Dumb Witness (Hercule Poirot 16)

SECOND VISIT TO LITTLEGREEN HOUSE

On our way from Harchester to Market Basing, a matter of some ten miles, we discussed the situation.

“Have you any grounds at all, Poirot, for that suggestion you threw out?”

“You mean that Miss Arundell may have believed that that particular will was destroyed? No, mon ami—frankly, no. But it was incumbent upon me—you must perceive that—to make some sort of suggestion! Mr. Purvis is a shrewd man. Unless I threw out some hint of the kind I did, he would ask himself what I could be doing in this affair.”

“Do you know what you remind me of, Poirot?” I said.

“No, mon ami.”

“Of a juggler juggling with a lot of different coloured balls! They are all in the air at once.”

“The different coloured balls are the different lies I tell—eh?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“And some day, you think, there will come the grand crash?”

“You can’t keep it up forever,” I pointed out.

“That is true. There will come the grand moment when I catch the balls one by one, make my bow, and walk off the stage.”

“To the sound of thunderous applause from the audience.”

Poirot looked at me rather suspiciously.

“That well may be, yes.”

“We didn’t learn very much from Mr. Purvis,” I remarked, edging away from the danger point.

“No, except that it confirmed our general ideas.”

“And it confirmed Miss Lawson’s statement that she knew nothing about the will until after the old lady’s death.”

“Me, I do not see that it confirmed anything of the sort.”

“Purvis advised Miss Arundell not to tell her, and Miss Arundell replied that she had no intention of doing so.”

“Yes, that is all very nice and clear. But there are keyholes, my friend, and keys that unlock locked drawers.”

“Do you really think that Miss Lawson would eavesdrop and poke and pry around?” I asked rather shocked.

Poirot smiled.

“Miss Lawson—she is not an old school tie, mon cher. We know that she overheard one conversation which she was not supposed to have heard—I refer to the one in which Charles and his aunt discussed the question of bumping off miserly relatives.”

I admitted the truth of that.

“So you see, Hastings, she may easily have overheard some of the conversation between Mr. Purvis and Miss Arundell. He has a good resonant voice.”

“As for poking and prying,” went on Poirot. “More people do it than you would suppose. Timid and easily frightened people such as Miss Lawson often acquire a number of mildly dishonourable habits which are a great solace and recreation to them.”

“Really, Poirot!” I protested.

He nodded his head a good many times.

“But yes, it is so, it is so.”