POIROT PAYS A CALL
I was slightly nervous when I rang the bell at Marby Grange the following afternoon. I wondered very much what Poirot expected to find out. He had entrusted the job to me. Why? Was it because, as in the case of questioning Major Blunt, he wished to remain in the background? The wish, intelligible in the first case, seemed to me quite meaningless here.
My meditations were interrupted by the advent of a smart parlormaid.
Yes, Mrs. Folliott was at home. I was ushered into a big drawing-room, and looked round me curiously as I waited for the mistress of the house. A large bare room, some good bits of old china, and some beautiful etchings, shabby covers and curtains. A lady's room in every sense of the term.
I turned from the inspection of a Bartolozzi on the wall as Mrs. Folliott came into the room. She was a tall woman, with untidy brown hair, and a very winning smile.
"Dr. Sheppard," she said hesitatingly.
"That is my name," I replied. "I must apologize for calling upon you like this, but I wanted some information about a parlormaid previously employed by you, Ursula Bourne."
With the utterance of the name the smile vanished from her face, and all the cordiality froze out of her manner. She looked uncomfortable and ill at ease.
"Ursula Bourne?" she said hesitatingly.
"Yes," I said. "Perhaps you don't remember the name?"
"Oh, yes, of course. I—I remember perfectly."
"She left you just over a year ago, I understand?"
"Yes. Yes, she did. That is quite right."
"And you were satisfied with her whilst she was with you? How long was she with you, by the way?"
"Oh! a year or two—I can't remember exactly how long. She—she is very capable. I'm sure you will find her quite satisfactory. I didn't know she was leaving Fernly. I hadn't the least idea of it."
"Can you tell me anything about her?" I asked.
"Anything about her?"
"Yes, where she comes from, who her people are—that sort of thing?"
Mrs. Folliott's face wore more than ever its frozen look.
"I don't know at all."
"Who was she with before she came to you?"
"I'm afraid I don't remember."
There was a spark of anger now underlying her nervousness. She flung up her head in a gesture that was vaguely familiar.
"Is it really necessary to ask all these questions?"
"Not at all," I said, with an air of surprise and a tinge of apology in my manner. "I had no idea you would mind answering them. I am very sorry."
Her anger left her and she became confused again.
"Oh! I don't mind answering them. I assure you I don't. Why should I? It—it just seemed a little odd, you know. That's all. A little odd."
One advantage of being a medical practitioner is that you can usually tell when people are lying to you. I should have known from Mrs. Folliott's manner, if from nothing else, that she did mind answering my questions—minded intensely. She was thoroughly uncomfortable and upset, and there was plainly some mystery in the background. I judged her to be a woman quite unused to deception of any kind, and consequently rendered acutely uneasy when forced to practice it. A child could have seen through her.
But it was also clear that she had no intention of telling me anything further. Whatever the mystery centering around Ursula Bourne might be, I was not going to learn it through Mrs. Folliott.
Defeated, I apologized once more for disturbing her, took my hat and departed.
I went to see a couple of patients and arrived home about six o'clock. Caroline was sitting beside the wreck of tea things. She had that look of suppressed exultation on her face which I know only too well. It is a sure sign with her, of either the getting or the giving of information. I wondered which it had been.
"I've had a very interesting afternoon," began Caroline as I dropped into my own particular easy chair, and stretched out my feet to the inviting blaze in the fireplace.
"Have you?" I asked. "Miss Ganett drop in to tea?"
Miss Ganett is one of the chief of our newsmongers.
"Guess again," said Caroline with intense complacency.
I guessed several times, working slowly through all the members of Caroline's Intelligence Corps. My sister received each guess with a triumphant shake of the head. In the end she volunteered the information herself.
"M. Poirot!" she said. "Now what do you think of that?"
I thought a good many things of it, but I was careful not to say them to Caroline.
"Why did he come?" I asked.
"To see me, of course. He said that knowing my brother so well, he hoped he might be permitted to make the acquaintance of his charming sister—your charming sister, I've got mixed up, but you know what I mean."
"What did he talk about?" I asked.
"He told me a lot about himself and his cases. You know that Prince Paul of Mauretania—the one who's just married a dancer?"
"Yes?"
"I saw a most intriguing paragraph about her in Society Snippets the other day, hinting that she was really a Russian Grand Duchess—one of the Czar's daughters who managed to escape from the Bolsheviks. Well, it seems that M. Poirot solved a baffling murder mystery that threatened to involve them both. Prince Paul was beside himself with gratitude."
"Did he give him an emerald tie pin the size of a plover's egg?" I inquired sarcastically.
"He didn't mention it. Why?"
"Nothing," I said. "I thought it was always done. It is in detective fiction anyway. The super detective always has his rooms littered with rubies and pearls and emeralds from grateful Royal clients."
"It's very interesting to hear about these things from the inside," said my sister complacently.
It would be—to Caroline. I could not but admire the ingenuity of M. Hercule Poirot, who had selected unerringly the case of all others that would most appeal to an elderly maiden lady living in a small village.
"Did he tell you if the dancer was really a Grand Duchess?" I inquired.
"He was not at liberty to speak," said Caroline importantly.
I wondered how far Poirot had strained the truth in talking to Caroline—probably not at all. He had conveyed his innuendoes by means of his eyebrows and his shoulders.
"And after all this," I remarked, "I suppose you were ready to eat out of his hand."
"Don't be coarse, James. I don't know where you get these vulgar expressions from."
"Probably from my only link with the outside world—my patients. Unfortunately my practice does not lie amongst Royal princes and interesting Russian émigrés."
Caroline pushed her spectacles up and looked at me.
"You seem very grumpy, James. It must be your liver. A blue pill, I think, to-night."
To see me in my own home, you would never imagine that I was a doctor of medicine. Caroline does the home prescribing both for herself and me.
"Damn my liver," I said irritably. "Did you talk about the murder at all?"
"Well, naturally, James. What else is there to talk about locally? I was able to set M. Poirot right upon several points. He was very grateful to me. He said I had the makings of a born detective in me—and a wonderful psychological insight into human nature."
Caroline was exactly like a cat that is full to overflowing with rich cream. She was positively purring.
"He talked a lot about the little gray cells of the brain, and of their functions. His own, he says, are of the first quality."
"He would say so," I remarked bitterly. "Modesty is certainly not his middle name."
"I wish you would not be so horribly American, James. He thought it very important that Ralph should be found as soon as possible, and induced to come forward and give an account of himself. He says that his disappearance will produce a very unfortunate impression at the inquest."
"And what did you say to that?"
"I agreed with him," said Caroline importantly. "And I was able to tell him the way people were already talking about it."
"Caroline," I said sharply, "did you tell M. Poirot what you overheard in the wood that day?"
"I did," said Caroline complacently.
I got up and began to walk about.
"You realize what you're doing, I hope," I jerked out. "You're putting a halter round Ralph Paton's neck as surely as you're sitting in that chair."
"Not at all," said Caroline, quite unruffled. "I was surprised you hadn't told him."
"I took very good care not to," I said. "I'm fond of that boy."
"So am I. That's why I say you're talking nonsense. I don't believe Ralph did it, and so the truth can't hurt him, and we ought to give M. Poirot all the help we can. Why, think, very likely Ralph was out with that identical girl on the night of the murder, and if so, he's got a perfect alibi."
"If he's got a perfect alibi," I retorted, "why doesn't he come forward and say so?"
"Might get the girl into trouble," said Caroline sapiently. "But if M. Poirot gets hold of her, and puts it to her as her duty, she'll come forward of her own accord and clear Ralph."
"You seem to have invented a romantic fairy story of your own," I said. "You read too many trashy novels, Caroline. I've always told you so."
I dropped into my chair again.
"Did Poirot ask you any more questions?" I inquired.
"Only about the patients you had that morning."
"The patients?" I demanded, unbelievingly.
"Yes, your surgery patients. How many and who they were?"
"Do you mean to say you were able to tell him that?" I demanded.
Caroline is really amazing.
"Why not?" asked my sister triumphantly. "I can see the path up to the surgery door perfectly from this window. And I've got an excellent memory, James. Much better than yours, let me tell you."
"I'm sure you have," I murmured mechanically.
My sister went on, checking the names on her fingers.
"There was old Mrs. Bennett, and that boy from the farm with the bad finger, Dolly Grice to have a needle out of her finger; that American steward off the liner. Let me see—that's four. Yes, and old George Evans with his ulcer. And lastly———"
She paused significantly.
"Well?"
Caroline brought out her climax triumphantly. She hissed in the most approved style—aided by the fortunate number of s's at her disposal.
"Miss Russell!"
She sat back in her chair and looked at me meaningly, and when Caroline looks at you meaningly, it is impossible to miss it.
"I don't know what you mean," I said, quite untruthfully. "Why shouldn't Miss Russell consult me about her bad knee?"
"Bad knee," said Caroline. "Fiddlesticks! No more bad knee than you and I. She was after something else."
"What?" I asked.
Caroline had to admit that she didn't know.
"But depend upon it, that was what he was trying to get at, M. Poirot, I mean. There's something fishy about that woman, and he knows it."
"Precisely the remark Mrs. Ackroyd made to me yesterday," I said. "That there was something fishy about Miss Russell."
"Ah!" said Caroline darkly, "Mrs. Ackroyd! There's another!"
"Another what?"
Caroline refused to explain her remarks. She merely nodded her head several times, rolled up her knitting, and went upstairs to don the high mauve silk blouse and the gold locket which she calls dressing for dinner.
I stayed there staring into the fire and thinking over Caroline's words. Had Poirot really come to gain information about Miss Russell, or was it only Caroline's tortuous mind that interpreted everything according to her own ideas?
There had certainly been nothing in Miss Russell's manner that morning to arouse suspicion. At least———
I remembered her persistent conversation on the subject of drug-taking and from that she had led the conversation to poisons and poisoning. But there was nothing in that. Ackroyd had not been poisoned. Still, it was odd. . . .
I heard Caroline's voice, rather acid in note, calling from the top of the stairs.
"James, you will be late for dinner."
I put some coal on the fire and went upstairs obediently.
It is well at any price to have peace in the home.