John Curran - Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

‘Must I really read it?’ I asked plaintively. ‘What is it about?’

‘It is, as I told you just now, about nothing.’

Hardly encouraged by this remark I embarked unwillingly on my task. I will confess that I did not read it very carefully. The writing was difficult and I was content to take guesses on the context.

The writer seemed to be a Miss Matilda Wheeler of The Laburnums, Little Hemel. After much doubt and indecision, she wrote, she had felt herself emboldened to write to M. Poirot. At some length she went on to state exactly how and where she had heard M. Poirot’s name mentioned. The matter was such, she said, that she found it extremely difficult to consult anyone in Little Hemel—and of course there was the possibility that she might be completely mistaken—that she was attaching a most ridiculous significance to perfectly natural incidents. In fact she had chided herself unsparingly for fancifulness, but ever since the incident of the dog’s ball she had felt most uneasy. She could only hope to hear from M. Poirot if he did not think the whole thing was a mare’s nest. Also, perhaps, he would be so kind as to let her know what his fee would be? The matter, she knew, was very trivial and unimportant, but her health was bad and her nerves not what they had been and worry of this kind was very bad for her, and the more she thought of it, the more she was convinced that she was right, though, of course, she would not dream of saying anything. [14] This letter is very similar to that sent by Miss Amelia Barrowby, another elderly lady living in a small village who is subsequently poisoned, in ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’

That was more or less the gist of the thing. I put it down with a sigh of exasperation.

‘Why can’t the woman say what she’s talking about? Of all the idiotic letters!’

‘N’est ce pas? A regrettable failure to employ order and method in the mental process.’

‘What do you think she does mean? Not that it matters much. Some upset to her pet dog, I suppose. Anyway, it’s not worth taking seriously.’

‘You think not, my friend?’

‘My dear Poirot, I cannot see why you are so intrigued by this letter.’

‘No, you have not seen. The most interesting point in that letter—you have passed it by unnoticed.’

‘What is the interesting point?’

‘ The date, mon ami. ’

I looked at the heading of the letter again.

‘April 12th,’ I said slowly.

‘C’est curieux, n’est ce pas?’ Nearly three months ago.’ [15] If the letter was written on 12 April and received by Poirot in early August, this should read ‘nearly four months ago’.

‘I don’t suppose it has any significance. She probably meant to put August 12th.’

‘No, no, Hastings. Look at the colour of the ink. That letter was written a good time ago. No, April 12th is the date assuredly. But why was it not sent? And if the writer changed her mind about sending it, why did she keep it and send it now?’

He rose.

‘Mon ami —the day is hot. In London one stifles, is it not so? Then how say you to a little expedition into the country? To be exact, to Little Hemel which is, I see, in the County of Kent.’

I was only too willing and then and there we started off on our visit of exploration.

Little Hemel we found to be a charming village, untouched in the miraculous way that villages can be when they are two miles from a main road. There was a hostelry called The George, and there we had lunch—a bad lunch I regret to say, as is the way at country inns.

An elderly waiter attended to us, a heavy breathing man, and as he brought us two cups of a doubtful fluid called coffee, Poirot started his campaign.

‘A house called The Laburnums,’ he said. ‘You know it? The house of a Miss Wheeler.’

‘That’s right, sir. Just past the church. You can’t miss it. Three Miss Wheelers there were, old-fashioned ladies, born and brought up here. Ah! well, they’re all gone now and the house is up for sale.’

He shook his head sadly.

‘So the Miss Wheelers are all dead?’ said Poirot.

‘Yes, sir. Miss Amelia and Miss Caroline twelve years ago and Miss Matilda just a month or two ago. You thinking of buying the house, sir—if I may ask?’

‘The idea had occurred to me,’ said Poirot mendaciously. ‘But I believe it is in a very bad state.’

‘It’s old-fashioned, sir. Never been modernised as the saying goes. But it’s in good condition—roof and drains and all that. Never grudged money on repairs, Miss Wheeler didn’t, and the garden was always a picture.’

‘She was well off?’

‘Oh! very comfortably off indeed, sir. A very well-to-do family.’

‘I suppose the house has been left to someone who has no use for it? A niece or nephew or some distant relative?’

‘No, sir, she left it to her companion, Miss Lawson. But Miss Lawson doesn’t fancy living in it, and so it’s up for sale. But it’s a bad time for selling houses, they say.’

‘Whenever one has to sell anything it is always a bad time,’ said Poirot smiling, as he paid the bill and added a handsome tip. ‘When exactly did you say Miss Matilda Wheeler died?’

‘Just the beginning of May, sir—thank you, sir—or was it the end of April? She’d not been in good health for a long time.’

‘You have a good doctor here?’

‘Yes, sir, Dr Lawrence. He’s getting on now, but he’s well thought of down here. Always very pleasant-spoken and careful.’

Poirot nodded and presently we strolled out into the hot August sunshine and made our way along the street in the direction of the church.

Before we got to it, however, we passed an old-fashioned house set a little way back, with a brass plate on the gate inscribed with the name of Dr Lawrence.

‘Excellent,’ said Poirot. ‘We will make a call here. At this hour we shall make sure of finding the doctor at home.’

‘My dear Poirot! But what on earth are you going to say? And anyway what are you driving at?’

‘For your first question, mon ami, the answer is simple—I shall have to invent. Fortunately I have the imagination fertile. For your second question— eh bien, after we have conversed with the doctor, it may be that I shall find I am not driving at anything.’

Dr Lawrence proved to be a man of about sixty. I put him down as an unambitious kindly sort of fellow, not particularly brilliant mentally, but quite sound.

Poirot is a past master in the art of mendacity. In five minutes we were all chatting together in the most friendly fashion—it being somehow taken for granted that we were old and dear friends of Miss Matilda Wheeler.

‘Her death, it is a great shock to me. Most sad,’ said Poirot. ‘She had the stroke? No?’

‘Oh! no, my dear fellow. Yellow atrophy of the liver. Been coming on for a long time. She had a very bad attack of jaundice a year ago. She was pretty well through the winter except for digestive trouble. Then she had jaundice again the end of April and died of it. A great loss to us—one of the real oldfashioned kind.’

‘Ah! yes, indeed,’ sighed Poirot. ‘And the companion, Miss Lawson—?’

He paused and rather to our surprise the doctor responded promptly.

‘I can guess what you’re after, and I don’t mind telling you that you’ve my entire sympathy. But if you’re coming to me for any hope of “undue influence” it’s no good. Miss Wheeler was perfectly capable of making a will—not only when she did—but right up to the day of her death. It’s no good hoping that I can say anything different because I can’t.’