Chapter 15
MISS LAWSON
'Poirot,' I said. 'Have we got to listen at doors?'
'Calm yourself, my friend. It was only I who listened! It was not you who put your ear to the crack. On the contrary, you stood bolt upright like a soldier.'
'But I heard just the same.'
'True. Mademoiselle was hardly whispering.'
'Because she thought that we had left the flat.'
'Yes, we practised a little deception there.'
'I don't like that sort of thing.'
'Your moral attitude is irreproachable! But let us not repeat ourselves. This conversation has occurred on previous occasions. You are about to say that it is not playing the game. And my reply is that murder is not a game.'
'But there is no question of murder here.'
'Do not be sure of that.'
'The intention, yes, perhaps. But after all, murder and attempted murder are not the same thing.'
'Morally they are exactly the same thing. But what I meant was, are you so sure that it is only attempted murder that occupies our attention?'
I stared at him.
'But old Miss Arundell died a perfectly natural death.'
'I repeat again – are you so sure?'
'Every one says so!'
'Every one? Oh, la la!'
'The doctor says so,' I pointed out. 'Dr Grainger. He ought to know.'
'Yes, he ought to know.' Poirot's voice was dissatisfied. 'But remember, Hastings, again and again a body is exhumed – and in each case a certificate has been signed in all good faith by the doctor attending the case.'
'Yes, but in this case. Miss Arundell died of a longstanding complaint.'
'It seems so – yes.'
Poirot's voice was still dissatisfied. I looked at him keenly.
'Poirot,' I said, 'I'll begin a sentence with 'Are you sure.' Are you sure you are not being carried away by professional zeal? You want it to be murder and so you think it must be murder.'
The shadow on his brow deepened. He nodded his head slowly.
'It is clever what you say there, Hastings. It is a weak spot on which you put your finger. Murder is my business. I am like a great surgeon who specializes in – say – appendicitis or some rarer operation. A patient comes to him and he regards that patient solely from the standpoint of his own specialized subject. Is there any possible reason for thinking this man suffers from so and so…? Me, I am like that, too. I say to myself always, 'Can this possibly be murder?' And you see, my friend, there is nearly always a possibility.'
'I shouldn't say there was much possibility here,' I remarked.
'But she died, Hastings! You cannot get away from that fact. She died!'
'She was in poor health. She was past seventy. It all seems perfectly natural to me.'
'And does it also seem natural to you that Theresa Arundell should call her brother a fool with that degree of intensity?'
'What has that got to do with it?'
'Everything! Tell me, what did you think of that statement of Mr Charles Arundell's – that his aunt had shown him her new will?'
I looked at Poirot warily.
'What do you make of it?' I asked.
Why should Poirot always be the one to ask the questions.
'I call it very interesting – very interesting indeed. So was Miss Theresa Arundell's reaction to it. Their passage of arms was suggestive – very suggestive.'
'Hum,' I said in oracular fashion.
'It opens up two distinct lines of inquiry.'
'They seem a nice pair of crooks,' I remarked. 'Ready for anything. The girl's amazingly good-looking. As for young Charles, he's certainly an attractive scoundrel.'
Poirot was just hailing a taxi. It drew into the curb and Poirot gave an address to the driver.
'17 Clanroyden Mansions, Bayswater.'
'So it's Lawson next,' I commented. 'And after that – the Tanioses?'
'Quite right, Hastings.'
'What role are you adopting here?' I inquired as the taxi drew up at Clanroyden Mansions. 'The biographer of General Arundell, a prospective tenant of Littlegreen House, or something more subtle still?'
'I shall present myself simply as Hercule Poirot.'
'How very disappointing,' I gibed.
Poirot merely threw me a glance and paid off the taxi.
No. 17 was on the second floor. A pert-looking maid opened the door and showed us into a room that really struck a ludicrous note after the one we had just left.
Theresa Arundell's flat had been bare to the point of emptiness. Miss Lawson's on the other hand was so crammed with furniture and odds and ends that one could hardly move about without the fear of knocking something over.
The door opened and a rather stout, middle-aged lady came in. Miss Lawson was very much as I had pictured her. She had an eager, rather foolish face, untidy greyish hair and pince-nez perched a little askew on her nose. Her style of conversation was spasmodic and consisted of gasps.
'Good-morning – er – I don't think -'
'Miss Wilhelmina Lawson?'
'Yes – yes – that is my name…'
'My name is Poirot – Hercule Poirot. Yesterday I was looking over Littlegreen House.'
'Oh, yes?'
Miss Lawson's mouth fell a little wider open and she made some inefficient dabs at her untidy hair.
'Won't you sit down?' She went on. 'Sit here, won't you? Oh, dear, I'm afraid that table is in your way. I'm just a little bit crowded here. So difficult! These flats! Just a teeny bit on the small side. But so central! And I do like being central. Don't you?'
With a gasp she sat down on an uncomfortable-looking Victorian chair and, her pince-nez still awry, leaned forward breathlessly and looked at Poirot hopefully.
'I went to Littlegreen House in the guise of a purchaser,' went on Poirot. 'But I should like to say at once – this is in the strictest confidence -'
'Oh, yes,' breathed Miss Lawson, apparently pleasurably excited.
'The very strictest confidence,' continued Poirot, 'that I went there with another object… You may or you may not be aware that shortly before she died Miss Arundell wrote to me -'
He paused and then went on.
'I am a well-known private detective.'
A variety of expressions chased themselves over Miss Lawson's slightly flushed countenance. I wondered which one Poirot would single out as relevant to his inquiry. Alarm, excitement, surprise, puzzlement…
'Oh,' she said. Then after a pause, 'Oh,' again.
And then, quite unexpectedly, she asked:
'Was it about the money?'
Poirot, even, was slightly taken aback. He said tentatively:
'You mean the money that was -'
