Dumb Witness (Hercule Poirot 16)

“Then, supposing we forget crime and go to a show?”

“Ma foi, Hastings, that is a good idea!”

We passed a very pleasant evening, though I made the slight mistake of taking Poirot to a crook play. There is one piece of advice I offer all my readers. Never take a soldier to a military play, a sailor to a naval play, a Scotsman to a Scottish play, a detective to a thriller—and an actor to any play whatsoever! The shower of destructive criticism in each case is somewhat devastating. Poirot never ceased to complain of faulty psychology, and the hero detective’s lack of order and method nearly drove him demented. We parted that night with Poirot still explaining how the whole business might have been laid bare in the first half of the first act.

“But in that case, Poirot, there would have been no play,” I pointed out.

Poirot was forced to admit that perhaps that was so.

It was a few minutes past nine when I entered the sitting room the next morning. Poirot was at the breakfast table—as usual neatly slitting open his letters.

The telephone rang and I answered it.

A heavy breathing female voice spoke:

“Is that M. Poirot? Oh, it’s you, Captain Hastings.”

There was a sort of gasp and a sob.

“Is that Miss Lawson?” I asked.

“Yes, yes, such a terrible thing has happened!”

I grasped the receiver tightly.

“What is it?”

“She left the Wellington, you know—Bella, I mean. I went there late in the afternoon yesterday and they said she’d left. Without a word to me, either! Most extraordinary! It makes me feel that perhaps after all, Dr. Tanios was right. He spoke so nicely about her and seemed so distressed, and now it really looks as though he were right after all.”

“But what’s happened, Miss Lawson? Is is just that Mrs. Tanios left the hotel without telling you?”

“Oh, no, it’s not that! Oh, dear me, no. If that were all it would be quite all right. Though I do think it was odd, you know. Dr. Tanios did say that he was afraid she wasn’t quite—not quite—if you know what I mean. Persecution mania, he called it.”

“Yes.” (Damn the woman!) “But what’s happened?”

“Oh, dear—it is terrible. Died in her sleep. An overdose of some sleeping stuff. And those poor children! It all seems so dreadfully sad! I’ve done nothing but cry since I heard.”

“How did you hear? Tell me all about it.”

Out of the tail of my eye I noticed that Poirot had stopped opening his letters. He was listening to my side of the conversation. I did not like to cede my place to him. If I did it seemed highly probable that Miss Lawson would start with lamentations all over again.

“They rang me up. From the hotel. The Coniston it’s called. It seems they found my name and address in her bag. Oh, dear, M. Poirot—Captain Hastings, I mean, isn’t it terrible? Those poor children left motherless.”

“Look here,” I said. “Are you sure it’s an accident? They didn’t think it could be suicide?”

“Oh, what a dreadful idea, Captain Hastings! Oh, dear, I don’t know, I’m sure. Do you think it could be? That would be dreadful. Of course she did seem very depressed. But she needn’t have. I mean there wouldn’t have been any difficulty about money. I was going to share with her—indeed I was. Dear Miss Arundell would have wished it. I’m sure of that! It seems so awful to think of her taking her own life—but perhaps she didn’t… The hotel people seemed to think it was an accident?”

“What did she take?”

“One of those sleeping things. Veronal, I think. No, chloral. Yes, that was it. Chloral. Oh, dear, Captain Hastings, do you think—”

Unceremoniously I banged down the receiver. I turned to Poirot.

“Mrs. Tanios—”

He raised a hand.

“Yes, yes, I know what you are going to say. She is dead, is she not?”