Блейз Клемент - Cat Sitter Among The Pigeons

Hercule Poirot paused, then said, “It was, as you can see, merely the trick of the conjuror. Misdirection. You focus the eyes on the kidnapping here and it does not occur to anyone that the kidnapping really occurred three weeks earlier in Switzerland.”

What Poirot really meant, but was too polite to say, was that it had not occurred to anyone but himself!

“We pass now,” he said, "to something far more serious than kidnapping - murder.

"The false Shaista could, of course, have killed Miss Springer but she could not have killed Miss Vansittart or Mademoiselle Blanche, and would have had no motive to kill anybody, nor was such a thing required of her. Her role was simply to receive a valuable packet if, as seemed likely, it should be brought to her; or, alternatively, to receive news of it.

"Let us go back now to Ramat where all this started. It was widely rumoured in Ramat that Prince Ali Yusuf had given this valuable packet to Bob Rawlinson, his private pilot, and that Bob Rawlinson had arranged for its dispatch to England. On the day in question Rawlinson went to Ramat's principal hotel where his sister Mrs. Sutcliffe and her daughter Jennifer were staying. Mrs. Sutcliffe and Jennifer were out, but Bob Rawlinson went up to their room where he remained for at least twenty minutes. That is rather a long time under the circumstances. He might of course have been writing a long letter to his sister. But that was not so. He merely left a short note which he could have scribbled in a couple of minutes.

"It was a very fair inference then, inferred by several separate parties, that during his time in her room he had placed this object among his sister's effects and that she had brought it back to England. Now we come to what I may call the dividing of two separate threads. One set of interests, or possibly more than one set, assumed that Mrs. Sutcliffe had brought this article back to England and in consequence her house in the country was ransacked and a thorough search made. This showed that whoever was searching did not know where exactly the article was hidden. Only that it was probably somewhere in Mrs. Sutcliffe's possession.

"But somebody else knew very definitely exactly where that article was, and I think that by now it will do no harm for me to tell you where, in fact, Bob Rawlinson did conceal it. He concealed it in the handle of a tennis racquet, hollowing the handle out and afterward piecing it together again so skillfully that it was difficult to see what had been done.

"The tennis racquet belonged, not to his sister, but to her daughter Jennifer. Someone who knew exactly where the cache was, went out to the Sports Pavilion one night, having previously taken an impression of the key and got a key cut. At that time of night everyone should have been in bed and asleep. But that was not so. Miss Springer saw the light of a flashlight in the Sports Pavilion from the house, and went out to investigate. She was a tough, hefty young woman and had no doubts of her own ability to cope with anything she might find. The person in question was probably sorting through the tennis racquets to find the right one. Discovered and recognized by Miss Springer, there was no hesitation. The searcher was a killer, and shot Miss Springer dead. Afterward, however, the killer had to act fast. The shot had been heard, people were approaching. At all costs the killer must get out of the Sports Pavilion unseen. The racquet must be left where it was for the moment.

"Within a few days another method was tried. A strange woman with a faked American accent waylaid Jennifer Sutcliffe as she was coming from the tennis courts, and told her a plausible story about a relative of hers having sent her down a new tennis racquet. Jennifer unsuspiciously accepted this story and gladly exchanged the racquet she was carrying for the new expensive one the stranger had brought. But a circumstance had arisen which the woman with the American accent knew nothing about. That was that a few days previously Jennifer Sutcliffe and Julia Upjohn had exchanged racquets so that what the strange woman took away with her was in actual fact Julia Upjohn's old racquet, though the identifying tape on it bore Jennifer's name.

"We come now to the second tragedy. Miss Vansittart for some unknown reason, but possibly connected with the kidnapping of Shaista which had taken place that afternoon, took a flashlight and went out to the Sports Pavilion after everybody had gone to bed. Somebody who had followed her there, struck her down with a cosh or a sandbag, as she was stooping down by Shaista's locker. Again the crime was discovered almost immediately. Miss Chadwick saw a light in the Sports Pavilion and hurried out there.

"The police once more took charge at the Sports Pavilion, and again the killer was debarred from searching and examining the tennis racquets there. But by now, Julia Upjohn, an intelligent child, had thought things over and had come to the logical conclusion that the racquet she possessed and which had originally belonged to Jennifer, was in some way important. She investigated on her own behalf, found that she was correct in her surmise, and brought the contents of the racquet to me.

“These are now,” said Hercule Poirot, “in safe custody and need concern us here no longer.” He paused and then went on. "It remains to consider the third tragedy.

"What Mademoiselle Blanche knew or suspected we shall never know. She may have seen someone leaving the house on the night of Miss Springer's murder. Whatever it was that she knew or suspected, she knew the identity of the murderer. And she kept that knowledge to herself. She planned to obtain money in return for her silence.

“There is nothing,” said Hercule Poirot, with feeling, “more dangerous than levying blackmail on a person who has killed perhaps twice already. Mademoiselle Blanche may have taken her own precautions but whatever they were, they were inadequate. She made an appointment with the murderer and she was killed.”

He paused again.

“So there,” he said, looking round at them, “you have the account of this whole affair.”

They were all staring at him. Their faces which at first had reflected interest, surprise, excitement, seemed now frozen into a uniform calm. It was as though they were terrified to display any emotion. Hercule Poirot nodded at them.

“Yes,” he said, “I know how you feel. It has come, has it not, very near home? That is why, you see, I and Inspector Kelsey and Mr. Adam Goodman have been making the inquiries. We have to know, you see, if there is still a cat among the pigeons! You understand what I mean? Is there still someone here who is masquerading under false colours?”

There was a slight ripple passing through those who listened to him, a brief almost furtive sidelong glance as though they wished to look at each other, but did not dare do so.

“I am happy to reassure you,” said Poirot. “All of you here at this moment are exactly who you say you are. Miss Chadwick, for instance, is Miss Chadwick - that is certainly not open to doubt, she has been here as long as Meadowbank itself! Miss Johnson, too, is unmistakably Miss Johnson. Miss Rich is Miss Rich. Miss Shapland is Miss Shapland. Miss Rowan and Miss Blake are Miss Rowan and Miss Blake. To go further,” said Poirot, turning his head, “Adam Goodman who works here in the garden, is, if not precisely Adam Goodman, at any rate the person whose name is on his credentials. So then, where are we? We must seek not for someone masquerading as someone else, but for someone who is, in his or her proper identity, a murderer.”

The room was very still now. There was menace in the air.

Poirot went on.

“We want, primarily, someone who was in Ramat three months ago. Knowledge that the prize was concealed in the tennis racquet could only have been acquired in one way. Someone must have seen it put there by Bob Rawlinson. It is as simple as that. Who then, of all of you present here, was in Ramat three months ago? Miss Chadwick was here, Miss Johnson was here.” His eyes went on to the two junior mistresses. “Miss Rowan and Miss Blake were here.”