“And her husband.”
“Tanios? Well, he looks a bit odd, but he’s really a thoroughly nice fellow. Clever, amusing and a thorough good sport.”
“You agree, mademoiselle?”
“Well, I must admit I prefer him to Bella. He’s a damned clever doctor, I believe. All the same, I wouldn’t trust him very far.”
“Theresa,” said Charles, “doesn’t trust anybody.”
He put an arm round her.
“She doesn’t trust me.”
“Anyone who trusted you, my sweet, would be mentally deficient,” said Theresa kindly.
The brother and sister moved apart and looked at Poirot.
Poirot bowed and moved to the door.
“I am—as you say—on the job! It is difficult, but mademoiselle is right. There is always a way. Ah, by the way, this Miss Lawson, is she the kind that might conceivably lose her head under cross-examination in court?”
Charles and Theresa exchanged glances.
“I should say,” said Charles, “that a really bullying K.C. could make her say black was white!”
“That,” said Poirot, “may be very useful.”
He skipped out of the room and I followed him. In the hall he picked up his hat, moved to the front door, opened it and shut it again quickly with a bang. Then he tiptoed to the door of the sitting room and unblushingly applied his ear to the crack. At whatever school Poirot was educated, there were clearly no unwritten rules about eavesdropping. I was horrified but powerless. I made urgent signs to Poirot but he took no notice.
And then, clearly, in Theresa Arundell’s deep, vibrant voice, there came two words:
“You fool!”
There was the noise of footsteps along the passage and Poirot quickly seized me by the arm, opened the front door and passed through, closing it noiselessly behind him.
Fifteen
MISS LAWSON
“Poirot,” I said. “Have we got to listen at doors?”
“Calm yourself, my friend. It was only I who listened! It was not you who put your ear to the crack. On the contrary, you stood bolt upright like a soldier.”
“But I heard just the same.”
“True. Mademoiselle was hardly whispering.”
“Because she thought that we had left the flat.”
“Yes, we practised a little deception there.”
“I don’t like that sort of thing.”
“Your moral attitude is ir
reproachable! But let us not repeat ourselves. This conversation has occurred on previous occasions. You are about to say that it is not playing the game. And my reply is that murder is not a game.”
“But there is no question of murder here.”