Agatha Christie - The Labours of Hercules

Jean said: "Let me introduce M. Poirot, who is staying down here for a few days."

Nibbling delicately at a scone and balancing a cup of tea on his knee, Hercule Poirot allowed himself to become confidential with his hostess. Miss Leatheran had been kind enough to ask him to tea and had thereupon made it her business to find out exactly what this exotic little foreigner was doing in their midst.

For some time he parried her thrusts with dexterity – thereby whetting her appetite. Then, when he judged the moment ripe, he leant forward: "Ah, Miss Leatheran," he said. "I can see that you are too clever for me! You have guessed my secret. I am down here at the request of the Home Office. But please," he lowered his voice, "keep this information to yourself."

"Of course – of course -" Miss Leatheran was fluttered – thrilled to the core. "The Home Office – you don't mean – not poor Mrs Oldfield?"

Poirot nodded his head slowly several times.

"We-ell!" Miss Leatheran breathed into that one word a whole gamut of pleasurable emotion.

Poirot said: "It is a delicate matter, you understand. I have been ordered to report whether there is or is not a sufficient case for exhumation."

Miss Leatheran exclaimed: "You are going to dig the poor thing up. How terrible!"

If she had said "how splendid" instead of "how terrible" the words would have suited her tone of voice better.

"What is your own opinion, Miss Leatheran?"

"Well, of course, M. Poirot, there has been a lot of talk. But I never listen to talk. There is always so much unreliable gossip going about. There is no doubt that Doctor Oldfield has been very odd in his manner ever since it happened, but as I have said repeatedly we surely need not put that down to a guilty conscience. It might be just grief. Not, of course, that he and his wife were on really affectionate terms. That I do know – on first hand authority. Nurse Harrison, who was with Mrs Oldfield for three or four years up to the time of her death, has admitted that much. And I have always felt, you know, that Nurse Harrison had her suspicions – not that she ever said anything, but one can tell, can't one, from a person's manner?"

Poirot said sadly: "One has so little to go upon."

"Yes, I know, but of course, M. Poirot, if the body is exhumed then you will know"

"Yes," said Poirot, "then we will know."

"There have been cases like it before, of course," said Miss Leatheran, her nose twitching with pleasurable excitement. "Armstrong, for instance, and that other man – I can't remember his name – and then Crippen, of course. I've always wondered if Ethel Le Neve was in it with him or not. Of course, Jean Moncrieffe is a very nice girl, I'm sure… I wouldn't like to say she led him on exactly – but men do get rather silly about girls, don't they? And, of course, they were thrown very much together!"

Poirot did not speak. He looked at her with an innocent expression of enquiry calculated to produce a further spate of conversation. Inwardly he amused himself by counting the number of times the words "of course" occurred.

"And, of course, with a postmortem and all that, so much would be bound to come out, wouldn't it? Servants and all that. Servants always know so much, don't they? And, of course, it's quite impossible to keep them from gossiping, isn't it? The Oldfields' Beatrice was dismissed almost immediately after the funeral – and I've always thought that was odd – especially with the difficulty of getting maids nowadays. It looks as though Doctor Oldfield was afraid she might know something."

"It certainly seems as though there were grounds for an enquiry," said Poirot solemnly.

Miss Leatheran gave a little shiver of reluctance.

"One does so shrink from the idea," she said. "Our dear quiet little village – dragged into the newspapers – all the publicity!"

"It appals you?" asked Poirot.

"It does a little. I'm old-fashioned, you know."

"And, as you say, it is probably nothing but gossip!"

"Well – I wouldn't like conscientiously to say that. You know, I do think it's so true – the saying that there's no smoke without fire."

"I myself was thinking the same thing," said Poirot.

He rose.

"I can trust your discretion, Mademoiselle?"

"Oh, of course! I shall not say a word to anybody."

Poirot smiled and took his leave.

On the doorstep he said to the little maid who handed him his hat and coat: "I am down here to enquire into the circumstances of Mrs Oldfield's death, but I shall be obliged if you will keep that strictly to yourself."

Miss Leatheran's Gladys nearly fell backward into the umbrella stand.

She breathed excitedly: "Oh sir, then the doctor did do her in?"

"You've thought so for some time, haven't you?"

"Well, sir, it wasn't me. It was Beatrice. She was up there when Mrs Oldfield died."

"And she thought there had been -" Poirot selected the melodramatic words deliberately -"'foul play'?"

Gladys nodded excitedly.

"Yes, she did. And she said so did Nurse that was up there. Nurse Harrison. Ever so fond of Mrs Oldfield Nurse was, and ever so distressed when she died, and Beatrice always said as how Nurse Harrison knew something about it because she turned right round against the doctor afterwards and she wouldn't of done that unless there was something wrong, would she?"

"Where is Nurse Harrison now?"

"She looks after old Miss Bristow – down at the end of the village. You can't miss it. It's got pillars and a porch."

It was a very short time afterwards that Hercule Poirot found himself sitting opposite to the woman who certainly must know more about the circumstances that had given rise to the rumours than any one else.

Nurse Harrison was a still handsome woman nearing forty. She had the calm serene features of a Madonna with big sympathetic dark eyes. She listened to him patiently and attentively. Then she said slowly: "Yes, I know that there are these unpleasant stories going about. I have done what I could to stop them, but it's hopeless. People like the excitement, you know."

Poirot said: "But there must have been something to give rise to these rumours?"

He noted that her expression of distress deepened. But she merely shook her head perplexedly.

"Perhaps," Poirot suggested, "Doctor Oldfield and his wife did not get on well together and it was that that started the rumour?"

Nurse Harrison shook her head decidedly.

"Oh no. Doctor Oldfield was always extremely kind and patient with his wife."

"He was really very fond of her?"

She hesitated.

"No – I would not quite say that. Mrs Oldfield was a very difficult woman, not easy to please and making constant demands for sympathy and attention which were not always justified."

"You mean," said Poirot, "that she exaggerated her condition?"

The nurse nodded.

"Yes – her bad health was largely a matter of her own imagination."

"And yet," said Poirot gravely, "she died…"

"Oh, I know – I know…"

He watched her for a minute or two; her troubled perplexity – her palpable uncertainty.

He said: "I think – I am sure – that you do know what first gave rise to all these stories."

Nurse Harrison flushed.

She said: "Well – I could, perhaps, make a guess. I believe it was the maid, Beatrice, who started all these rumours and I think I know what put it into her head."

"Yes?"

Nurse Harrison said rather incoherently: "You see, it was something I happened to overhear – a scrap of conversation between Doctor Oldfield and Miss Moncrieffe – and I'm pretty certain Beatrice overheard it too, only I don't suppose she'd ever admit it."

"What was this conversation?"