Murder in the Mews (Hercule Poirot 18)

“He has his methods, Miss Plenderleith,” he said. “I humour him, you know. I think we’ll listen to what he has to say.”

Poirot began:

“As you know, mademoiselle, I arrived with my friend at the scene of the crime on the morning of November the sixth. We went into the room where the body of Mrs. Allen had been found and I was struck at once by several significant details. There were things, you see, in that room that were decidedly odd.”

“Go on,” said the girl.

“To begin with,” said Poirot, “there was the smell of cigarette smoke.”

“I think you’re exaggerating there, Poirot,” said Japp. “I didn’t smell anything.”

Poirot turned on him in a flash.

“Precisely. You did not smell any stale smoke. No more did I. And that was very, very strange—for the door and the window were both closed and on an ashtray there were the stubs of no fewer than ten cigarettes. It was odd, very odd, that the room should smell—as it did, perfectly fresh.”

“So that’s what you were getting at!” Japp sighed. “Always have to get at things in such a tortuous way.”

“Your Sherlock Holmes did the same. He drew attention, remember, to the curious incident of the dog in the night-time—and the answer to that was there was no curious incident. The dog did nothing in the nighttime. To proceed:

“The next thing that attracted my attention was a wristwatch worn by the dead woman.”

“What about it?”

“Nothing particular about it, but it was worn on the right wrist. Now in my experience it is more usual for a watch to be worn on the left wrist.”

Japp shrugged his shoulders. Before he could speak, Poirot hurried on:

“But as you say, there is nothing very definite about that. Some people prefer to wear one on the right hand. And now I come to something really interesting—I come, my friends, to the writing bureau.”

“Yes, I guessed that,” said Japp.

“That was really very odd—very remarkable! For two reasons. The first reason was that something was missing from that writing table.”

Jane Plenderleith spoke.

“What was missing?”

Poirot turned to her.

“A sheet of blotting paper, mademoiselle. The blotting book had on top a clean, untouched piece of blotting paper.”

Jane shrugged her shoulders.

“Really, M. Poirot. People do occasionally tear off a very much used sheet!”

“Yes, but what do they do with it? Throw it into the waste-paper basket, do they not? But it was not in the wastepaper basket. I looked.”

Jane Plenderleith seemed impatient.

“Because it had probably been already thrown away the day before. The sheet was clean because Barbara hadn’t written any letters that day.”

“That could hardly be the case, mademoiselle. For Mrs. Allen was seen going to the postbox that evening. Therefore she must have been writing letters. She could not write downstairs—there were no writing materials. She would be hardly likely to go to your room to write. So, then, what had happened to the sheet of paper on which she had blotted her letters? It is true that people sometimes throw things in the fire instead of the wastepaper basket, but there was only a gas fire in the room. And the fire downstairs had not been alight the previous day, since you told me it was all laid ready when you put a match to it.”

He paused.

“A curious little problem. I looked everywhere, in the wastepaper baskets, in the dustbin, but I could not find a sheet of used blotting paper—and that seemed to me very important. It looked as though someone had deliberately taken that sheet of blotting paper away. Why? Because there was writing on it that could easily have been read by holding it up to a mirror.

“But there was a second curious point about the writing table. Perhaps, Japp, you remember roughly the arrangement of it? Blotter and inkstand in the centre, pen tray to the left, calendar and quill pen to the right. Eh bien? You do not see? The quill pen, remember, I examined, it was for show only—it had not been used. Ah! still you do not see? I will say it again. Blotter in the centre, pen tray to the left—to the left, Japp. But is it not usual to find a pen tray on the right, convenient to the right hand?