Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

‘You are fond of him?’

‘Oh! yes, indeed, dear little doggie. He always slept in my room. I’d like to have him in London, but dogs aren’t really happy in town, are they, M. Poirot?’

‘Me, I have seen some very happy ones in the Park,’ returned my friend gravely.

‘Oh! yes, of course, the Park,’ said Miss Lawson vaguely. ‘But it’s very difficult to exercise them properly. He’s much happier with Ellen, I feel sure, at the dear Laburnums. Ah! what a tragedy it all was!’

‘Will you recount to me, Mademoiselle, just what happened on that evening when Miss Wheeler was taken ill?’

‘Nothing out of the usual. At least, oh! of course, we held a seance—with distinct phenomena—distinct phenomena. You will laugh, M. Poirot. I feel you are a sceptic. But oh! the joy of hearing the voices of those who have passed over.’

‘No, I do not laugh,’ said Poirot gently.

He was watching her flushed excited face.

‘You know, it was most curious—really most curious. There was a kind of halo—a luminous haze—all round dear Miss Wheeler’s head. We all saw it distinctly.’

‘A luminous haze?’ said Poirot sharply.

‘Yes. Really most remarkable. In view of what happened, I felt, M. Poirot, that already she was marked, so to speak, for the other world.’

‘Yes,’ said Poirot. ‘I think she was—marked for the other world.’ He added, completely incongruously it seemed to me, ‘Has Dr Lawrence got a keen sense of smell?’

‘Now it’s curious you should say that. “Smell this, doctor,” I said, and held up a great bunch of lilies of the valley to him. And would you believe it, he couldn’t smell a thing. Ever since influenza three years ago, he said. Ah! me—physician, heal thyself is so true, isn’t it?’

Poirot had risen and was prowling round the room. He stopped and stared at a picture on the wall. I joined him.

It was rather an ugly needlework picture done in drab wools, and represented a bulldog sitting on the steps of a house. Below it, in crooked letters, were the words ‘Out all night and no key!’[18]

Poirot drew a deep breath.

‘This picture, it comes from The Laburnums?’

‘Yes. It used to hang over the mantelpiece in the drawingroom. Dear Miss Wheeler did it when she was a girl.’

‘Ah!’ said Poirot. His voice was entirely changed. It held a note that I knew well.

He crossed to Miss Lawson.

‘You remember Bank Holiday? Easter Monday. The night that Miss Wheeler fell down the stairs? Eh bien, the little Bob, he was out that night, was he not? He did not come in.’

‘Why, yes, M. Poirot, however did you know that? Yes, Bob was very naughty. He was let out at nine o’clock as usual, and he never came back. I didn’t tell Miss Wheeler—she would have been anxious. That is to say, I told her the next day, of course. When he was safely back. Five in the morning it was. He came and barked underneath my window and I went down and let him in.’

‘So that was it! Enfin!’ He held out his hand. ‘Goodbye, Mademoiselle. Ah! Just one more little point. Miss Wheeler took digestive tablets after meals always, did she not? What make were they?’

‘Dr Carlton’s After Dinner Tablets. Very efficacious, M. Poirot.’

‘Efficacious! Mon Dieu!’ murmured Poirot, as we left. ‘No, do not question me, Hastings. Not yet. There are still one or two little matters to see to.’

He dived into a chemist’s and reappeared holding a white wrapped bottle.

vii

He unwrapped it when we got home. It was a bottle of Dr Carlton’s After Dinner Tablets.

‘You see, Hastings. There are at least fifty tablets in that bottle—perhaps more.’

He went to the bookshelf and pulled out a very large volume. For ten minutes he did not speak, then he looked up and shut the book with a bang.

‘But yes, my friend, now you may question. Now I know—everything.’

‘She was poisoned?’

‘Yes, my friend. Phosphorus poisoning.’

‘Phosphorus?’

‘Ah! mais oui—that is where the diabolical cleverness came in! Miss Wheeler had already suffered from jaundice. The symptoms of phosphorus poisoning would only look like another attack of the same complaint. Now listen, very often the symptoms of phosphorus poisoning are delayed from one to six hours. It says here’ (he opened the book again) ‘“The person’s breath may be phosphorescent before he feels in any way affected.” That is what Miss Lawson saw in the dark—Miss Wheeler’s phosphorescent breath—“a luminous haze”. And here I will read you again. “The jaundice having thoroughly pronounced itself the system may be considered as not only under the influence of the toxic action of phosphorus, but as suffering in addition from all the accidents incidental to the retention of the biliary secretion in the blood, nor is there from this point any special difference between phosphorus poisoning and certain affections of the liver—such, for example as yellow atrophy.”[19]

‘Oh! it was well planned, Hastings! Foreign matches—vermin paste. It is not difficult to get hold of phosphorus, and a very small dose will kill. The medicinal dose is from 1/100 to 1/30 grain. Even .116 of a grain has been known to kill. To make a tablet resembling one of these in the bottle—that too would not be too difficult. One can buy a tabletmaking machine, and Miss Wheeler she would not observe closely. A tablet placed at the bottom of this bottle—one day, sooner or later, Miss Wheeler will take it, and the person who put it there will have a perfect alibi, for she will not have been near the house for ten days.’

‘She?’

‘Mollie Davidson. Ah! mon ami, you did not see her eyes when that ball bounced from my pocket. The irate M. Graham, it meant nothing to him—but to her. “I did not know you kept a dog, M. Poirot.” Why a dog? Why not a child? A child, too, plays with balls. But that—it is not evidence, you say. It is only the impression of Hercule Poirot. Yes, but everything fits in. M. Graham is furious at the idea of an exhumation—he shows it. But she is more careful. She is afraid to seem unwilling. And the surprise and indignation she cannot conceal when she learns that her cousin has known of the will all along! He knew—and he did not tell her. Her crime had been in vain. Do you remember my saying it was unfortunate he didn’t tell her? Unfortunate for the poor Miss Wheeler. It meant her death sentence and all the good precautions she had taken, such as the will, were in vain.’

‘You mean the will—no, I don’t see.’

‘Why did she make that will? The incident of the dog’s ball, mon ami.

‘Imagine, Hastings, that you wish to cause the death of an old lady. You devise a simple accident. The old lady, before now, has slipped over the dog’s ball. She moves about the house in the night. Bien, you place the dog’s ball on the top of the stairs and perhaps also you place a strong thread or fine string. The old lady trips and goes headlong with a scream. Everyone rushes out. You detach your broken string while everyone else is crowding round the old lady. When they come to look for the cause of the fall, they find—the dog’s ball where he so often left it.

‘But, Hastings, now we come to something else. Suppose the old lady earlier in the evening after playing with the dog, puts the ball away in its usual place, and the dog goes out— and stays out. That is what she learns from Miss Lawson on the following day. She realises that it cannot be the dog who left the ball at the top of the stairs. She suspects the truth—but she suspects the wrong person. She suspects her nephew, James Graham, whose personality is not of the most charming. What does she do? First she writes to me—to investigate the matter. Then she changes her will and tells James Graham that she has done so. She counts on his telling Mollie though it is James she suspects. They will know that her death will bring them nothing! C’est bien imagine for an old lady.