Dumb Witness (Hercule Poirot 16)

“Can you write decent English?”

“I hope so.”

“H’m—where did you go to school?”

“Eton.”

“Then you can’t.”

I was forced to let this sweeping charge against an old and venerable centre of education pass unchallenged as Miss Peabody turned her attention once more to Poirot.

“Goin’ to write a life of General Arundell, eh?”

“Yes. You knew him, I think.”

“Yes, I knew John Arundell. He drank.”

There was a momentary pause. Then Miss Peabody went on musingly:

“Indian Mutiny, eh? Seems a bit like flogging a dead horse to me. But that’s your business.”

“You know, madame, there is a fashion in these things. At the moment India is the mode.”

“Something in that. Things do come round. Look at sleeves.”

We maintained a respectful silence.

“Leg o’ muttons were always ugly,” said Miss Peabody. “But I always looked well in Bishops.” She fixed a bright eye on Poirot. “Now then, what do you want to know?”

Poirot spread out his hands.

“Anything! Family history. Gossip. Home life.”

“Can’t tell you anything about India,” said Miss Peabody. “Truth is, I didn’t listen. Rather boring these old men and their anecdotes. He was a very stupid man—but I daresay none the worse General for that. I’ve always heard that intelligence didn’t get you far in the army. Pay attention to your Colonel’s wife and listen respectfully to your superior officers and you’ll get on—that’s what my father used to say.”

Treating this dictum respectfully, Poirot allowed a moment or two to elapse before he said:

“You knew the Arundell family intimately, did you not?”

“Knew ’em all,” said Miss Peabody. “Matilda, she was the eldest. A spotty girl. Used to teach in Sunday School. Was sweet on one of the curates. Then there was Emily. Good seat on a horse, she had. She was the only one who could do anything with her father when he had one of his bouts on. Cartloads of bottles used to be taken out of that house. Buried them at night, they did. Then, let me see, who came next, Arabella or Thomas? Thomas, I think. Always felt sorry for Thomas. One man and four women. Makes a man look a fool. He was a bit of an old woman himself, Thomas was. Nobody thought he’d ever marry. Bit of a shock when he did.”

She chuckled—a rich Victorian fruity chuckle.

It was clear that Miss Peabody was enjoying herself. As an audience we were almost forgotten. Miss Peabody was well away in the past.

“Then came Arabella. Plain girl. Face like a scone. She married all right though, even if she were the plainest of the family. Professor at Cambridge. Quite an old man. Must have been sixty if he was a day. He gave a series of lectures here—on the wonders of Modern Chemistry I think it was. I went to ’em. He mumbled, I remember. Had a beard. Couldn’t hear much of what he said. Arabella used to stay behind and ask questions. She wasn’t a chicken herself. Must have been getting on for forty. Ah well, they’re both dead now. Quite a happy marriage it was. There’s something to be said for marrying a plain woman—you know the worst at once and she’s not so likely to be flighty. Then there was Agnes. She was the youngest—the pretty one. Rather gay we used to think her. Almost fast! Odd, you’d think if any of them had married it would have been Agnes, but she didn’t. She died not long after the war.”

Poirot murmured:

“You said that Mr. Thomas’s marriage was rather unexpected.”

Again Miss Peabody produced that rich, throaty chuckle.

“Unexpected? I should say it was! Made a nine days’ scandal. You’d never have thought it of him—such a quiet, timid, retiring man and devoted to his sisters.”

She paused a minute.

“Remember a case that made rather a stir in the late nineties? Mrs. Varley? Supposed to have poisoned her husband with arsenic. Good-looking woman. Made a big do, that case. She was acquitted. Well, Thomas Arundell quite lost his head. Used to get all the papers and read about the case and cut out the photographs of Mrs. Varley. And would you believe it, when the trial was over, off he went to London and asked her to marry him? Thomas! Quiet, stay at home Thomas! Never can tell with men, can you? They’re always liable to break out.”