CHAPTER XX

MISS RUSSELL

Inspector Raglan had received a bad jolt. He was not deceived by

Blunt’s valiant lie any more than we had been. Our way back to the

village was punctuated by his complaints.

“This alters everything, this does. I don’t know whether you’ve

realized it, Monsieur Poirot?”

“I think so, yes, I think so,” said Poirot. “You see, me, I have been

familiar with the idea for some time.”

Inspector Raglan, who had only had the idea presented to him a short

half-hour ago, looked at Poirot unhappily, and went on with his

discoveries.

“Those alibis now. Worthless! Absolutely worthless. Got to start

again. Find out what every one was doing from nine-thirty onwards.

Nine-thirty—that’s the time we’ve got to hang on to. You were quite

right about the man Kent—we don’t release _him_ yet awhile. Let me see

now—nine-forty-five at the Dog and Whistle. He might have got there

in a quarter of an hour if he ran. It’s just possible that it was

_his_ voice Mr. Raymond heard talking to Mr. Ackroyd—asking for money

which Mr. Ackroyd refused. But one thing’s clear—it wasn’t he who

sent the telephone message. The station is half a mile in the other

direction—over a mile and a half from the Dog and Whistle, and he was

at the Dog and Whistle until about ten minutes past ten. Dang that

telephone call! We always come up against it.”

“We do indeed,” agreed Poirot. “It is curious.”

“It’s just possible that if Captain Paton climbed into his uncle’s room

and found him there murdered, _he_ may have sent it. Got the wind up,

thought he’d be accused, and cleared out. That’s possible, isn’t it?”

“Why should he have telephoned?”

“May have had doubts if the old man was really dead. Thought he’d

get the doctor up there as soon as possible, but didn’t want to give

himself away. Yes, I say now, how’s that for a theory? Something in

that, I should say.”

The inspector swelled his chest out importantly. He was so plainly

delighted with himself that any words of ours would have been quite

superfluous.

We arrived back at my house at this minute, and I hurried in to my

surgery patients, who had all been waiting a considerable time, leaving

Poirot to walk to the police station with the inspector.

Having dismissed the last patient, I strolled into the little room at

the back of the house which I call my workshop—I am rather proud of the

home-made wireless set I turned out. Caroline hates my workroom. I keep

my tools there, and Annie is not allowed to wreak havoc with a dustpan

and brush. I was just adjusting the interior of an alarm clock which

had been denounced as wholly unreliable by the household, when the door

opened and Caroline put her head in.

“Oh! there you are, James,” she said, with deep disapproval. “M. Poirot

wants to see you.”

“Well,” I said, rather irritably, for her sudden entrance had startled

me and I had let go of a piece of delicate mechanism, “if he wants to

see me, he can come in here.”

“In here?” said Caroline.

“That’s what I said—in here.”

Caroline gave a sniff of disapproval and retired. She returned in a

moment or two, ushering in Poirot, and then retired again, shutting the

door with a bang.

“Aha! my friend,” said Poirot, coming forward and rubbing his hands.

“You have not got rid of me so easily, you see!”

“Finished with the inspector?” I asked.

“For the moment, yes. And you, you have seen all the patients?”

“Yes.”

Poirot sat down and looked at me, tilting his egg-shaped head on one

side, with the air of one who savors a very delicious joke.

“You are in error,” he said at last. “You have still one patient to

see.”

“Not you?” I exclaimed in surprise.

“Ah, not me, _bien entendu_. Me, I have the health magnificent. No, to

tell you the truth, it is a little _complot_ of mine. There is some one

I wish to see, you understand—and at the same time it is not necessary

that the whole village should intrigue itself about the matter—which is

what would happen if the lady were seen to come to my house—for it is

a lady. But to you she has already come as a patient before.”

“Miss Russell!” I exclaimed.

“_Précisément._ I wish much to speak with her, so I send her the little

note and make the appointment in your surgery. You are not annoyed with

me?”

“On the contrary,” I said. “That is, presuming I am allowed to be

present at the interview?”

“But naturally! In your own surgery!”

“You know,” I said, throwing down the pincers I was holding, “it’s

extraordinarily intriguing, the whole thing. Every new development that

arises is like the shake you give to a kaleidoscope—the thing changes

entirely in aspect. Now, why are you so anxious to see Miss Russell?”

Poirot raised his eyebrows.

“Surely it is obvious?” he murmured.

“There you go again,” I grumbled. “According to you everything is

obvious. But you leave me walking about in a fog.”

Poirot shook his head genially at me.

“You mock yourself at me. Take the matter of Mademoiselle Flora. The

inspector was surprised—but you—you were not.”

“I never dreamed of her being the thief,” I expostulated.

“That—perhaps no. But I was watching your face and you were not—like

Inspector Raglan—startled and incredulous.”

I thought for a minute or two.

“Perhaps you are right,” I said at last. “All along I’ve felt that

Flora was keeping back something—so the truth, when it came, was

subconsciously expected. It upset Inspector Raglan very much indeed,

poor man.”

“Ah! _pour ça, oui_! The poor man must rearrange all his ideas. I

profited by his state of mental chaos to induce him to grant me a

little favor.”

“What was that?”

Poirot took a sheet of notepaper from his pocket. Some words were

written on it, and he read them aloud.

“The police have, for some days, been seeking for Captain Ralph Paton,

the nephew of Mr. Ackroyd of Fernly Park, whose death occurred under

such tragic circumstances last Friday. Captain Paton has been found at

Liverpool, where he was on the point of embarking for America.”

He folded up the piece of paper again.

“That, my friend, will be in the newspapers to-morrow morning.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded.

“But—but it isn’t true! He’s not at Liverpool!”

Poirot beamed on me.

“You have the intelligence so quick! No, he has not been found at

Liverpool. Inspector Raglan was very loath to let me send this

paragraph to the press, especially as I could not take him into my

confidence. But I assured him most solemnly that very interesting

results would follow its appearance in print, so he gave in, after

stipulating that he was, on no account, to bear the responsibility.”

I stared at Poirot. He smiled back at me.

“It beats me,” I said at last, “what you expect to get out of that.”

“You should employ your little gray cells,” said Poirot gravely.

He rose and came across to the bench.

“It is that you have really the love of the machinery,” he said, after

inspecting the débris of my labors.

Every man has his hobby. I immediately drew Poirot’s attention to my

home-made wireless. Finding him sympathetic, I showed him one or two

little inventions of my own—trifling things, but useful in the house.

“Decidedly,” said Poirot, “you should be an inventor by trade, not a

doctor. But I hear the bell—that is your patient. Let us go into the

surgery.”

Once before I had been struck by the remnants of beauty in the

housekeeper’s face. This morning I was struck anew. Very simply dressed

in black, tall, upright and independent as ever, with her big dark eyes

and an unwonted flush of color in her usually pale cheeks, I realized

that as a girl she must have been startlingly handsome.

“Good-morning, mademoiselle,” said Poirot. “Will you be seated? Dr.

Sheppard is so kind as to permit me the use of his surgery for a little

conversation I am anxious to have with you.”

Miss Russell sat down with her usual composure. If she felt any inward

agitation, it did not display itself in any outward manifestation.

“It seems a queer way of doing things, if you’ll allow me to say so,”

she remarked.

“Miss Russell—I have news to give you.”

“Indeed!”

“Charles Kent has been arrested at Liverpool.”

Not a muscle of her face moved. She merely opened her eyes a trifle

wider, and asked, with a tinge of defiance:

“Well, what of it?”

But at that moment it came to me—the resemblance that had haunted me

all along, something familiar in the defiance of Charles Kent’s manner.

The two voices, one rough and coarse, the other painfully ladylike—were

strangely the same in timbre. It was of Miss Russell that I had been

reminded that night outside the gates of Fernly Park.

I looked at Poirot, full of my discovery, and he gave me an

imperceptible nod.

In answer to Miss Russell’s question, he threw out his hands in a

thoroughly French gesture.

“I thought you might be interested, that is all,” he said mildly.

“Well, I’m not particularly,” said Miss Russell. “Who is this Charles

Kent anyway?”

“He is a man, mademoiselle, who was at Fernly on the night of the

murder.”

“Really?”

“Fortunately for him, he has an alibi. At a quarter to ten he was at a

public-house a mile from here.”

“Lucky for him,” commented Miss Russell.

“But we still do not know what he was doing at Fernly—who it was he

went to meet, for instance.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you at all,” said the housekeeper politely.

“Nothing came to _my_ ears. If that is all——”

She made a tentative movement as though to rise. Poirot stopped her.

“It is not quite all,” he said smoothly. “This morning fresh

developments have arisen. It seems now that Mr. Ackroyd was murdered,

not at a quarter to ten, but _before_. Between ten minutes to nine,

when Dr. Sheppard left, and a quarter to ten.”

I saw the color drain from the housekeeper’s face, leaving it dead

white. She leaned forward, her figure swaying.

“But Miss Ackroyd said—Miss Ackroyd said——”

“Miss Ackroyd has admitted that she was lying. She was never in the

study at all that evening.”

“Then——?”

“Then it would seem that in this Charles Kent we have the man we are

looking for. He came to Fernly, can give no account of what he was

doing there——”

“I can tell you what he was doing there. He never touched a hair of old

Ackroyd’s head—he never went near the study. He didn’t do it, I tell

you.”

She was leaning forward. That iron self-control was broken through at

last. Terror and desperation were in her face.

“M. Poirot! M. Poirot! Oh, do believe me.”

Poirot got up and came to her. He patted her reassuringly on the

shoulder.

“But yes—but yes, I will believe. I had to make you speak, you know.”

For an instant suspicion flared up in her.

“Is what you said true?”

“That Charles Kent is suspected of the crime? Yes, that is true. You

alone can save him, by telling the reason for his being at Fernly.”

“He came to see me.” She spoke in a low, hurried voice. “I went out to

meet him——”

“In the summer-house, yes, I know.”

“How do you know?”

“Mademoiselle, it is the business of Hercule Poirot to know things. I

know that you went out earlier in the evening, that you left a message

in the summer-house to say what time you would be there.”

“Yes, I did. I had heard from him—saying he was coming. I dared not

let him come to the house. I wrote to the address he gave me and said

I would meet him in the summer-house, and described it to him so that

he would be able to find it. Then I was afraid he might not wait there

patiently, and I ran out and left a piece of paper to say I would be

there about ten minutes past nine. I didn’t want the servants to see

me, so I slipped out through the drawing-room window. As I came back, I

met Dr. Sheppard, and I fancied that he would think it queer. I was out

of breath, for I had been running. I had no idea that he was expected

to dinner that night.”

She paused.

“Go on,” said Poirot. “You went out to meet him at ten minutes past

nine. What did you say to each other?”

“It’s difficult. You see——”

“Mademoiselle,” said Poirot, interrupting her, “in this matter I must

have the whole truth. What you tell us need never go beyond these four

walls. Dr. Sheppard will be discreet, and so shall I. See, I will help

you. This Charles Kent, he is your son, is he not?”

She nodded. The color had flamed into her cheeks.

“No one has ever known. It was long ago—long ago—down in Kent. I was

not married....”

“So you took the name of the county as a surname for him. I understand.”

“I got work. I managed to pay for his board and lodging. I never told

him that I was his mother. But he turned out badly, he drank, then took

to drugs. I managed to pay his passage out to Canada. I didn’t hear of

him for a year or two. Then, somehow or other, he found out that I was

his mother. He wrote asking me for money. Finally, I heard from him

back in this country again. He was coming to see me at Fernly, he said.

I dared not let him come to the house. I have always been considered

so—so very respectable. If any one got an inkling—it would have been

all up with my post as housekeeper. So I wrote to him in the way I have

just told you.”

“And in the morning you came to see Dr. Sheppard?”

“Yes. I wondered if something could be done. He was not a bad

boy—before he took to drugs.”

“I see,” said Poirot. “Now let us go on with the story. He came that

night to the summer-house?”

“Yes, he was waiting for me when I got there. He was very rough and

abusive. I had brought with me all the money I had, and I gave it to

him. We talked a little, and then he went away.”

“What time was that?”

“It must have been between twenty and twenty-five minutes past nine. It

was not yet half-past when I got back to the house.”

“Which way did he go?”

“Straight out the same way he came, by the path that joined the drive

just inside the lodge gates.”

Poirot nodded.

“And you, what did you do?”

“I went back to the house. Major Blunt was walking up and down the

terrace smoking, so I made a detour to get round to the side door. It

was then just on half-past nine, as I tell you.”

Poirot nodded again. He made a note or two in a microscopic pocket-book.

“I think that is all,” he said thoughtfully.

“Ought I——” she hesitated. “Ought I to tell all this to Inspector

Raglan?”

“It may come to that. But let us not be in a hurry. Let us proceed

slowly, with due order and method. Charles Kent is not yet formally

charged with murder. Circumstances may arise which will render your

story unnecessary.”

Miss Russell rose.

“Thank you very much, M. Poirot,” she said. “You have been very

kind—very kind indeed. You—you do believe me, don’t you? That Charles

had nothing to do with this wicked murder!”

“There seems no doubt that the man who was talking to Mr. Ackroyd in

the library at nine-thirty could not possibly have been your son. Be of

good courage, mademoiselle. All will yet be well.”

Miss Russell departed. Poirot and I were left together.

“So that’s that,” I said. “Every time we come back to Ralph Paton. How

did you manage to spot Miss Russell as the person Charles Kent came to

meet? Did you notice the resemblance?”

“I had connected her with the unknown man long before we actually

came face to face with him. As soon as we found that quill. The quill

suggested dope, and I remembered your account of Miss Russell’s visit

to you. Then I found the article on cocaine in that morning’s paper. It

all seemed very clear. She had heard from some one that morning—some

one addicted to drugs, she read the article in the paper, and she came

to you to ask a few tentative questions. She mentioned cocaine, since

the article in question was on cocaine. Then, when you seemed too

interested, she switched hurriedly to the subject of detective stories

and untraceable poisons. I suspected a son or a brother, or some other

undesirable male relation. Ah! but I must go. It is the time of the

lunch.”

“Stay and lunch with us,” I suggested.

Poirot shook his head. A faint twinkle came into his eye.

“Not again to-day. I should not like to force Mademoiselle Caroline to

adopt a vegetarian diet two days in succession.”

It occurred to me that there was not much which escaped Hercule Poirot.