Dumb Witness (Hercule Poirot 16)

She was wide awake in a minute.

Bob—naughty Bob! He was barking outside the front door—his own particular “out all night very ashamed of himself” bark, pitched in a subdued key but repeated hopefully.

Miss Arundell strained her ears. Ah, yes, that was all right. She could hear Minnie going down to let him in. She heard the creak of the opening front door, a confused low murmur—Minnie’s futile reproaches—“Oh, you naughty little doggie—a very naughty little Bobsie—” She heard the pantry door open. Bob’s bed was under the pantry table.

And at that moment Emily realized what it was she had subconsciously missed at the moment of her accident. It was Bob. All that commotion—her fall, people running—normally Bob would have responded by a crescendo of barking from inside the pantry.

So that was what had been worrying her at the back of her mind. But it was explained now—Bob, when he had been let out last night, had shamelessly and deliberately gone off on pleasure bent. From time to time he had these lapses from virtue—though his apologies afterwards were always all that could be desired.

So that was all right. But was it? What else was there worrying her, nagging at the back of her head. Her accident—something to do with her accident.

Ah, yes, somebody had said—Charles—that she had slipped on Bob’s ball which he had left on the top of the stairs….

The ball had been there—he had held it up in his hand….

Emily Arundell’s head ached. Her shoulder throbbed. Her bruised body suffered….

But in the midst of her suffering her mind was clear and lucid. She was no longer confused by shock. Her memory was perfectly clear.

She went over in her mind all the events from six o’clock yesterday evening… She retraced every step…till she came to the moment when she arrived at the stairhead and started to descend the stairs….

A thrill of incredulous horror shot through her….

Surely—surely, she must be mistaken… One often had queer fancies after an event had happened. She tried—earnestly she tried—to recall the slippery roundness of Bob’s ball under her foot….

But she could recall nothing of the kind.

Instead—

“Sheer nerves,” said Emily Arundell. “Ridiculous fancies.”

But her sensible, shrewd, Victorian mind would not admit that for a moment. There was no foolish optimism about the Victorians. They could believe the worst with the utmost ease.

Emily Arundell believed the worst.

Four

MISS ARUNDELL WRITES A LETTER

It was Friday.

The relations had left.

They left on the Wednesday as originally planned. One and all, they had offered to stay on. One and all they had been steadfastly refused. Miss Arundell explained that she preferred to be “quite quiet.”

During the two days that had elapsed since their departure, Emily Arundell had been alarmingly meditative. Often she did not hear what Minnie Lawson said to her. She would stare at her and curtly order her to begin all over again.

“It’s the shock, poor dear,” said Miss Lawson.

And she added with the kind of gloomy relish in disaster which brightens so many otherwise drab lives:

“I daresay she’ll never be quite herself again.”

Dr. Grainger, on the other hand, rallied her heartily.

He told her that she’d be downstairs again by the end of the week, that it was a positive disgrace she had no bones broken, and what kind of patient was she for a struggling medical man? If all his patients were like her, he might as well take down his plate straight away.

Emily Arundell replied with spirit—she and old Dr. Grainger were allies of long-standing. He bullied and she defied—they always got a good deal of pleasure out of each other’s company!