Cards on the Table (Hercule Poirot 15)

“Well, I think he did,” said Battle. “I’ve a feeling that our cheerful, genial doctor wouldn’t be too scrupulous. I’ve known one or two like him—wonderful how certain types resemble each other. In my opinion he’s a killer all right. He killed Craddock. He may have killed Mrs. Craddock if she was beginning to be a nuisance and cause a scandal. But did he kill Shaitana? That’s the real question. And comparing the crimes, I rather doubt it. In the case of the Craddocks he used medical methods each time. The deaths appeared to be due to natural causes. In my opinion if he had killed Shaitana, he would have done so in a medical way. He’d have used the germ and not the knife.”

“I never thought it was him,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Not for a minute. He’s too obvious, somehow.”

“Exit Roberts,” murmured Poirot. “And the others?”

Battle made a gesture of impatience.

“I’ve pretty well

drawn blank. Mrs. Lorrimer’s been a widow for twenty years now. She’s lived in London most of the time, occasionally going abroad in the winter. Civilized places—the Riviera, Egypt, that sort of thing. Can’t find any mysterious death associated with her. She seems to have led a perfectly normal, respectable life—the life of a woman of the world. Everyone seems to respect her and to have the highest opinion of her character. The worst that they can say about her is that she doesn’t suffer fools gladly! I don’t mind admitting I’ve been beaten all along the line there. And yet there must be something! Shaitana thought there was.”

He sighed in a dispirited manner.

“Then there’s Miss Meredith. I’ve got her history taped out quite clearly. Usual sort of story. Army officer’s daughter. Left with very little money. Had to earn her living. Not properly trained for anything. I’ve checked up on her early days at Cheltenham. All quite straightforward. Everyone very sorry for the poor little thing. She went first to some people in the Isle of Wight—kind of nursery-governess and mother’s help. The woman she was with is out in Palestine but I’ve talked with her sister and she says Mrs. Eldon liked the girl very much. Certainly no mysterious deaths nor anything of that kind.

“When Mrs. Eldon went abroad, Miss Meredith went to Devonshire and took a post as companion to an aunt of a school friend. The school friend is the girl she is living with now—Miss Rhoda Dawes. She was there over two years until Miss Dawes got too ill and she had to have a regular trained nurse. Cancer, I gather. She’s alive still, but very vague. Kept under morphia a good deal, I imagine. I had an interview with her. She remembered ‘Anne,’ said she was a nice child. I also talked to a neighbour of hers who would be better able to remember the happenings of the last few years. No deaths in the parish except one or two of the older villagers, with whom, as far as I can make out, Anne Meredith never came into contact.

“Since then there’s been Switzerland. Thought I might get on the track of some fatal accident there, but nothing doing. And there’s nothing in Wallingford either.”

“So Anne Meredith is acquitted?” asked Poirot.

Battle hesitated.

“I wouldn’t say that. There’s something … There’s a scared look about her that can’t quite be accounted for by panic over Shaitana. She’s too watchful. Too much on the alert. I’d swear there was something. But there it is—she’s led a perfectly blameless life.”

Mrs. Oliver took a deep breath—a breath of pure enjoyment.

“And yet,” she said, “Anne Meredith was in the house when a woman took poison by mistake and died.”

She had nothing to complain of in the effect her words produced.

Superintendent Battle spun round in his chair and stared at her in amazement.

“Is this true, Mrs. Oliver? How do you know?”

“I’ve been sleuthing,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I get on with girls. I went down to see those two and told them a cock-and-bull story about suspecting Dr. Roberts. The Rhoda girl was friendly—oh, and rather impressed by thinking I was a celebrity. The little Meredith hated my coming and showed it quite plainly. She was suspicious. Why should she be if she hadn’t got anything to hide? I asked either of them to come and see me in London. The Rhoda girl did. And she blurted the whole thing out. How Anne had been rude to me the other day because something I’d said had reminded her of a painful incident, and then she went on to describe the incident.”

“Did she say when and where it happened?”

“Three years ago in Devonshire.”

The superintendent muttered something under his breath and scribbled on his pad. His wooden calm was shaken.

Mrs. Oliver sat enjoying her triumph. It was a moment of great sweetness to her.

“I take off my hat to you, Mrs. Oliver,” he said. “You’ve put one over on us this time. That is very valuable information. And it just shows how easily you can miss a thing.”

He frowned a little.

“She can’t have been there—wherever it was—long. A couple of months at most. It must have been between the Isle of Wight and going to Miss Dawes. Yes, that could be it right enough. Naturally Mrs. Eldon’s sister only remembers she went off to a place in Devonshire—she doesn’t remember exactly who or where.”

“Tell me,” said Poirot, “was this Mrs. Eldon an untidy woman?”

Battle bent a curious gaze upon him.

“It’s odd your saying that, M. Poirot. I don’t see how you could have known. The sister was rather a precise party. In talking I remember her saying ‘My sister is so dreadfully untidy and slapdash.’ But how did you know?”

“Because she needed a mother’s help,” said Mrs. Oliver.