'I don't know. Bribed a servant, perhaps. If so, that servant's never going to tell.'
'You don't think either of the nurses were bribable?'
Lord shook his head. 'Not on your life! To begin with, they're both very strict about their professional ethics – and in addition they'd be scared to death to do such a thing. They'd know the danger to themselves.'
Poirot said, 'That is so.'
He added thoughtfully, 'It looks, does it not, as though we return to our muttons? Who is the most likely person to have taken that morphine tube? Elinor Carlisle. We may say that she wished to make sure of inheriting a large fortune. We may be more generous and say that she was actuated by pity, that she took the morphine and administered it in compliance with her aunt's often-repeated request; but she took it – and Mary Gerrard saw her do it. And so we are back at the sandwiches and the empty house, and we have Elinor Carlisle once more – but this time with a different motive to save her neck.'
Peter Lord cried out, 'That's fantastic. I tell you, she isn't that kind of person! Money doesn't really mean anything to her – or to Roderick Welman, either, I'm bound to admit. I've heard them both say as much!'
'You have? That is very interesting. That is the kind of statement I always look upon with a good deal of suspicion myself.'
Peter Lord said, 'Damn you, Poirot, must you always twist everything round so that it comes back to that girl?'
'It is not I that twist things round; they come round of themselves. It is like the pointer at the fair. It swings round, and when it comes to rest it points always at the same name – Elinor Carlisle.'
Peter Lord said, 'No!'
Hercule Poirot shook his head sadly. Then he said, 'Has she relations, this Elinor Carlisle? Sisters, cousins? A father or mother?'
'No. She's an orphan – alone in the world.'
'How pathetic it sounds! Bulmer, I am sure, will make great play with that! Who, then, inherits her money if she dies?'
'I don't know. I haven't thought.'
Poirot said reprovingly, 'One should always think of these things. Has she made a will, for instance?'
Peter Lord flushed. He said uncertainly, 'I -I don't know.'
Hercule Poirot looked at the ceiling and joined his finger tips. He remarked, 'It would be well, you know, to tell me.'
'Tell you what?'
'Exactly what is in your mind – no matter how damaging it may happen to be to Elinor Carlisle.'
'How do you know -'
'Yes, yes, I know. There is something – some incident in your mind! It will be as well to tell me, otherwise I shall imagine it is something worse than it is!'
'It's nothing, really -'
'We will agree it is nothing. But let me hear what it is.'
Slowly, unwillingly, Peter Lord allowed the story to be dragged from him – that scene of Elinor leaning in at the window of Nurse Hopkins's cottage, and of her laughter.
Poirot said thoughtfully, 'She said that, did she, 'So you're making your will, Mary? That's funny – that's very funny.' And it was very clear to you what was in her mind. She had been thinking perhaps, that Mary Gerrard was not going to live long.'
Peter Lord said, 'I only imagined that. I don't know.'
Poirot said, 'No, you did not only imagine it.'
Chapter 10
Hercule Poirot sat in Nurse Hopkins's cottage. Dr. Lord had brought him there, had introduced him, and had then, at a glance from Poirot, left him to a tete-a-tete.
Having, to begin with, eyed his foreign appearance somewhat askance, Nurse Hopkins was now thawing rapidly. She said with a faintly gloomy relish, 'Yes, it's a terrible thing. One of the most terrible things I've ever known. Mary was one of the most beautiful girls you've ever seen. Might have gone on the films any time! And a nice steady girl, too, and not stuck-up, as she might have been with all the notice taken of her.'
Poirot, inserting a question adroitly, said, 'You mean the notice taken of her by Mrs. Welman?'
'That's what I mean. The old lady had taken a tremendous fancy to her – really, a tremendous fancy.'
Hercule Poirot murmured, 'Surprising, perhaps?'
'That depends. It might be quite natural, really. I mean -' Nurse Hopkins bit her lip and looked confused. 'What I mean is, Mary had a very pretty way with her; nice soft voice and pleasant manners. And it's my opinion it does an elderly person good to have a young face about.'
Hercule Poirot said, 'Miss Carlisle came down occasionally, I suppose, to see her aunt?'
Nurse Hopkins said sharply, 'Miss Carlisle came down when it suited her.'
Poirot murmured, 'You do not like Miss Carlisle.'
Nurse Hopkins cried out, 'I should hope not, indeed! A poisoner! A coldblooded poisoner!'
'Ah,' said Hercule Poirot, 'I see you have made up your mind.'
Nurse Hopkins said suspiciously, 'What do you mean? Made up my mind?'
'You are quite sure that it was she who administered morphine to Mary Gerrard?'
'Who else could have done it, I should like to know? You're not suggesting that I did?'
'Not for a moment. But her guilt has not yet been proved, remember.'
Nurse Hopkins said with calm assurance, 'She did it, all right. Apart from anything else, you could see it in her face. Queer she was, all the time. And taking me away upstairs and keeping me there – delaying as long as possible. And then when I turned on her, after finding Mary like that, it was there in her face as plain as anything. She knew I knew!'
Hercule Poirot said thoughtfully, 'It is certainly difficult to see who else could have done it. Unless, of course, she did it herself.'
'What do you mean, did it herself? Do you mean that Mary committed suicide? I never heard such nonsense!'
Hercule Poirot said, 'One can never tell. The heart of a young girl, it is very sensitive, very tender.' He paused. 'It would have been possible, I suppose? She could have slipped something into her tea without your noticing her?'
'Slipped it into her cup, you mean?'
'Yes. You weren't watching her all the time.'
'I wasn't watching her – no. Yes, I suppose she could have done that… But it's all nonsense! What would she want to do a thing like that for?'
Hercule Poirot shook his head with a resumption of his former manner. 'A young girl's heart – as I say, so sensitive. An unhappy love affair, perhaps -'
Nurse Hopkins gave a snort. 'Girls don't kill themselves for love affairs – not unless they're in the family way – and Mary wasn't that, let me tell you!' She glared at him belligerently.
'And she was not in love?'
'Not she. Quite fancy free. Keen on her job and enjoying life.'
'But she must have had admirers, since she was such an attractive girl.'
Nurse Hopkins said, 'She wasn't one of these girls who are all sex appeal. She was a quiet girl!'
'But there were young men, no doubt, in the village who admired her.'
'There was Ted Bigland, of course,' said Nurse Hopkins. Poirot extracted various details as to Ted Bigland.
'Very gone on Mary, he was,' said Nurse Hopkins. 'But as I told her, she was a cut above him.'
Poirot said, 'He must have been angry when she would not have anything to do with him?'
'He was sore about it, yes,' admitted Nurse Hopkins. 'Blamed me for it, too.'
