “Don’t be idiotic, Minnie. And where’s your English sense of justice? Don’t you know that everyone in this country is accounted innocent until he or she is proved guilty?”

“Oh, but we do know----”

Emily snapped: “We don’t know anything at all. Do stop fidgeting, Minnie. Pulling this and pulling that. Haven’t you any idea how to behave in a sickroom? Go away and send Ellen to me.”

Meekly Miss Lawson crept away.

Emily Arundell looked after her with a slight feeling of self-reproach. Maddening as Minnie was, she did her best.

Then the frown settled down again on her face.

She was desperately unhappy. She had all a vigorous strong-minded old lady’s dislike of inaction in any given situation. But in this particular situation she could not decide upon her line of action.

There were moments when she distrusted her own faculties, her own memory of events. And there was no one, absolutely no one in whom she could confide.

Half an hour later, when Miss Lawson tiptoed creakingly into the room, carrying a cup of beef tea, and then paused irresolute at the view of her employer lying with closed eyes, Emily Arundell suddenly spoke two words with such force and decision that Miss Lawson nearly dropped the cup.

“Mary Fox,” said Miss Arundell.

“A box, dear?” said Miss Lawson. “Did you say you wanted a box?”

“You’re getting deaf, Minnie. I didn’t say anything about a box. I said Mary Fox. The woman I met at Cheltenham last year. She was the sister of one of the Canons of Exeter Cathedral. Give me that cup. You’ve spilt it into the saucer. And don’t tiptoe when you come into a room. You don’t know how irritating it is. Now go downstairs and get me the London telephone book.”

“Can I find the number for you, dear? Or the address?”

“If I’d wanted you to do that I’d have told you so. Do what I tell you. Bring it here, and put my writing things by the bed.”

Miss Lawson obeyed orders.

As she was going out of the room after having done everything required of her, Emily Arundell said unexpectedly: “You’re a good, faithful creature, Minnie. Don’t mind my bark. It’s a good deal worse than my bite. You’re very patient and good to me.”

Miss Lawson went out of the room with her face pink and incoherent words burbling from her lips.

Sitting up in bed. Miss Arundell wrote a letter. She wrote it slowly and carefully, with numerous pauses for thought and copious underlining. She crossed and recrossed the page---for she had been brought up in a school that was taught never to waste notepaper. Finally, with a sigh of satisfaction, she signed her name and put it into an envelope. She wrote a name upon the envelope. Then she took a fresh sheet of paper. This time she made a rough draft and after having reread it and made certain alterations and erasures, she wrote out a fair copy. She read the whole thing through very carefully, then satisfied that she had expressed her meaning she enclosed it in an envelope and addressed it to William Purvis, Esq., Messrs Purvis, Purvis, Charlesworth and Purvis, Solicitors, Harchester.

She took up the first envelope again, which was addressed to M. Hercule Poirot, and opened the telephone directory. Having found the address she added it.

A tap sounded at the door.

Miss Arundell hastily thrust the letter she had just finished addressing---the letter to Hercule Poirot---inside the flap of her writing case.

She had no intention of rousing Minnie’s curiosity. Minnie was a great deal too inquisitive.

She called “Come in” and lay back on her pillows with a sigh of relief.

She had taken steps to deal with the situation.

IT was Tuesday afternoon. The side door to the garden was open. Miss Arundell stood on the threshold and threw Bob’s ball the length of the garden path. The terrier rushed after it.

“Just once more, Bob,” said Emily Arundell. “A good one.”

Once again the ball sped along the ground with Bob racing at full speed in pursuit.

Miss Arundell stooped down, picked up the ball from where Bob laid it at her feet and went into the house. Bob followed her closely. She shut the side door, went into the drawing room. Bob still at her heels, and put the ball away in the drawer.

She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was half past six.

“A little rest before dinner, I think, Bob.”

She ascended the stairs to her bedroom. Bob accompanied her. Lying on the big chintz-covered couch with Bob at her feet. Miss Arundell sighed. She was glad that it was Tuesday and that her guests would be going tomorrow. It was not that this weekend had disclosed anything to her that she had not known before. It was more the fact that it had not permitted her to forget her own knowledge.

She said to herself: “I’m getting old, I suppose . . .” And then, with a little shock of surprise: “I am old. . . .”

She lay with her eyes closed for half an hour, then the elderly house-parlourmaid, Ellen, brought hot water and she rose and prepared for dinner.

Dr. Donaldson was to dine with them that night. Emily Arundell wished to have an opportunity of studying him at close quarters. It still seemed to her a little incredible that the exotic Theresa should want to marry this rather stiff and pedantic young man. It also seemed a little odd that this stiff and pedantic young man should want to marry Theresa.

She did not feel as the evening progressed that she was getting to know Dr. Donaldson any better. He was very polite, very formal and, to her mind, intensely boring. In her own mind she agreed with Miss Peabody’s judgement. The thought flashed across her brain, “Better stuff in our young days.”

Dr. Donaldson did not stay late. He rose to go at ten o’clock. After he had taken his departure Emily Arundell herself announced that she was going to bed. She went upstairs and her young relations went up also. They all seemed somewhat subdued tonight. Miss Lawson remained downstairs performing her final duties, letting Bob out for his run, poking down the fire, putting the guard up and rolling back the hearth rug in case of fire.

She arrived rather breathless in her employer’s room about five minutes later.

“I think I’ve got everything,” she said, putting down wool, workbag, and a library book. “I do hope the book will be all right. She hadn’t got any of the ones on your list but she said she was sure you’d like this one.”

“That girl’s a fool,” said Emily Arundell. “Her taste in books is the worst I’ve ever come across.”

“Oh, dear. I’m so sorry---Perhaps I ought----”

“Nonsense, it’s not your fault.” Emily Arundell added kindly. “I hope you enjoyed yourself this afternoon.”

Miss Lawson’s face lighted up. She looked eager and almost youthful.

“Oh, yes, thank you very much. So kind of you to spare me. I had the most interesting time. We had the Planchette and really---it wrote the most interesting things. There were several messages . . . Of course its not quite the same thing as the sittings . . . Julia Tripp has been having a lot of success with the automatic writing. Several messages from Those who have Passed Over. It---it really makes one feel so grateful---that such things should be permitted. . . .”

Miss Arundell said with a slight smile: “Better not let the vicar hear you.”

“Oh, but indeed, dear Miss Arundell, I am convinced---quite convinced---there can be nothing wrong about it. I only wish dear Mr. Lonsdale would examine the subject. It seems to me so narrow-minded to condemn a thing that you have not even investigated. Both Julia and Isabel Tripp are such truly spiritual women.”

“Almost too spiritual to be alive,” said Miss Arundell.

She did not care much for Julia and Isabel Tripp. She thought their clothes ridiculous, their vegetarian and uncooked fruit meals absurd, and their manner affected. They were women of no traditions, no roots---in fact---no breeding! But she got a certain amount of amusement out of their earnestness and she was at bottom kindhearted enough not to grudge the pleasure that their friendship obviously gave to poor Minnie.

Poor Minnie! Emily Arundell looked at her companion with mingled affection and contempt. She had had so many of these foolish, middle-aged women to minister to her---all much the same, kind, fussy, subservient and almost entirely mindless.

Really poor Minnie was looking quite excited tonight. Her eyes were shining. She fussed about the room vaguely touching things here and there without the least idea of what she was doing, her eyes all bright and shining.

She stammered out rather nervously: “I---I do wish you’d been there . . . I feel, you know, that you’re not quite a believer yet. But tonight there was a message---for E.A., the initials came quite definitely. It was from a man who had passed over many years ago---a very good-looking military man---Isabel saw him quite distinctly. It must have been dear General Arundell. Such a beautiful message, so full of love
and comfort, and how through patience all could be attained.”

“Those sentiments sound very unlike papa,” said Miss Arundell.

“Oh, but our Dear Ones change so---on the other side. Everything is love and understanding. And then the Planchette spelt out something about a key---I think it was the key of the Boule cabinet---could that be it?”

“The key of the Boule cabinet?” Emily Arundell’s voice sounded sharp and interested.

“I think that was it. I thought perhaps it might be important papers---something of the kind. There was a well-authenticated case where a message came to look in a certain piece of furniture and actually a will was discovered there.”

“There wasn’t a will in the Boule cabinet,” said Miss Arundell. She added abruptly: “Go to bed, Minnie. You’re tired. So am I. We’ll ask the Tripps in for an evening soon.”

“Oh, that will be nice! Good night, dear. Sure you’ve got everything? I hope you haven’t been tired with so many people here. I must tell Ellen to air the drawing room very well tomorrow, and shake out the curtains---all this smoking leaves such a smell. I must say I think it’s very good of you to let them all smoke in the drawing room!”

“I must make some concessions to modernity,” said Emily Arundell. “Good night, Minnie.”

As the other woman left the room, Emily Arundell wondered if this spiritualistic business was really good for Minnie. Her eyes had been popping out of her head, and she had looked so restless and excited.

Odd about the Boule cabinet, thought Emily Arundell as she got into bed. She smiled grimly as she remembered the scene of long ago. The key that had come to light after papa’s death, and the cascade of empty brandy bottles that had tumbled out when the cabinet had been unlocked! It was little things like that, things that surely neither Minnie Lawson nor Isabel and Julia Tripp could possibly know, which made one wonder whether, after all, there wasn’t something in this spiritualistic business. . . .

She felt wakeful lying on her big four-poster bed. Nowadays she found it increasingly difficult to sleep. But she scorned Dr. Grainger’s tentative suggestion of a sleeping draught. Sleeping draughts were for weaklings, for people who couldn’t bear a finger ache, or a little toothache, or the tedium of a sleepless night.

Often she would get up and wander noiselessly round the house, picking up a book, fingering an ornament, rearranging a vase of flowers, writing a letter or two. In those midnight hours she had a feeling of the equal liveliness of the house through which she wandered. They were not disagreeable, those nocturnal wanderings. It was as though ghosts walked beside her, the ghosts of her sisters, Arabella, Matilda and Agnes, the ghost of her brother Thomas, the dear fellow as he was before That Woman got hold of him! Even the ghost of General Charles Laverton Arundell, that domestic tyrant with the charming manners who shouted and bullied his daughters but who nevertheless was an object of pride to them with his experiences in the Indian Mutiny and his knowledge of the world. What if there were days when he was “not quite so well” as his daughters put it evasively?

Her mind reverting to her niece’s fiancé. Miss Arundell thought, “I don’t suppose he’ll ever take to drink! Calls himself a man and drank barley water this evening! Barley water! And I opened papa’s special port.”

Charles had done justice to the port all right. Oh! if only Charles were to be trusted. If only one didn’t know that with him----

Her thoughts broke off . . . Her mind ranged over the events of the weekend. . . .

Everything seemed vaguely disquieting. . . .

She tried to put worrying thoughts out of her mind.

It was no good.

She raised herself on her elbow and by the light of the night-light that always burned in a little saucer she looked at the time.

One o’clock and she had never felt less like sleep.

She got out of bed and put on her slippers and her warm dressing gown. She would go downstairs and just check over the weekly books ready for the paying of them the following morning.

Like a shadow she slipped from her room and along the corridor where one small electric bulb was allowed to burn all night.

She came to the head of the stairs, stretched out one hand to the baluster rail and then, unaccountably, she stumbled, tried to recover her balance, failed and went headlong down the stairs.

The sound of her fall, the cry she gave, stirred the sleeping house to wakefulness. Doors opened, lights flashed on.

Miss Lawson popped out of her room at the head of the staircase.

Uttering little cries of distress she pattered down the stairs. One by one the others arrived---Charles, yawning, in a resplendent dressing gown. Theresa, wrapped in dark silk. Bella in a navy-blue kimono, her hair bristling with combs to “set the wave.”

Dazed and confused Emily Arundell lay in a crushed heap. Her shoulder hurt her and her ankle---her whole body was a confused mass of pain. She was conscious of people standing over her, of that fool Minnie Lawson crying and making ineffectual gestures with her hands, of Theresa with a startled look in her dark eyes, of Bella standing with her mouth open looking expectant, of the voice of Charles saying from somewhere---very far away so it seemed----

“It’s that damned dog’s ball! He must have left it here and she tripped over it. See? Here it is!”

And then she was conscious of authority, putting the others aside, kneeling beside her, touching her with hands that did not fumble but knew.

A feeling of relief swept over her. It would be all right now.

Dr. Tanios was saying in firm, reassuring tones: “No, it’s all right. No bones broken . . . Just badly shaken and bruised---and of course she’s had a bad shock. But she’s been very lucky that it’s no worse.”

Then he cleared the others off a little and picked her up quite easily and carried her up to her bedroom, where he had held her wrist for a minute, counting, then nodded his head, sent Minnie (who was still crying and being generally a nuisance) out of the room to fetch brandy and to heat water for a hot bottle.

Confused, shaken, and racked with pain, she felt acutely grateful to Jacob Tanios in that moment. The relief of feeling oneself in capable hands. He gave you just that feeling of assurance---of confidence---that a doctor ought to give.

There was something---something she couldn’t quite get hold of---something vaguely disquieting---but she wouldn’t think of it now. She would drink this and go to sleep as they told her.

But surely there was something missing---someone.

Oh well, she wouldn’t think . . . Her shoulder hurt her---She drank down
what she was given.

She heard Dr. Tanios say---and in what a comfortable assured voice---“She’ll be all right, now.”

She closed her eyes.

She awoke to a sound that she knew---a soft, muffled bark.

She was wide awake in a minute.

Bob---naughty Bob! He was barking outside the front door---his own particular “out all night very ashamed of himself” bark, pitched in a subdued key but repeated hopefully.

Miss Arundell strained her ears. Ah, yes, that was all right. She could hear Minnie going down to let him in. She heard the creak of the opening front door, a confused low murmur---Minnie’s futile reproaches—“Oh, you naughty little doggie---a very naughty little Bobsie----” She heard the pantry
door open. Bob’s bed was under the pantry table.

And at that moment Emily realized what it was she had subconsciously missed at the moment of her accident. It was Bob. All that commotion---her fall, people running---normally Bob would have responded by a crescendo of barking from inside the pantry.

So that was what had been worrying her at the back of her mind. But it was explained now---Bob, when he had been let out last night, had shamelessly and deliberately gone off on pleasure bent. From time to time he had these lapses from virtue---though his apologies afterwards were always all that could be desired.

So that was all right. But was it? What else was there worrying her, nagging at the back of her head. Her accident---something to do with her accident.

Ah, yes, somebody had said---Charles---that she had slipped on Bob’s ball which he had left on the top of the stairs. . . .

The ball had been there---he had held it up in his hand. . . .

Emily Arundell’s head ached. Her shoulder throbbed. Her bruised body suffered. . . .

But in the midst of her suffering her mind was clear and lucid. She was no longer confused by shock. Her memory was perfectly clear.

She went over in her mind all the events from six o’clock yesterday evening . . . She retraced every step . . . till she came to the moment when she arrived at the stairhead and started to descend the stairs. . . .

A thrill of incredulous horror shot through her. . . .

Surely---surely, she must be mistaken . . . One often had queer fancies after an event had happened. She tried---earnestly she tried---to recall the slippery roundness of Bob’s ball under her foot. . . .

But she could recall nothing of the kind.

Instead----

“Sheer nerves,” said Emily Arundell. “Ridiculous fancies.”

But her sensible, shrewd, Victorian mind would not admit that for a moment. There was no foolish optimism about the Victorians. They could believe the worst with the utmost ease.

Emily Arundell believed the worst.

CHARLES ran lightly up the stairs and tapped on his sister’s door. Her answering “Come in” came promptly and he entered.

Theresa was sitting up in bed yawning.

Charles took a seat on the bed.

“What a decorative female you are, Theresa,” he remarked appreciatively.

Theresa said sharply: “What’s the matter?”

Charles grinned. “Sharp, aren’t you? Well, I stole a march on you, my girl! Thought I’d make my touch before you got to work.”

“Well?”

Charles spread his hands downwards in negation.

“Nothing doing! Aunt Emily ticked me off good and proper. She intimated that she was under no illusions as to why her affectionate family had gathered round her! And she also intimated that the said affectionate family would be disappointed. Nothing being handed out but affection---and not so much of that.”

“You might have waited a bit,” said Theresa drily.

Charles grinned again. “I was afraid you or Tanios might get in ahead of me. I’m sadly afraid, Theresa my sweet, that there’ll be nothing doing this time. Old Emily is by no means a fool.”

“I never thought she was.”

“I even tried to put the wind up her.”

“What d’you mean?” asked his sister sharply.

“Told her she was going about it the right way to get bumped off. After all she can’t take the dibs to heaven with her. Why not loosen up a bit?”

“Charles, you are a fool!”

“No, I’m not. I’m a bit of a psychologist in my way. It’s never a bit of good sucking up to the old girl. She much prefers you to stand up to her. And after all, I was only talking sense. We get the money when she dies---she might just as well part with a little beforehand! Otherwise the temptation to help her out of the way might become overwhelming.”

“Did she see your point?” asked Theresa, her delicate mouth curling up scornfully.

“I’m not sure. She didn’t admit it. Just thanked me rather nastily for my advice and said she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. ‘Well,’ I said, T’ve warned you.’ ‘I’ll remember it,’ she said.”

Theresa said angrily: “Really, Charles, you are an utter fool.”

“Damn it all, Theresa, I was a bit ratty myself! The old girl’s rolling---simply rolling. I bet she doesn’t spend a tenth part of her income---what has she got to spend it on, anyway? And here we are---young, able to enjoy life---and to spite us she’s capable of living to a hundred. . . . I want my fun now. . . . So do you. . . .”

Theresa nodded.

She said in a low, breathless voice: “They don’t understand---old people don’t. . . . they can’t. . . . They don’t know what it is to live!”

Brother and sister were silent for some minutes.

Charles got up. “Well, my love, I wish you better success than I’ve had. But I rather doubt it.”

Theresa said: “I’m rather counting on Rex to do the trick. If I can make old Emily realize how brilliant he is, and how it matters terrifically that he should have his chance and not have to sink into a rut as a general practitioner . . . Oh, Charles, a few thousand of capital just at this minute would make all the difference in the world to our lives!”

“Hope you get it, but I don’t think you will. You’ve got through a bit too much capital in riotous living in your time. I say, Theresa, you don’t think the dreary Bella or the dubious Tanios will get anything, do you?”

“I don’t see that money would be any good to Bella. She goes about looking like a ragbag and her tastes are purely domestic.”

“Oh, well,” said Charles, vaguely. “I expect she wants things for those unprepossessing children of hers, schools, and plates for their front teeth and music lessons. And anyway it isn’t Bella---it’s Tanios. I bet he’s got a nose for money all right! Trust a Greek for that. You know he’s got through most of Bella’s? Speculated with it and lost it all.”

“Do you think he’ll get something out of old Emily?”

“He won’t if I can prevent him,” said Charles, grimly.

He left the room and wandered downstairs. Bob was in the hall. He fussed up to Charles agreeably. Dogs liked Charles.

He ran towards the drawing room door and looked back at Charles.

“What’s the matter?” said Charles, strolling after him.

Bob hurried into the drawing room and sat down expectantly by a small bureau.

Charles strolled over to him.

“What’s it all about?”

Bob wagged his tail, looked hard at the drawers of the bureau and uttered an appealing squeak.

“Want something that’s in here?”

Charles pulled open the top drawer. His eyebrows rose.

“Dear, dear,” he said.

At one side of the drawer was a little pile of treasury notes.

Charles picked up the bundle and counted them. With a grin he removed three one pound notes and two ten shilling ones and put them in his pocket. He replaced the rest of the notes carefully in the drawer where he had found them.

“That was a good idea, Bob,” he said. “Your Uncle Charles will be able at any rate to cover expenses. A little ready cash always comes in handy.”

Bob uttered a faint reproachful bark as Charles shut the drawer.

“Sorry old man,” Charles apologized. He opened the next drawer. Bob’s ball was in the corner of it. He took it out.

“Here you are. Enjoy yourself with it.” Bob caught the ball, trotted out of the room and presently bump, bump, bump, was heard down the stairs.

Charles strolled out into the garden. It was a fine sunny morning with a scent of lilac.

Miss Arundell had Dr. Tanios by her side. He was speaking of the advantage of an English education---a good education---for children and how deeply he regretted that he could not afford such a luxury for his own children.

Charles smiled with satisfied malice. He joined in the conversation in a lighthearted manner, turning it adroitly into entirely different channels.

Emily Arundell smiled at him quite amiably. He even fancied that she was amused by his tactics and was subtly encouraging them.

Charles’ spirits rose. Perhaps, after all, before he left----

Charles was an incurable optimist.

Dr. Donaldson called for Theresa in his car that afternoon and drove her to Worthem Abbey, one of the local beauty spots. They wandered away from the Abbey itself into the woods.

There Rex Donaldson told Theresa at length about his theories and some of his recent experiments. She understood very little but listened in a spellbound manner, thinking to herself: “How clever Rex is---and how absolutely adorable!”

Her fiancé paused once and said rather doubtfully: “I’m afraid this is dull stuff for you, Theresa.”

“Darling, it’s too thrilling,” said Theresa, firmly. “Go on. You take some of the blood of the infected rabbit---?”

Presently Theresa said with a sigh:

“Your work means a terrible lot to you, my sweet.”

“Naturally,” said Dr. Donaldson.

It did not seem at all natural to Theresa. Very few of her friends did any work at all, and if they did they made extremely heavy weather about it. She thought as she had thought once or twice before, how singularly unsuitable it was that she should have fallen in love with Rex Donaldson. Why did these things, these ludicrous and amazing madnesses, happen to one? A profitless question. This had happened to her.

She frowned, wondered at herself. Her crowd had been so gay---so cynical. Love affairs were necessary to life, of course, but why take them seriously? One loved and passed on.

But this feeling of hers for Rex Donaldson was different, it went deeper. She felt instinctively that here there would be no passing on . . . Her need of him was simple and profound. Everything about him fascinated her. His calmness and detachment, so different from her own hectic, grasping life, the clear, logical coldness of his scientific mind, and something else, imperfectly understood, a secret force in the man masked by his unassuming slightly pedantic manner, but which she nevertheless felt and sensed instinctively.

In Rex Donaldson there was genius---and the fact that his profession was the main preoccupation of his life and that she was only a part---though a necessary part---of existence to him only heightened his attraction for her. She found herself for the first time in her selfish pleasure-loving life content to take second place. The prospect fascinated her. For Rex she would do anything---anything!

“What a damned nuisance money is,” she said, petulantly. “If only Aunt Emily were to die we could get married at once, and you could come to London and have a laboratory full of test tubes and guinea pigs, and never bother any more about children with mumps and old ladies with livers.”

Donaldson said: “There’s no reason why your aunt shouldn’t live for many years to come---if she’s careful.”

Theresa said despondently: “I know that. . . .”

In the big double-bedded room with the old-fashioned oak furniture. Dr. Tanios said to his wife: “I think that I have prepared the ground sufficiently. It is now your turn, my dear.”

He was pouring water from the old-fashioned copper can into the rose-patterned china basin.

Bella Tanios sat in front of the dressing table wondering why, when she combed her hair as Theresa did, it should not look like Theresa’s!

There was a moment before she replied. Then she said: “I don’t think I want---to ask Aunt Emily for money.”

“It’s not for yourself, Bella, it’s for the sake of the children. Our investments have been so unlucky.”

His back was turned, he did not see the swift glance she gave him---a furtive, shrinking glance.

She said with mild obstinacy: “All the same, I think I’d rather not . . . Aunt Emily is rather difficult. She can be generous but she doesn’t like being asked.”

Drying his hands, Tanios came across from the washstand. “Really, Bella, it isn’t like you to be so obstinate. After all, what have we come down here for?”

She murmured: “I didn’t---I never meant---it wasn’t to ask for money . . . .”

“Yet you agreed that the only hope if we are to educate the children properly is for your aunt to come to the rescue.”

Bella Tanios did not answer. She moved uneasily. But her face bore the mild mulish look that many clever husbands of stupid wives know to their cost.

She said: “Perhaps Aunt Emily herself may suggest----”

“It is possible, but I’ve seen no signs of it so far.”

Bella said: “If we could have brought the children with us. Aunt Emily couldn’t have helped loving Mary. And Edward is so intelligent.”

Tanios said, drily: “I don’t think your aunt is a great child lover. It is probably just as well the children aren’t here.”

“Oh, Jacob, but----”

“Yes, yes, my dear. I know your feelings. But these desiccated English spinsters---bah, they are not human. We want to do the best we can, do we not, for our Mary and our Edward? To help us a little would involve no hardship to Miss Arundell.”

Mrs. Tanios turned, there was a flush in her cheeks. “Oh, please, please, Jacob, not this time. I’m sure it would be unwise. I would so very very much rather not.”

Tanios stood close behind her, his arm encircled her shoulders. She trembled a little and then was still---almost rigid.

He said and his voice was still pleasant: “All the same, Bella, I think---I think you will do what I ask . . . You usually do, you know---in the end . . . Yes, I think you will do what I say. . . .”