‘Yes, sir. Miss Amelia and Miss Caroline twelve years ago and Miss Matilda just a month or two ago. You thinking of buying the house, sir—if I may ask?’
‘The idea had occurred to me,’ said Poirot mendaciously. ‘But I believe it is in a very bad state.’
‘It’s old-fashioned, sir. Never been modernised as the saying goes. But it’s in good condition—roof and drains and all that. Never grudged money on repairs, Miss Wheeler didn’t, and the garden was always a picture.’
‘She was well off?’
‘Oh! very comfortably off indeed, sir. A very well-to-do family.’
‘I suppose the house has been left to someone who has no use for it? A niece or nephew or some distant relative?’
‘No, sir, she left it to her companion, Miss Lawson. But Miss Lawson doesn’t fancy living in it, and so it’s up for sale. But it’s a bad time for selling houses, they say.’
‘Whenever one has to sell anything it is always a bad time,’ said Poirot smiling, as he paid the bill and added a handsome tip. ‘When exactly did you say Miss Matilda Wheeler died?’
‘Just the beginning of May, sir—thank you, sir—or was it the end of April? She’d not been in good health for a long time.’
‘You have a good doctor here?’
‘Yes, sir, Dr Lawrence. He’s getting on now, but he’s well thought of down here. Always very pleasant- spoken and careful.’
Poirot nodded and presently we strolled out into the hot August sunshine and made our way along the street in the direction of the church.
Before we got to it, however, we passed an old-fashioned house set a little way back, with a brass plate on the gate inscribed with the name of Dr Lawrence.
‘Excellent,’ said Poirot. ‘We will make a call here. At this hour we shall make sure of finding the doctor at home.’
‘My dear Poirot! But what on earth are you going to say? And anyway what are you driving at?’
‘For your first question,
Dr Lawrence proved to be a man of about sixty. I put him down as an unambitious kindly sort of fellow, not particularly brilliant mentally, but quite sound.
Poirot is a past master in the art of mendacity. In five minutes we were all chatting together in the most friendly fashion—it being somehow taken for granted that we were old and dear friends of Miss Matilda Wheeler.
‘Her death, it is a great shock to me. Most sad,’ said Poirot. ‘She had the stroke? No?’
‘Oh! no, my dear fellow. Yellow atrophy of the liver. Been coming on for a long time. She had a very bad attack of jaundice a year ago. She was pretty well through the winter except for digestive trouble. Then she had jaundice again the end of April and died of it. A great loss to us—one of the real oldfashioned kind.’
‘Ah! yes, indeed,’ sighed Poirot. ‘And the companion, Miss Lawson—?’
He paused and rather to our surprise the doctor responded promptly.
‘I can guess what you’re after, and I don’t mind telling you that you’ve my entire sympathy. But if you’re coming to me for any hope of “undue influence” it’s no good. Miss Wheeler was perfectly capable of making a will —not only when she did—but right up to the day of her death. It’s no good hoping that I can say anything different because I can’t.’
‘But your sympathy—’
‘My sympathy is with James Graham and Miss Mollie. I’ve always felt strongly that money shouldn’t be left away from the family to an outsider. I daresay there might be some sort of case that Miss Lawson obtained an ascendency over Miss Wheeler owing to spiritualistic tomfoolery—but I doubt if there’s anything that you could take into court. Only run yourself in for terrific expense. Avoid the law, wherever you can, is my motto. And certainly medically I can’t help you. Miss Wheeler’s mind was perfectly clear.’
He shook hands with us and we passed out into the sunlight.
‘Well!’ I said. ‘That was rather unexpected!’
‘Truly. We begin to learn a little about my correspondent. She has at least two relatives—James Graham and a girl called Mollie. They ought to have inherited her money but did not do so. By a will clearly not made very long ago, the whole amount has gone to the companion, Miss Lawson. There is also a very significant mention of spiritualism.’
‘You think that significant?’
‘Obviously. A credulous old lady—the spirits tell her to leave her money to a particular person—she obeys. Something of that kind occurs to one as a possibility, does it not?’
We had arrived at The Laburnums. It was a fair sized Georgian house, standing a little way back from the street with a large garden behind. There was a board stuck up with For Sale on it.
Poirot rang the bell. His efforts were rewarded by a fierce barking within. Presently the door was opened by a neat middle-aged woman who held a barking wire-haired terrier by the collar.
‘Good afternoon,’ said Poirot. ‘The house is for sale, I understand, so Mr James Graham told me.’
‘Oh! yes, sir. You would like to see over it?’
‘If you please.’
‘You needn’t be afraid of Bob, sir. He barks if anyone comes to the door, but he’s as gentle as a lamb really.’
True enough, as soon as we were inside, the terrier jumped up and licked our hands. We were shown over the house—pathetic as an empty house always is, with the marks of pictures showing on the walls, and the bare uncarpeted floors. We found the woman only too ready and willing to talk to friends of the family as she supposed us to be. By his mention of James Graham, Poirot created this impression very cleverly.
Ellen, for such was our guide’s name, had clearly been very attached to her late mistress. She entered with the gusto of her class into a description of her illness and death.
‘Taken sudden she was. And suffered! Poor dear! Delirious at the end. All sorts of queer things she’d say. How long was it? Well, it must have been three days from the time she was took bad. But poor dear, she’d suffered for many years on and off. Jaundice last year she had—and her food never agreed with her well. She’d take digestion tablets after nearly every meal. Oh! yes, she suffered a good deal one way or another. Sleeplessness for one thing. Used to get up and walk about the house at night, she did, her eyesight being too bad for much reading.’
It was at this point that Poirot produced from his pocket the letter. He held it out to her.
‘Do you recognise this by any chance?’ he asked.
He was watching her narrowly. She gave an exclamation of surprise.
‘Well, now, I do declare! And is it you that’s the gentleman it’s written to?’
Poirot nodded.
‘Tell me how you came to post it to me?’ he said.
‘Well, sir, I didn’t know what to do—and that’s the truth. When the furniture was all cleared out, Miss Lawson she gave me several little odds and ends that had been the mistress’s. And among them was a mother of pearl blotter that I’d always admired. I put it by in a drawer, and it was only yesterday that I took it out and was putting new blotting paper in it when I found this letter slipped inside the pocket. It was the mistress’s handwriting and I saw as she’d meant to post it and slipped it in there and forgot—which was the kind of thing she did many a time, poor dear. Absentminded as you might say. Well, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t like to put it in the fire and I couldn’t take it upon myself to open it and I didn’t see as it was any business of Miss Lawson’s, so I just put a stamp on it and ran out to the post box and posted it.’
Ellen paused for breath and the terrier uttered a sharp staccato bark. It was so peremptory in sound that Poirot’s attention was momentarily diverted. He looked down at the dog who was sitting with his nose lifted entreatingly towards the empty mantelpiece of the drawing-room where we were at the time.
