Agatha Christie - Hickory Dickory Dock

"Why, of course, Mr. Poirot. I'll go down and send her up to you. I want to speak to Len Bateson about something." Patricia Lane came in shortly afterward with an inquiring look on her face.

"T am so sorry to disturb you, Miss Lane."

"Oh, that's all right. I wasn't busy. Mrs. Hubbard said you wanted to see my ring." She slipped it off her finger and held it out to him. "It's quite a large diamond really, but of course it's an old fashioned setting. It was my mother's engagement ring." Poirot, who was examining the ring, nodded his head.

"She is alive still, your mother?"

"No. Both my parents are dead."

"That is sad."

"Yes. They were both very nice people but somehow I was never quiet so close to them as I ought to have been.

One regrets that afterwards. My mother wanted a frivolous pretty daughter, a daughter who was fond of clothes and social things. She was very disappointed when I took up archeology."

"You have always been of a serious turn of mind?"

"I think so, really. One feels life is so short one ought really to be doing something worth while." Poirot looked at her thoughtfully.

Patricia Lane was, he guessed, in her early thirties. Apart from a smear of lipstick, carelessly applied, she wore no make-up. Her mouse coloured hair was combed back from her face and arranged without artifice. Her quite pleasant blue eyes looked at you seriously through glasses.

"No allure, bon Dieu," said Poirot to himself with feeling. "And her clothes! What is it they say? Dragged through a hedge backwards? Ma foi, that expresses it exactly!" He was disapproving. He found Patricia's well bred unaccented tones wearisome to the ear. "She is intelligent and cultured, this girl," he said to himself, "and, alas, every year she will grow more boring! In old age-" His mind darted for a fleeting moment to the memory of the Countess Vera Rossakoff.

What exotic splendour there, even in decay! These girls of nowadays "But that is because I grow old," said Poirot to himself. "Even this excellent girl may appear a veritable Venus to some man." But he doubted that.

Patricia was saying, "I'm really very shocked about what happened to Bess-to Miss Johnston. Using that green ink seems to me to be a deliberate attempt to make it look as though it was Nigel's doing. But I do assure you, M. Poirot, Nigel would never do a thing like that."

"Ah." Poirot looked at her with more interest.

She had become flushed and quite eager.

"Nigel's not easy to understand," she said earnestly. "You see, he had a very difficult home life as a child."

"Mon Dieu, another of them!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing. You were saying"

"About Nigel. His being difficult. He's always had the tendency to go against authority of any kind.

He's very clever-brilliant really, but I must admit that he sometimes has a very unfortunate manner. Sneering-you know. And he's much too scornful ever to explain or defend himself. Even if everybody in this place thinks he did that trick with the ink, he won't go out of his way to say he didn't.

He'll just say, 'Let them think it if they want to." And that attitude is really so utterly foolish."

"It can be misunderstood, certainly."

"It's a kind of pride, I think. Because he's been so much misunderstood always."

"You have known him many years?"

"No, only for about a year. We met on a tour of the Chateaux of the Loire. He went down with flu which turned to pneumonia and I nursed him through it. He's plus very delicate and he takes absolutely no care of his own health. In some ways, in spite of his being so independent, he needs looking after like a child. He really needs someone to look after him." Poirot sighed. He felt, suddenly, very tired of love… First there had been Celia, with the adoring eyes of a spaniel. And now here was Patricia looking like an earnest Madonna.

Admittedly there must be love, young people must meet and pair off, but he, Poirot, was mercifully past all that. He rose to his feet.

"Will you permit me, Mademoiselle, to retain your ring? It shall be returned to you tomorrow without fail."

"Certainly, if you like," said Patricia, rather surprised.

"You are very kind. And please, Mademoiselle, be careful.

"Careful? Careful of what?"

"I wish I knew," said Hercule Poirot, still worried.

THE FOLLOWING DAY Mrs. Hubbard found exasperating in every particular. She had wakened with a considerable sense of relief. The nagging doubt about recent occurrences was at last relieved. A silly girl, behaving in that silly modern fashion (with which Mrs. Hubbard had no patience), had been responsible. And from now on, order would reign.

Descending to breakfast in this comfortable assurance, Mrs. Hubbard found her newly attained ease menaced. The students chose this particular morning to be particularly trying, each in his or her way.

Mr. Chandra Lal who had heard of the sabotage to Elizabeth's papers became excited and voluble.

"Oppression," he spluttered, "deliberate oppression of native races. Contempt and prejudice, colour prejudice. It is here well authenticated example."

"Now, Mr. Chandra Lal," said Mrs. Hubbard sharply. "You've no call to say anything of that kind. Nobody knows who did it or why it was done."

"Oh but, Mrs. Hubbard, I thought Celia had come to you herself and really faced up," said Jean Tomlinson. "I thought it splendid of her. We must all be very kind to her."

"Must you be so revoltingly pi, Jean?" demanded Valerie Hobhouse angrily.

"I think that's a very unkind thing to say."

"Faced up," said Nigel with a shudder. "Such an utterly revolting term."

"I don't see why. The Oxford Group use it and"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, have we gggyt to have the Oxford Group for breakfast?"

"What's all this, Ma? Is it Celia who's been pinchmg those things, do you say? Is that why she's not down to breakfast?"

"I do not understand, please," said Mr. Akibombo.

Nobody enlightened him. They were all too anxious to say their own piece.

"Poor kid," Len Bateson went on.

"Was she hard up or something?"

"I'm not really surprised, you know," said Sally slowly-"I always had a sort of idea…"

"You are saying that it was Celia who spilt ink on my notes?" Elizabeth Johnston looked incredulous. "That seems to me surprising and hardly credible."

"Celia did not throw ink on your work," said Mrs. Hubbard. "And I wish you would all stop discussing this. I meant to tell you all quietly later but-"

"But Jean was listening outside the door last night," said Valerie.

"I was not listening. I just happened to go-"

"Come now, Bess," said Nigel. "You know quite well who spilt the ink. I, said bad Nigel, with my little green phial. I spilt the ink."

"He didn't. He's only pretending! Oh Nigel, how can you be so stupid?"

"I'm being noble and shielding you, Pat. Who borrowed my ink yesterday morning? You did."

"I do not understand, please," said Mr. Akibombo.

"You don't want to," Sally told him. "I'd keep right out of it if I were you." Mr. Chandra Lal rose to his feet.

"You ask why is the Mau Mau? You ask why does Egypt resent the Suez Canal?"

"Oh, hell!" said Nigel violently, and crashed his cup down on his saucer. "First the Oxford Group and now politics! At breakfast! I'm going." He pushed back his chair violently and left the room.

"There's a cold wind. Do take your coat." Patricia rushed after him.

"Cluck, cluck, cluck," said Valerie unkindly. "She'll grow feathers and flap her wings soon."

The French girl, Genevieve, whose English was as yet not equal to following rapid exchanges had been listening to explanations hissed into her ear by René. She now burst into rapid French, her voice rising to a scream. "Comment donc? C'est cette petite qui m'a vole mon compact? Ah, par example!