Dumb Witness (Hercule Poirot 16)

“17 Clanroyden Mansions, Bayswater.”

“So it’s Lawson next,” I commented. “And after that—the Tanioses?”

“Quite right, Hastings.”

“What rôle are you adopting here?” I inquired as the taxi drew up at Clanroyden Mansions. “The biographer of General Arundell, a prospective tenant of Littlegreen House, or something more subtle still?”

“I shall present myself simply as Hercule Poirot.”

“How very disappointing,” I gibed.

Poirot merely threw me a glance and paid off the taxi.

No. 17 was on the second floor. A pert-looking maid opened the door and showed us into a room that really struck a ludicrous note after the one we had just left.

Theresa Arundell’s flat had been bare to the point of emptiness. Miss Lawson’s on the other hand was so crammed with furniture and odds and ends that one could hardly move about without the fear of knocking something over.

The door opened and a rather stout, middle-aged lady came in. Miss Lawson was very much as I had pictured her. She had an eager, rather foolish face, untidy greyish hair and pince-nez perched a little askew on her nose. Her style of conversation was spasmodic and consisted of gasps.

“Good morning—er—I don’t think—”

“Miss Wilhelmina Lawson?”

“Yes—yes—that is my name….”

“My name is Poirot—Hercule Poirot. Yesterday I was looking over Littlegreen House.”

“Oh, yes?”

Miss Lawson’s mouth fell a little wider open and she made some inefficient dabs at her untidy hair.

“Won’t you sit down?” she went on. “Sit here, won’t you? Oh, dear, I’m afraid that table is in your way. I’m just a leetle bit crowded here. So difficult! These flats! Just a teeny bit on the small side. But so central! And I do like being central. Don’t you?”

With a gasp she sat down on an uncomfortable-looking Victorian chair and, her pince-nez still awry, leaned forward breathlessly and looked at Poirot hopefully.

“I went to Littlegreen House in the guise of a purchaser,” went on Poirot. “But I should like to say at once—this is in the strictest confidence—”

“Oh, yes,” breathed Miss Lawson, apparently pleasurably excited.

“The very strictest confidence,” continued Poirot, “that I went there with another object… You may or may not be aware that shortly before she died Miss Arundell wrote to me—”

He paused and then went on:

“I am a well-known private detective.”

A variety of expressions chased themselves over Miss Lawson’s slightly flushed countenance. I wondered which one Poirot would single out as relevant to his inquiry. Alarm, excitement, surprise, puzzlement….

“Oh,” she said. Then after a pause, “Oh,” again.

And then, quite unexpectedly, she asked:

“Was it about the money?”

Poirot, even, was slightly taken aback. He said tentatively:

“You mean the money that was—”

“Yes, yes. The money that was taken from the drawer?”