Dumb Witness (Hercule Poirot 16)

“I suppose she was not so strong as her sister?”

“No, sir, it’s odd that. My Miss Arundell, Miss Emily, she was always the delicate one. She’d had a lot to do with doctors all her life. Miss Agnes was always strong and robust and yet she went first and Miss Emily who’d been delicate from a child outlived all the family. Very odd the way things happen.”

“Astonishing how often that is the case.”

Poirot plunged into (I feel sure) a wholly mendacious story of an invalid uncle which I will not trouble to repeat here. It suffices to say that it had its effect. Discussions of death and such matters do more to unlock the human tongue than any other subject. Poirot was in a position to ask questions that would have been regarded with suspicious hostility twenty minutes earlier.

“Was Miss Arundell’s illness a long and painful one?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that, sir. She’d been ailing, if you know what I mean, for a long time—ever since two winters before. Very bad she was then—this here jaundice. Yellow in the face they go and the whites of their eyes—”

“Ah, yes, indeed—” (Anecdote of Poirot’s cousin who appeared to have been the Yellow Peril in person.)

“That’s right—just as you say, sir. Terribly ill she was, poor dear. Couldn’t keep anything down. If you ask me, Dr. Grainger hardly thought she’d pull through. But he’d a wonderful way with her—bullying, you know. ‘Made up your mind to lie back and order your tombstone?’ he’d say. And she’d say, ‘I’ve a bit of fight in me still, doctor,’ and he’d say, ‘That’s right—that’s what I like to hear.’ A hospital nurse we had, and she made up her mind that it was all over—even said to the doctor once that she supposed she’d better not worry the old lady too much by forcing her to take food—but the doctor rounded on her. ‘Nonsense,’ he said, ‘Worry her? You’ve got to bully her into taking nourishment.’ Valentine’s beef juice at such and such a time, Brand’s essence—teaspoonfuls of brandy. And at the end he said something that I’ve never forgotten. ‘You’re young, my girl,’ he said to her, ‘you don’t realize what fine fighting material there is in age. It’s young people who turn up their toes and die because they’re not interested enough to live. You show me anyone who’s lived to over seventy and you show me a fighter—someone who’s got the will to live.’ And it’s true, sir—we’re always saying how wonderful old people are—their vitality and the way they’ve kept their faculties—but as the doctor put it that’s just why they’ve lived so long and got to be so old.”

“But it is profound what you say there—very profound! And Miss Arundell was like that? Very alive. Very interested in life?”

“Oh, yes, indeed, sir. Her health was poor, but her brain was as keen as anything. And as I was saying, she got over that illness of hers—surprised the nurse, it did. A stuck-up young thing she was, all starched collars and cuffs and the waiting on she had to have and tea at all hours.”

“A fine recovery.”

“Yes, indeed, sir. Of course, the mistress had to be very careful as to diet at first, everything boiled and steamed, no grease in the cooking, and she wasn’t allowed to eat eggs either. Very monotonous it was for her.”

“Still the main thing is she got well.”

“Yes, sir. Of course, she had her little turns. What I’d call bilious attacks. She wasn’t always very careful about her food after a time—but still they weren’t very serious until the last attack.”

“Was it like her illness of two years before?”

“Yes, just the same sort of thing, sir. That nasty jaundice—an awful yellow colour again—and the terrible sickness and all the rest of it. Brought it on herself I’m afraid she did, poor dear. Ate a lot of things she shouldn’t have done. That very evening she was took bad she’d had curry for supper and as you know, sir, curry’s rich and a bit oily.”

“Her illness came on suddenly, did it?”

“Well, it seemed so, sir, but Dr. Grainger he said it had been working up for some time. A chill—the weather had been very changeable—and too rich feeding.”

“Surely her companion—Miss Lawson was her companion was she not—could have dissuaded her from rich dishes?”

“Oh, I don’t think Miss Lawson would have much say. Miss Arundell wasn’t one to take orders from anyone.”

“Had Miss Lawson been with her during her previous illness?”

“No, she came after that. She’d been with her about a year.”

“I suppose she’d had companions before that?”

“Oh, quite a number, sir.”

“Her companions didn’t stay as long as her servants,” said Poirot, smiling.

The woman flushed.

“Well, you see, sir, it was different. Miss Arundell didn’t get out much and what with one thing and another—” she paused.

Poirot eyed her for a minute then he said:

“I understand a little the mentality of elderly ladies. They crave, do they not, for novelty. They get, perhaps, to the end of a person.”

“Well, now, that’s very clever of you, sir. You’ve hit it exactly. When a new lady came Miss Arundell was always interested to start with—about her life and her childhood and where she’d been and what she thought about things, and then, when she knew all about her, well, she’d get—well, I suppose bored is the real word.”