Agatha Christie - Cat Among the Pigeons

She leaned forward, studying her face in the glass. She applied powder, lipstick—

The movement was so quick that it took her completely by surprise. Noiseless! Professional. The coat on the chair seemed to gather itself together, drop to the ground and in an instant behind Mademoiselle Blanche a hand with a sandbag rose and, as she opened her lips to scream, fell, dully, on the back of her neck.

Chapter 22 Incident in Anatolia

Mrs Upjohn was sitting by the side of the road overlooking a deep ravine. She was talking partly in French and partly with gestures to a large and solid-looking Turkish woman who was telling her with as much detail as possible under these difficulties of communications all about her last miscarriage. Nine children she had had, she explained. Eight of them boys, and five miscarriages. She seemed as pleased at the miscarriages as she did at the births.

‘And you?’ she poked Mrs Upjohn amiably in the ribs. ‘ Combien?—garçons?—filles?—combien? ’ She held up her hands ready to indicate on the fingers.

‘ Une fille ,’ said Mrs Upjohn.

‘ Et garçons? ’

Seeing that she was about to fall in the Turkish woman’s estimation, Mrs Upjohn in a surge of nationalism proceeded to perjure herself. She held up five fingers of her right hand.

‘ Cinq ,’ she said.

‘ Cinq garçons? Très bien! ’

The Turkish woman nodded with approbation and respect. She added that if only her cousin who spoke French really fluently was here they could understand each other a great deal better. She then resumed the story of her last miscarriage.

The other passengers were sprawled about near them, eating odd bits of food from the baskets they carried with them. The bus, looking slightly the worse for wear, was drawn up against an overhanging rock, and the driver and another man were busy inside the bonnet. Mrs Upjohn had lost complete count of time. Floods had blocked two of the roads, détours had been necessary and they had once been stuck for seven hours until the river they were fording subsided. Ankara lay in the not impossible future and that was all she knew. She listened to her friend’s eager and incoherent conversation, trying to gauge when to nod admiringly, when to shake her head in sympathy.

A voice cut into her thoughts, a voice highly incongruous with her present surroundings.

‘Mrs Upjohn, I believe,’ said the voice.

Mrs Upjohn looked up. A little way away a car had driven up. The man standing opposite her had undoubtedly alighted from it. His face was unmistakably British, as was his voice. He was impeccably dressed in a grey flannel suit.

‘Good heavens,’ said Mrs Upjohn. ‘Dr Livingstone?’

‘It must seem rather like that,’ said the stranger pleasantly. ‘My name’s Atkinson. I’m from the Consulate in Ankara. We’ve been trying to get in touch with you for two or three days, but the roads have been cut.’

‘You wanted to get in touch with me? Why?’ Suddenly Mrs Upjohn rose to her feet. All traces of the gay traveller had disappeared. She was all mother, every inch of her. ‘Julia?’ she said sharply. ‘Has something happened to Julia?’

‘No, no,’ Mr Atkinson reassured her. ‘Julia’s quite all right. It’s not that at all. There’s been a spot of trouble at Meadowbank and we want to get you home there as soon as possible. I’ll drive you back to Ankara, and you can get on a plane in about an hour’s time.’

Mrs Upjohn opened her mouth and then shut it again. Then she rose and said, ‘You’ll have to get my bag off the top of that bus. It’s the dark one.’ She turned, shook hands with her Turkish companion, said: ‘I’m sorry, I have to go home now,’ waved to the rest of the bus load with the utmost friendliness, called out a Turkish farewell greeting which was part of her small stock of Turkish, and prepared to follow Mr Atkinson immediately without asking any further questions. It occurred to him as it had occurred to many other people that Mrs Upjohn was a very sensible woman.

Chapter 23 Showdown

In one of the smaller classrooms Miss Bulstrode looked at the assembled people. All the members of her staff were there: Miss Chadwick, Miss Johnson, Miss Rich and the two younger mistresses. Ann Shapland sat with her pad and pencil in case Miss Bulstrode wanted her to take notes. Beside Miss Bulstrode sat Inspector Kelsey and beyond him, Hercule Poirot. Adam Goodman sat in a no-man’s-land of his own halfway between the staff and what he called to himself the executive body. Miss Bulstrode rose and spoke in her practised, decisive voice.

‘I feel it is due to you all,’ she said, ‘as members of my staff, and interested in the fortunes of the school, to know exactly to what point this inquiry has progressed. I have been informed by Inspector Kelsey of several facts. M. Hercule Poirot who has international connections, has obtained valuable assistance from Switzerland and will report himself on that particular matter. We have not yet come to the end of the inquiry, I am sorry to say, but certain minor matters have been cleared up and I thought it would be a relief to you all to know how matters stand at the present moment.’ Miss Bulstrode looked towards Inspector Kelsey, and he rose.

‘Officially,’ he said, ‘I am not in a position to disclose all that I know. I can only reassure you to the extent of saying that we are making progress and we are beginning to have a good idea who is responsible for the three crimes that have been committed on the premises. Beyond that I will not go. My friend, M. Hercule Poirot, who is not bound by official secrecy and is at perfect liberty to give you his own ideas, will disclose to you certain information which he himself has been influential in procuring. I am sure you are all loyal to Meadowbank and to Miss Bulstrode and will keep to yourselves various matters upon which M. Poirot is going to touch and which are not of any public interest. The less gossip or speculation about them the better, so I will ask you to keep the facts that you will learn here today to yourselves. Is that understood?’

‘Of course,’ said Miss Chadwick, speaking first and with emphasis. ‘Of course we’re all loyal to Meadowbank, I should hope.’

‘Naturally,’ said Miss Johnson.

‘Oh yes,’ said the two younger mistresses.

‘I agree,’ said Eileen Rich.

‘Then perhaps, M. Poirot?’

Hercule Poirot rose to his feet, beamed on his audience and carefully twisted his moustaches. The two younger mistresses had a sudden desire to giggle, and looked away from each other pursing their lips together.

‘It has been a difficult and anxious time for you all,’ he said. ‘I want you to know first that I do appreciate that. It has naturally been worst of all for Miss Bulstrode herself, but you have all suffered. You have suffered first the loss of three of your colleagues, one of whom has been here for a considerable period of time. I refer to Miss Vansittart. Miss Springer and Mademoiselle Blanche were, of course, newcomers, but I do not doubt that their deaths were a great shock to you and a distressing happening. You must also have suffered a good deal of apprehension yourselves, for it must have seemed as though there were a kind of vendetta aimed against the mistresses of Meadowbank school. That I can assure you, and Inspector Kelsey will assure you also, is not so. Meadowbank by a fortuitous series of chances became the centre for the attentions of various undesirable interests. There has been, shall we say, a cat among the pigeons. There have been three murders here and also a kidnapping. I will deal first with the kidnapping, for all through this business the difficulty has been to clear out of the way extraneous matters which, though criminal in themselves, obscure the most important thread—the thread of a ruthless and determined killer in your midst.’