Agatha Christie - Hickory Dickory Death Read online

  "Oh, cook what you like," she said angrily and left the kitchen.

  By six o'clock that evening, Mrs. Hubbard was once more her efficient self again. She had put notes in all the students' rooms asking them to come and see her before dinner, and when the various summonses were obeyed, she explained that Celia had asked her to arrange matters. They were all, she comthought, very nice about it.

  Even Genevieve, softened by a generous estimate of the value of her compact, said cheerfully that all would be sans rancune and added with a wise air, "One knows that these crises of the nerves occur. She is rich, this Celia, she does not need to steal.

  No, it is a storm in her head. M. Mcationabb is right there." Len Bateson drew Mrs. Hubbard aside as she came down when the dinner bell rang.

  "I'll wait for Celia out in the hall," he said, "and bring her in. So that she sees it's all right." "That's very nice of you, Len." "That's O.K., Ma." In due course, as soup was being passed round, Len's voice was heard booming from the hall.

  "Come along in, Celia. All friends here." Nigel remarked waspishly to his soup plate, "Done his good deed for the day!" but otherwise controlled his tongue and waved a hand of greeting to Celia as she came in with Len's large arm passed round her shoulders.

  There was a general outburst of cheerful conversation on various topics and Celia was appealed to by one and the other.

  Almost inevitably this manifestation of goodwill died away into a doubtful silence. It was then that MT. Akibombo turned a beaming face towards Celia and leaning across the table said: "They have explained me good now all that I did not understand. You very clever at steal things. Long time nobody know. Very clever." At this point Sally Finch, gasping out, "Akibombo, you'll be the death of me," had such a severe choke that she had to go out in the hall to recover. And the laughter broke out in a thoroughly natural fashion.

  Colin Mcationabb came in late. He seemed reserved and even more uncommunicative than usual. At the close of the meal and before the others had finished he got up and said in an embarrassed mumble, "Got to go out and see someone. Like to tell you all first Celia and I-hope to get married next year when I've done my course." The picture of blushing misery, he received the congratulations and jeering cat-calls of his friends and finally escaped, looking terribly sheepish.

  Celia, on the other side, was pink and composed.

  "Another good man gone West," sighed Len Bateson.

  "I'm so glad, Celia," said Patricia.

  "I hope you'll be very happy." "Everything in the garden is now perfect," said Nigel.

  "Tomorrow we'll bring some chianti in and drink your health. Why is our dear Jean looking so grave?

  Do you disapprove of marria e, Jean?" "Of course not, Nigel." "I always think it's so much better than Free Love, don't you? Nicer for the children. Looks better on their passports." "But the mother should not be too young," said Genevieve.

  "They tell one that in comthe Physiology classes." "Really, dear," said Nigel, "you're not suggesting that Celia's below the age of consent or anything like that, are you? She's free, white, and twenty-one." "That," said Mr. Chandra Lal, "is a most offensive remark." "No, no, Mr. Chandra Lal," said Patricia. "It's just a-a kind of idiom. It doesn't mean anything." "I do not understand," said Mr. Akibombo. "If a thing does not mean anything, why should it be said?" Elizabeth Johnston said suddenly, raising her voice a little, "Things are sometimes said comt do not seem to mean anything but they mean a good deal. No, it is not your American quotation I mean. I am talking of something else." She looked round the table. "I am talking of what happened yesterday." Valerie said sharply, "What's up, Bess?" "Oh, please," said Celia. "T think-I really do-that by tomorrow everything will be cleared up. I really mean it. The ink on your papers, and that silly business of the rucksack. And if-if the person owns up, like I've done, then everything will be cleared up." She spoke earnestly, with a flushed face, and one or two people looked at her curiously.

  Valerie said with a short laugh, "And we'll all live happy ever afterwards." Then they got up and went into the Common Room.

  There was quite a little competition to give Celia her coffee. Then the wireless was turned on, some students left to keep appointments or to work and finally the inhabitants of 24 and 26 Hickory Road got to bed.

  It had been, Mrs. Hubbard reffected, as she climbed gratefully betweenthe sheets, a long wearying day.

  "But thank goodness," she said to herself. "It's all over now." Miss LEMON WAS SELDOM, if ever, unpunctual. Fog, storm, epidemics of flu, transport breakdowns-none of these things seemed to affect that remarkable woman. But this morning Miss Lemon arrived, breathless, at five minutes past ten instead of on the stroke of ten o'clock. She was profusely apologetic and for her, quite ruffled.

  "I'm extremely sorry, Mr.

  Poirot-really extremely sorry. I was just about to leave the flat when my sister rang up." "Ah, she is in good health and spirits, I trust?" "Well, frankly no." Poirot looked inquiring. "In fact, she's very distressed. One of the students has committed suicide." Poirot stared at her. He muttered something softly under his breath.

  "I beg your pardon, Mr. Poirot?" :, What is the name of the student?" "A girl called Celia Austin." "How?" "They think she took morphia." "Could it have been an accident?" "Oh no. She left a note, it seems." Poirot said softly, "It was not this I expected, no, it was not this ... and yet it is true, I expected something." He looked up to find Miss Lemon at attention, waiting with pencil poised above her pad.

  He sighed and shook his head.

  "No, I will hand you here this morning's mail.

  File them, please, and answer what you can. Me, I shall go round to Hickory Road." Geronimo let Poirot in and recognizing him as the honoured guest of two nights before became at once voluble in a sibilant conspirational whisper.

  "Ah, Signor, it is you. We have here the trouble the big trouble. The little Signorina, she is dead in her bed this morning. First the doctor come. He shake his head. Now comes an Inspector of the Police.

  He is upstairs with the Signora and the Padrona.

  Why should she wish to kill herself, the poverina? When last night all is so gay and the betrothment is made?" "Betrothment?" "Si, si. To Mr. Colin-you know combig, dark, always smoke the pipe." "I know." Geronimo opened the door of the Common Room and introduced Poirot into it with a redoublement of the conspiratorial manner.

  "You stay here, yes? Presently, when the police go, I tell the Signora you are here. That is good, yes?" Poirot said that it was good and Geronimo withdrew.

  Left to himself, Poirot who had no scruples of delicacy, made as minute an examination as possible of everything in the room with special attention to everything belonging to the students. His rewards were mediocre. The students kept most of their belongings and personal papers in their bedrooms.

  Upstairs, Mrs. Hubbard was sitting facing Inspector Sharpe who was asking questions in a soft apologetic voice. He was a big, confidential looking man with a deceptively mild manner.

  "It's very awkward and distressing for you, I know," he said soothingly. "But you see, as Dr. Coles has already told you, there will have to be an inquest, and we have just to get the picture right, so to speak. Now this girl had been distressed and unhappy lately, you say?" "Yes." "Love affair?" "Not exactly." Mrs. Hubbard hesitated.

  "You'd better tell me, you know," said Inspector Sharpe, persuasively. "As I say, we've got to get the picture. There was a reason, or she thought there was, for taking her own life? Any possibility that she might have been pregnant?" "It wasn't that kind of thing at all. I hesitated, Inspector Sharpe, simply because the child had done some very foolish things and I hoped it needn't be necessary to bring them out in the open." Inspector Sharpe coughed.

  "We have a good deal of discretion, and the Coroner is a man of wide experience. But we have to know." "Yes, of course. I was being foolish. The truth is that for some time past, three months or more, things have been disappeariny-smah things, I mearmothing very important
." "Trinkets, you mean, finery, nylon stockings and all that? Money, too?" "No money as far as I know." "Ah. And this girl was responsible?" "Yes.

  "You'd caught her at it?" "Not exactly. The night before last a-er-a friend of mine came to dine. A M. Hercule Poirot-I don't know if you know the name." Inspector Sharpe had looked up from his notebook. His eyes had opened rather wide. It happened that he did know the name.

  "M. Hercule Poirot?" he said. "Indeed?

  Now that's very interesting." "He gave us a little talk after dinner and the subject of these thefts came up. He advised me, in front of them all, to go to the police." "He did, did he?" "Afterwards, Celia came along to my room and owned up. She was very distressed." "Any question of prosecution?" "No. She was going to make good the losses, and everyone was very nice to her about it." "Had she been hardup?" "No. She had an adequately paid job as dispenser at St. Catherine's Hospital and has a little money of her own, I believe. She was rather better off than most of our students." "So she'd no need to steal-but did," said the Inspector, writing it down.

  "It's kleptomania, I suppose," said Mrs. Hubbard.

  "That's the label that's used. I just mean one of the people that don't need to take things, but nevertheless do take them." "I wonder if you're being a little unfair to her.

  You see, there was a young man." "And he ratted on her?" "Oh no. Quite the reverse. He spoke very strongly in her defence and as a matter of fact last night, after supper, he announced that they'd become engaged." Inspector Sharpe's eyebrows mounted his forehead in a surprised fashion.

  "And then she goes up to bed and takes morphia?

  That's rather surprising, isn't it?" G It is. I can't understand it." Mrs. Hubbard's face was creased with perplexity and distress.

  "And yet the facts are clear enough." Sharpe nodded to the small torn piece of paper that lay on the table between them.

  Dear Mrs. Hubbard, (it ran) I really am sorry- and this is the best thing I can do.

  "It's not signed, but you've no doubt it's her handwriting?" 'ationo.

  Mrs. Hubbard spoke rather uncertainly and frowned as she looked at the torn scrap of paper. Why did she feel so strongly that there was something wrong about it-his "There's one clear fingerprint on it which is definitely hers," said the Inspector. "The morphia was in a small bottle with the label of St. Catherine's Hospital on it and you tell me that she works as a dispenser in St. Catherine's.

  She'd have access to the poison cupboard and that's where she probably got it. Presumably she brought it home with her yesterday with suicide in nful." "I really can't believe it. It doesn't seem right some how. She was so happy last night." "Then we must suppose that a reaction set in when she went up to bed. Perhaps there's more in her past than you know about. Perhaps she was afraid of that coming out. You think she was very much in love with this young man-what's his name, by the way?" "Colin Mcationabb. He's doing a post graduate course at St. Catherine's." "A doctor? Hm. And at St.

  Catherine's?" "Celia was very much in love with him, more I should say, than he with her. He's a rather self-centered young man." "Then that's probably the explanation. She didn't feel worthy of him, or hadn't told him all she ought to tell him. She was quite young, wasn't she?" "Twenty-three." "They're idealistic at that age and they take love affairs hard. Yes, that's it, I'm afraid. Pity." He rose to his feet. "I'm afraid the actual facts will have to come out, but we'll do all we can to gloss things over. Thank you, Mrs. Hubbard.

  I've got all the information I need now. Her mother died two years ago and the only relative you know of is this elderly aunt in Yorkshire-we'll communicate with her." He picked up the small torn fragment with Celia's agitated writing oDit .

  "There's something wrong about that," said Mrs.

  Hubbard suddenly.

  "Wrong? In what way?" "I don't know comb I feel I ought to know. Oh dear." "You're quite sure it's her handwriting?" "Oh yes. It's not that." Mrs. Hubbard pressed her hands to her eyeballs.

  "I feel so dreadfully stupid this morning," she said apologetically.

  "It's all been very trying for you, I know," said the Inspector with gentle sympathy. "I don't think we need to trouble you further at the moment, Mrs.

  Hubhard." Inspector Sharpe opened the door and immediately fell over Gerortimo who was pressed against the door outside.

  "Hullo," said Inspector Sharpe pleasantly. "Listening at doors, eh?" "No, no," Geronimo answered with an air of virtuous indignation. "I do not listermever, never! I am just coming in with message." "I see. What message?" Geronimo said sulkily, "Only that there is gentleman downstairs to see la Signora Hubbard." "All right. Go along in, sonny, and tell her." He walked past Geronimo down the passage and then, taking a leaf out of the Italian's book, turned sharply, and tiptoed Doiselessly back. Might as well know if little monkey face had been telling the truth.

  He arrived in time to hear Geronimo say, "The gentleman who came to supper the other night, the gentleman with the moustaches, he is downstairs waiting to see you." "Eh? What?" Mrs. Hubbard sounded abstracted. "Oh, thank you, Geronimo. I'll be down in a minute or two.

  "Gentleman with the moustaches, eh," said Sharpe to himself, grinning. "I bet I know who that is." He went downstairs and into the Common Room.

  "Hullo, Mr. Poirot," he said. "It's a long time since we met." Poircyt rose without visible discomposure from a kneeling position by the bottom shelf near the fireplace.

  "Aha," he said. "But surely-yes, it is Inspector Sharpe, is it not? But you were not formerly in this division?" "Transferred two years ago. Remember that business down at Crays Hill?" "Ah yes. That is a long time ago now. You are still a young man, Inspector" "Getting on, getting on." hiscomand I am an old one. Alas!" Poirot si,eaeahe'd.

  "But still active, eh, Mr. Poirot.

  Active in certain ways, shall we say?" "Now what do you mean by that?" "I mean that I'd like to know why you came along here the other night to give a andM on criminology to students." Poirot smiled.

  "But there is such a simple explanation. Mrs.

  Hubhard here is the sister of my much valued secretary, Miss Lemon. So when she asked me-was "When she asked you to look into what had been going on here, you came along. That's it really, isn't it?" "You are quite correct." "But why? That's what I want to know. What was there in it for you?" "To interest me, you mean?" "That's what I mean. Here's a silly kid who's been pinching a few things here and there. Happens all the time. Rather small beer for you, Mr.

  Poirot, isn't it?" Poirot shook his head.

  "Why not? What isn't simple about it?" "It is not so simple as that." Poirot sat down on a chair. With a slight frown he dusted the knees of his trousers.

  "I wish I knew," he said simply.

  Sharpe frowned.

  "I don't understand," he said.

  "No, and I do not understand. The things that were taken" he shook his head. "They did not make a pattern-they did not make sense. It is like seeing a trail of footprints and they are not all made by the same feet. There is, quite clearly, the print of what you have called "a silly kid"-but there is more than that. Other things happened that were meant to fit in with the pattern of Celia Austin-but they did not fit in. They were meaningless, apparently purposeless.

  There was evidence, too, of malice. And Celia was not malicious." "She was a kleptomaniac?" "I should very much doubt it." coneaJust an ordinary petty thief, then?" "Not in the way you mean. I give it to you as my opinion that all this pilfering of petty objects was done to attract the attention of a certain young man." 'Colin Mcationabb?" disccallyes. She was desperately in love with Colin Meationabb. Colin never noticed her.

  Instead of a nice, pretty, well behaved young girl, she displayed herself as an interesting young criminal. The result was successful. Colin Mcationabb immediately fell for her, as they say, in a big way." was He must be a complete fool, then." "Not at all. He is a keen psychologist." "Oh," Inspector Sharpe groaned. "One of those! I understand now." A faint grin showed on his face. "Pretty smart
of the girl." "SLFFRPRISINGLY so." Poirot repeated, musingly, "Yes, surprisingly so." Inspector Sharpe looked alert. coneaMeaning by that, Mr. Poirot?" 'That I wondered-I still wonder-if the idea had been suggested to her by someone else?" "For what reason?" "How do I know? Altruism? Some ulterior motive?

  One is in the dark." "Any ideas as to who it might have been who gave he r the tip?" coneaationo-unless-but n" 'All the same," said Sharpe, pondering, "I don't quite get it. If she's been simply trying this kleptomania business on, and it's succeeded, why the hell go and commit suicide?" "The answer is that she should not have committed suicide." The two men looked at each other.

  Poirot murmured: coneaally are quite sure that she did?" 'It's clear as day, Mr. Poirot There's no reason to believe otherwise and-was The door opened and Mrs. Hubbard came in.

  She looked flushed and triumphant. Her chin stuck out aggressively.