Agatha Christie - Hickory Dickory Dock

"Nigel. I think I've got it! I mean, I think I know now who must have taken-you know, taken it from my handkerchief drawer, I mean-you see, there's only one person who-" The voice broke off.

"Pat. Hullo? Are you there? Who was it?"

"I can't tell you now. Later. You'll be coming round?" The receiver was near enough for the constable and the Inspector to have heard the conversation clearly, and the latter nodded in answer to Nigel's questioning look.

"TeEvery her 'at once," was he said.

"We're coming round at once," said Nigel.

"On our way this minute."

"Oh! Good. I'll be in my room."

"So long, Pat." Hardly a word was spoken during the brief ride to Hickory Road. Sharpe wondered to himself whether this was a break at last. Would Patricia Lane have any definite evidence to offer, or would it be pure surmise on her part? Clearly she had remembered something that had seemed to her important.

He supposed that she had been telephoning from the hall, and that therefore she had had to be guarded in her language. At this time in the evening so many people would have been passing through.

Nigel opened the front door of 26 Hickory Road with his key and they passed inside.

Through the open door of the Common Room, Sharpe could see the rumpled red head of Leonard Bateson bent over some books.

Nigel led the way upstairs and along the passage to Pat's room. He gave a short tap on the door and entered.

"Hullo, Pat. Here w..." His voice stopped, dying away in a long choking gasp. He stood motionless. Over his shoulder, Sharpe saw also what there was to see.

Patricia Lane lay slumped on the floor.

The Inspector pushed Nigel gently aside.

He went forward and knelt down by the girl's huddled body. He raised her head, felt for the pulse, then delicately let the head resume its former position. He rose to his feet, his face grim and set.

"No?" said Nigel, his voice high and unnatural. "No. No. No."

"Yes, Mr. Chapman. She's dead."

"No, no. Not Pat! Dear stupid Pat. How?"

"With this." It was a simple, quickly improvised weapon.

A marble paperweight slipped into a woolen sock.

"Struck on the back of the head. A very efficacious weapon. If it's any consolation to you, Mr. Chapman, I don't think she even knew what happened to her." Nigel sat down shakily on the bed. He said: "That's one of my socks… She was going to mend it… Oh, God, she was going to mend it…" Suddenly he began to cry. He cried like a childwith abandon and without self-consciousness.

Sharpe was continuing his reconstruction. "It was someone she knew quite well. Someone who picked up a sock and just slipped the paperweight into it. Do you recognize the paperweight, Mr. Chapman?" He rolled the sock back so as to display it.

Nigel, still weeping, looked.

"Pat always had it on her desk. A Lion of Lucerne." He buried his face in his hands. "Pat-oh, Pat! What shall I do without you!" Suddenly he sat upright, flinging back his untidy fair hair. "I'll kill whoever did this! I'll kill him! Murdering swine!"

"Gently, Mr. Chapman. Yes, yes, I know how you feel. A brutal piece of work."

"Pat never harmed anybody..."

Speaking soothingly, Inspector Sharpe got him out of the room. Then he went back himself into the bedroom. He stooped over the dead girl. Very gently he detached something from between her fingers.

Geronimo, perspiration running down his forehead, turned frightened dark eyes from once face to the other.

"I see nothing. I hear nothing, I tell you. I do not know anything at all. I am with Maria in kitchen. I put the minestrone on, I grate the chees" Sharpe interrupted the catalogue.

"Nobody's accusing you. We just want to get some times quite clear. Who was in and out of the house the last hour?"

"I do not know. How should I know?"

"But you can see very clearly from the kitchen window who goes in and out, can't you?"

"Perhaps, yes."

"Then just tell us."

"They come in and out all the time at this hour of the day."

"Who was in the house from six o'clock until six thirty-five when we arrived?"

"Everybody except Mr. Niget and Mrs. Hubbard and Miss Hobhouse."

"When did they go out?"

"Mrs. Hubbard she go out before teatime, she has not come back yet."

"Go on."

"Mr. Nigel goes out about half an hour ago, just before six-look very upset. He come back with you just now-"

"That's right, yes."

"Miss Valerie, she goes out just at six o'clock. Time signal, pip, pip, pip. Dressed for cocktails, very smart. She still out."

"And everybody else is here?"

"Yes, sir. All here." Sharpe looked down at his notebook. The time of Patricia's call was noted there. Eight minutes past six, exactly.

"Everybody else was here, in the house? Nobody came back during that time?"

"Only Miss Sally. She been down to pillar box with letter and come back in-"

"Do you know what time she came in?" Geronimo frowned.

"She came back while the news was going on."

"After six, then?"

"Yes, sir."

"What part of the news was it?"

"I don't remember, sir. But before the sport. Because when sport come we switch off." Sharpe smiled grimly. It was a wide field.

Only Nigel Chapman, Valerie Hobhouse and Mrs. Hubbard could be excluded. It would mean long and exhaustive questioning. Who had been in the Common Room, who had left it? And when? Who could vouch for whom? Add to that, that many of the students, especially the Asiatic and African ones, were constitutionally vague about times, and the task was no enviable one.

But it would have to be done.

In Mrs. Hubbard's room the atmosphere was unhappy. Mrs. Hubbard herself, still in her outdoor things, her nice round face strained and anxious, sat on the sofa. Sharpe and Sergeant Cobb at a small table.

"I think she telephoned from in here," said Sharpe. "Around about 6 several people left or entered the Common Room, or so they say-and nobody saw or noticed or heard the hall telephone being used. Of course, their times aren't reliable, half these people never seem to look at a clock. But I think that anyway she'd come in here if she wanted to telephone the police station. You were out, Mrs. Hubbard, but I don't suppose you lock your door?" Mrs. Hubbard shook her head.

"Mrs. Nicoletis always did, but I never do"

"Well then, Patricia Lane comes in here to telephone, all agog with what she's remembered.

Then, whilst she was talking, the door opened and somebody looked in or came in. Patricia stalled and hung up. Was that because she recognised the intruder as the person whose name she was just about to say? Or was it just a general precaution?

Might be either. I incline myself to the first supposition." Mrs. Hubbard nodded emphatically.

"Whoever it was may have followed her here, perhaps listened outside the door. Then came in to stop Pat from going on."

"And then-" Sharpe's face darkened. "That person went back to Patricia's room with her, talking quite normally and easily. Perhaps Patricia taxed her with removing the bicarbonate, and perhaps the other gave a plausible explanation."

Mrs. Hubbard said sharply, "Why do you say 'her'"?"

"Funny thing-a pronoun! When we found the body, Nigel Chapman said, 'I'll kill whoever did this. I'll kill him.' 'Him', you notice. Nigel Chapman clearly believed the murder was done by a man. It may be because he associated the idea of violence with a man. It may be that he's got some particular suspicion pointing to a man, to some particular man. If the latter, we must find out his reasons for thinking so. But speaking for myself, I plump for a woman."

"Why?"

"Just tills. Somebody went into Patricia's room with her-someone with whom she felt quite at home. That points to another girl. The men don't go to the girls' bedroom floors unless it's for some special reason. That's right, isn't it, Mrs. Hubbard?"