Блейз Клемент - Cat Sitter Among The Pigeons

His finger went out pointing.

“But Miss Rich - Miss Rich was not here last term, was she?”

“I - no. I was ill.” She spoke hurriedly. “I was away for a term.”

“That is the thing that we did not know,” said Hercule Poirot, “until a few days ago somebody mentioned it casually. When questioned by the police originally, you merely said that you had been at Meadowbank for a year and a half. That in itself is true enough. But you were absent last term. You could have been in Ramat - I think you were in Ramat. Be careful. It can be verified, you know, from your passport.”

There was a moment's silence, then Eileen Rich looked up.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I was in Ramat. Why not?”

“Why did you go to Ramat, Miss Rich?”

“You already know. I had been ill. I was advised to take a rest - to go abroad. I wrote to Miss Bulstrode and explained that I must take a term off. She quite understood.”

“That is so,” said Miss Bulstrode. “A doctor's certificate was enclosed which said that it would be unwise for Miss Rich to resume her duties until the following term.”

“So - you went to Ramat?” said Hercule Poirot.

“Why shouldn't I go to Ramat?” said Eileen Rich. Her voice trembled slightly. “There are cheap fares offered to schoolteachers. I wanted a rest. I wanted sunshine. I went out to Ramat. I spent two months there. Why not? Why not, I say?”

“You have never mentioned that you were in Ramat at the time of the revolution.”

“Why should I? What has it got to do with anyone here? I haven't killed anyone, I tell you. I haven't killed anyone.”

“You were recognized, you know,” said Hercule Poirot. “Not recognized definitely, but indefinitely. The child Jennifer was very vague. She said she thought she'd seen you in Ramat but concluded it couldn't be you because, she said, the person she had seen was fat, not thin.” He leaned forward, his eyes boring into Eileen Rich's face.

“What have you to say, Miss Rich?”

She wheeled round. “I know what you're trying to make out!” she cried. “You're trying to make out that it wasn't a secret agent or anything of that kind who did these murders. That it was someone who just happened to be there, someone who happened to see this treasure hidden in a tennis racquet. Someone who realized that the child was coming to Meadowbank and that she'd have an opportunity to take for herself this hidden thing. But I tell you it isn't true!”

“I think that is what happened. Yes,” said Poirot. “Someone saw the jewels being hidden and forgot all other duties or interests in the determination to possess them!”

“It isn't true, I tell you. I saw nothing -”

“Inspector Kelsey,” Poirot turned his head.

Inspector Kelsey nodded - went to the door, opened it, and Mrs. Upjohn walked into the room.

Cat Among the Pigeons

II

“How do you do, Miss Bulstrode,” said Mrs. Upjohn, looking rather embarrassed. “I'm sorry I'm looking rather untidy, but I was somewhere near Ankara yesterday and I've just flown home. I'm in a terrible mess and I really haven't had time to clean myself up or do anything.”

“That does not matter,” said Hercule Poirot. “We want to ask you something.”

“Mrs. Upjohn,” said Kelsey, “when you came here to bring your daughter to the school and you were in Miss Bulstrode's sitting room, you looked out of the window - the window which gives on the front drive - and you uttered an exclamation as though you recognized someone you saw there. That is so, is it not?”

Mrs. Upjohn stared at him. “When I was in Miss Bulstrode's sitting room? I looked - oh, yes, of course! Yes, I did see someone.”

“Someone you were surprised to see?”

“Well, I was rather... You see, it had all been such years ago.”

“You mean the days when you were working in Intelligence toward the end of the war?”

“Yes. It was about fifteen years ago. Of course, she looked much older, but I recognized her at once. And I wondered what on earth she could be doing here.”

“Mrs. Upjohn, will you look round this room and tell me if you see that person here now?”

“Yes, of course,” said Mrs. Upjohn. “I saw her as soon as I came in. That's her.”

She stretched out a pointing finger. Inspector Kelsey was quick and so was Adam, but they were not quick enough. Ann Shapland had sprung to her feet. In her hand was a small wicked-looking automatic and it pointed straight at Mrs. Upjohn. Miss Bulstrode, quicker than the two men, moved sharply forward, but swifter still was Miss Chadwick. It was not Mrs. Upjohn that she was trying to shield - it was the woman who was standing between Ann Shapland and Mrs. Upjohn.

“No, you shan't,” cried Chaddy, and flung herself on Miss Bulstrode just as the small automatic went off.

Miss Chadwick staggered, then slowly crumpled down. Miss Johnson ran to her. Adam and Kelsey had got hold of Ann Shapland now. She was struggling like a wild cat, but they wrested the small automatic from her.

Mrs. Upjohn said breathlessly:

“They said then that she was a killer. Although she was so young. One of the most dangerous agents they had. Angelica was her code name.”

“You lying bitch!” Ann Shapland fairly spat out the words.

Hercule Poirot said:

"She does not lie. You are dangerous. You have always led a dangerous life. Up to now, you have never been suspected in your own identity. All the jobs you have taken in your own name have been perfectly genuine jobs, efficiently performed - but they have all been jobs with a purpose, and that purpose has been the gaining of information. You have worked with an oil company, with an archaeologist whose work took him to a certain part of the globe, with an actress whose protector was an eminent politician. Ever since you were seventeen you have worked as an agent - though for many different masters. Your services have been for hire and have been highly paid. You have played a dual role. Most of your assignments have been carried out in your own name, but there were certain jobs for which you assumed different identities. Those were the times when ostensibly you had to go home and be with your mother.

"But I strongly suspect, Miss Shapland, that the elderly woman I visited who lives in a small village with a nurse-companion to look after her, an elderly woman who is genuinely a mental patient with a confused mind, is not your mother at all. She has been your excuse for retiring from employment and from the circle of your friends. The three months this winter that you spent with your 'mother' who had one of her 'bad turns,' covers the time when you went out to Ramat. Not as Ann Shapland but as Angelica da Toredo, a Spanish, or near-Spanish cabaret dancer. You occupied the room in the hotel next to that of Mrs. Sutcliffe and somehow you managed to see Bob Rawlinson conceal the jewels in the racquet. You had no opportunity of taking the racquet then for there was the sudden evacuation of all British people, but you had read the labels on their luggage and it was easy to find out something about them. To obtain a secretarial post here was not difficult. I have made some inquiries. You paid a substantial sum to Miss Bulstrode's former secretary to vacate her post on the plea of a 'breakdown.' And you had quite a plausible story. You had been commissioned to write a series of articles on a famous girls' school 'from within.'

“It all seemed quite easy, did it not? If a child's racquet was missing, what of it? Simpler still, you would go out at night to the Sports Pavilion, and abstract the jewels. But you had not reckoned with Miss Springer. Perhaps she had already seen you examining the racquets. Perhaps she just happened to wake that night. She followed you out there and you shot her. Later, Mademoiselle Blanche tried to blackmail you, and you killed her. It comes natural to you, does it not, to kill?”