Dumb Witness Read online

  “Do you know when he will be in?”

  “I couldn’t say, I’m sure,” said the young woman.

  “You comprehend, I am looking for a house in this neighbourhood,” said Poirot.

  “Oh, yes,” said the young woman, uninterested.

  “And Littlegreen House seems to me just what I am looking for. Can you give me particulars?”

  “Particulars?” The young woman seemed startled.

  “Particulars of Littlegreen House.”

  Unwillingly she opened a drawer and took out an untidy file of papers.

  Then she called, “John.”

  A lanky youth sitting in a corner looked up.

  “Yes, miss.”

  “Have we got any particulars of—what did you say?”

  “Littlegreen House,” said Poirot distinctly.

  “You’ve got a large bill of it here,” I remarked, pointing to the wall.

  She looked at me coldly. Two to one, she seemed to think, was an unfair way of playing the game. She called up her own reinforcements.

  “You don’t know anything about Littlegreen House, do you, John?”

  “No, miss. Should be in the file.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the young woman without looking so in the least. “I rather fancy we must have sent all the particulars out.”

  “C’est dommage.”

  “Pardon?”

  “A pity.”

  “We’ve a nice bungalow at Hemel End, two bed., one sitt.”

  She spoke without enthusiasm, but with the air of one willing to do her duty by her employer.

  “I thank you, no.”

  “And a semidetached with small conservatory. I could give you particulars of that.”

  “No, thank you. I desired to know what rent you were asking for Littlegreen House.”

  “It’s not to be rented,” said the young woman, abandoning her position of complete ignorance of anything to do with Littlegreen House in the pleasure of scoring a point. “Only to be sold outright.”

  “The board says, ‘To be Let or Sold.’”

  “I couldn’t say as to that, but it’s for sale only.”

  At this stage in the battle the door opened and a grey-haired, middle-aged man entered with a rush. His eye, a militant one, swept over us with a gleam. His eyebrows asked a question of his employee.

  “This is Mr. Gabler,” said the young woman.

  Mr. Gabler opened the door of an inner sanctum with a flourish.

  “Step in here, gentlemen.” He ushered us in, an ample gesture swept us into chairs and he himself was facing us across a flat-topped desk.

  “And now what can I do for you?”

  Poirot began again perseveringly.

  “I desired a few particulars of Littlegreen House—”

  He got no further. Mr. Gabler took command.

  “Ah! Littlegreen House—there’s a property! An absolute bargain. Only just come into the market. I can tell you gentlemen, we don’t often get a house of that class going at the price. Taste’s swinging round. People are fed up with jerry-building. They want sound stuff. Good, honest building. A beautiful property—character—feeling—Georgian throughout. That’s what people want nowadays—there’s a feeling for period houses if you understand what I mean. Ah, yes, Littlegreen House won’t be long in the market. It’ll be snapped up. Snapped up! A member of parliament came to look at it only last Saturday. Liked it so much he’s coming down again this weekend. And there’s a stock exchange gentleman after it too. People want quiet nowadays when they come to the country, want to be well away from main roads. That’s all very well for some people, but we attract class here. And that’s what that house has got. Class! You’ve got to admit, they knew how to build for gentlemen in those days. Yes, we shan’t have Littlegreen long on our books.”

  Mr. Gabler, who, it occurred to me, lived up to his name very happily, paused for breath.

  “Has it changed hands often in the last few years?” inquired Poirot.

  “On the contrary. Been in one family over fifty years. Name of Arundell. Very much respected in the town. Ladies of the old school.”

  He shot up, opened the door and called:

  “Particulars of Littlegreen House, Miss Jenkins. Quickly now.”

  He returned to the desk.

  “I require a house about this distance from London,” said Poirot. “In the country, but not in the dead country, if you understand me—”

  “Perfectly—perfectly. Too much in the country doesn’t do. Servants don’t like it for one thing. Here, you have the advantages of the country but not the disadvantages.” Miss Jenkins flitted in with a typewritten sheet of paper which she placed in front of her employer who dismissed her with a nod.

  “Here we are,” said Mr. Gabler, reading with practised rapidity. “Period House of character: four recep., eight bed and dressing, usual offices, commodious kitchen premises, ample outbuildings, stables, etc. Main water, old-world gardens, inexpensive upkeep, amounting in all to three acres, two summerhouses, etc., etc. Price £2,850 or near offer.”

  “You can give me an order to view?”

  “Certainly, my dear sir.” Mr. Gabler began writing in a flourishing fashion. “Your name and address?”

  Slightly to my surprise, Poirot gave his name as Mr. Parotti.

  “We have one or two other properties on our books which might interest you,” Mr. Gabler went on.

  Poirot allowed him to add two further additions.

  “Littlegreen House can be viewed anytime?” he inquired.

  “Certainly, my dear sir. There are servants in residence. I might perhaps ring up to make certain. You will be going there immediately? Or after lunch?”

  “Perhaps after lunch would be better.”

  “Certainly—certainly. I’ll ring up and tell them to expect you about two o’clock—eh? Is that right?”

  “Thank you. Did you say the owner of the house—a Miss Arundell, I think you said?”

  “Lawson. Miss Lawson. That is the name of the present owner. Miss Arundell, I am sorry to say, died a short time ago. That is how the place has come into the market. And I can assure you it will be snapped up. Not a doubt of it. Between you and me, just in confidence, if you do think of making an offer I should make it quickly. As I’ve told you, there are two gentlemen after it already, and I shouldn’t be surprised to get an offer for it any day from one or other of them. Each of them knows the other’s after it, you see. And there’s no doubt that competition spurs a man on. Ha, ha! I shouldn’t like you to be disappointed.”

  “Miss Lawson is anxious to sell, I gather.”

  Mr. Gabler lowered his voice confidentially.

  “That’s just it. The place is larger than she wants—one middle-aged lady living by herself. She wants to get rid of this and take a house in London. Quite understandable. That’s why the place is going so ridiculously cheap.”

  “She would be open, perhaps, to an offer?”

  “That’s the idea, sir. Make an offer and set the ball rolling. But you can take it from me that there will be no difficulty in getting a price very near the figure named. Why, it’s ridiculous! To build a house like that nowadays would cost every penny of six thousand, let alone the land value and the valuable frontages.”

  “Miss Arundell died very suddenly, didn’t she?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Anno domini—anno domini. She had passed her threescore and ten some time ago. And she’d been ailing for a long time. The last of her family—you know something about the family, perhaps?”

  “I know some people of the same name who have relations in this part of the world. I fancy it must be the same family.”

  “Very likely. Four sisters there were. One married fairly late in life and the other three lived on here. Ladies of the old school. Miss Emily was the last of them. Very highly thought of in the town.”

  He leant forward and handed Poirot the orders.

  “You’ll drop in again and let
me know what you think of it, eh? Of course, it may need a little modernizing here and there. That’s only to be expected. But I always say, ‘What’s a bathroom or two? That’s easily done.’”

  We took our leave and the last thing we heard was the vacant voice of Miss Jenkins saying:

  “Mrs. Samuels rang up, sir. She’d like you to ring her—Holland 5391.”

  As far as I could remember that was neither the number Miss Jenkins had scribbled on her pad nor the number finally arrived at through the telephone.

  I felt convinced that Miss Jenkins was having her revenge for having been forced to find the particulars of Littlegreen House.

  Seven

  LUNCH AT THE GEORGE

  As we emerged into the market square, I remarked that Mr. Gabler lived up to his name! Poirot assented with a smile.

  “He’ll be rather disappointed when you don’t return,” I said. “I think he feels he has as good as sold you that house already.”

  “Indeed, yes, I fear there is a deception in store for him.”

  “I suppose we might as well have lunch here before returning to London, or shall we lunch at some more likely spot on our way back?”

  “My dear Hastings, I am not proposing to leave Market Basing so quickly. We have not yet accomplished that which we came to do.”

  I stared.

  “Do you mean—but, my dear fellow, that’s all a washout. The old lady is dead.”

  “Exactly.”

  The tone of that one word made me stare at him harder than ever. It was evident that he had some bee in his bonnet over this incoherent letter.

  “But if she’s dead, Poirot,” I said gently, “what’s the use? She can’t tell you anything now. Whatever the trouble was, it’s over and finished with.”

  “How lightly and easily you put the matter aside! Let me tell you that no matter is finished with until Hercule Poirot ceases to concern himself with it!”

  I should have known from experience that to argue with Poirot is quite useless. Unwarily I proceeded.

  “But since she is dead—”

  “Exactly, Hastings. Exactly—exactly—exactly… You keep repeating the significant point with a magnificently obtuse disregard of its significance. Do you not see the importance of the point? Miss Arundell is dead.”

  “But my dear Poirot, her death was perfectly natural and ordinary! There wasn’t anything odd or unexplained about it. We have old Gabler’s word for that.”

  “We have his word that Littlegreen House is a bargain at £2,850. Do you accept that as gospel also?”

  “No, indeed. It struck me that Gabler was all out to get the place sold—it probably needs modernizing from top to toe. I’d swear he—or rather his client—will be willing to accept a very much lower figure than that. These large Georgian houses fronting right on the street must be the devil to get rid of.”

  “Eh bien, then,” said Poirot. “Do not say, ‘But Gabler says so!’ as though he were an inspired prophet who could not lie.”

  I was about to protest further, but at this minute we passed the threshold of the George and with an emphatic “Chut!” Poirot put a damper on further conversation.

  We were directed to the coffee room, a room of fine proportions, tightly shut windows and an odour of stale food. An elderly waiter attended to us, a slow, heavy-breathing man. We appeared to be the only lunchers. We had some excellent mutton, large slabs of watery cabbage and some dispirited potatoes. Some rather tasteless stewed fruit and custard followed. After gorgonzola and biscuits the waiter brought us two cups of a doubtful fluid called coffee.

  At this point Poirot produced his orders to view and invited the waiter’s aid.

  “Yes, sir. I know where most of these are. Hemel Down is three miles away—on the Much Benham road—quite a little place. Naylor’s Farm is about a mile away. There’s a kind of lane goes off to it not long after the King’s Head. Bisset Grange? No, I’ve never heard of that. Littlegreen House is just close by, not more than a few minutes’ walk.”

  “Ah, I think I have already seen it from the outside. That is the most possible one, I think. It is in good repair—yes?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. It’s in good condition—roof and drains and all that. Old-fashioned, of course. It’s never been modernized in any way. The gardens are a picture. Very fond of her garden Miss Arundell was.”

  “It belongs, I see, to a Miss Lawson.”

  “That’s right, sir. Miss Lawson, she was Miss Arundell’s companion and when the old lady died everything was left to her—house and all.”

  “Indeed? I suppose she had no relations to whom to leave it?”

  “Well, it was not quite like that, sir. She had nieces and nephews living. But, of course, Miss Lawson was with her all the time. And, of course, she was an old lady and—well—that’s how it was.”

  “In any case I suppose there was just the house and not much money?”

  I have often had occasion to notice how, where a direct question would fail to elicit a response, a false assumption brings instant information in the form of a contradiction.

  “Very far from that, sir. Very far indeed. Everyone was surprised at the amount the old lady left. The will was in the paper and the amount and everything. It seems she hadn’t lived up to her income for many a long year. Something like three or four hundred thousand pounds she left.”

  “You astonish me,” cried Poirot. “It is like a fairy tale—eh? The poor companion suddenly becomes unbelievably wealthy. Is she still young, this Miss Lawson? Can she enjoy her newfound wealth?”

  “Oh, no, sir, she’s a middle-aged person, sir.”

  His enunciation of the word person was quite an artistic performance. It was clear that Miss Lawson, ex-companion, had cut no kind of a figure in Market Basing.

  “It must have been disappointing for the nephews and nieces,” mused Poirot.

  “Yes, sir, I believe it came as somewhat of a shock to them. Very unexpected. There’s been feeling over it here in Market Basing. There are those who hold it isn’t right to leave things away from your own flesh and blood. But, of course, there’s others as hold that everyone’s got a right to do as they like with their own. There’s something to be said for both points of view, of course.”

  “Miss Arundell had lived for many years here, had she not?”

  “Yes, sir. She and her sisters and old General Arundell, their father, before them. Not that I remember him, naturally, but I believe he was quite a character. Was in the Indian Mutiny.”

  “There were several daughters?”

  “Three of them that I remember, and I believe there was one that married. Yes, Miss Matilda, Miss Agnes, and Miss Emily. Miss Matilda, she died first, and then Miss Agnes, and finally Miss Emily.”

  “That was quite recently?”

  “Beginning of May—or it may have been the end of April.”

  “Had she been ill some time?”

  “On and off—on and off. She was on the sickly side. Nearly went off a year ago with that there jaundice. Yellow as an orange she was for sometime after. Yes, she’d had poor health for the last five years of her life.”

  “I suppose you have some good doctors down here?”

  “Well, there’s Dr. Grainger. Been here close on forty years, he has, and folks mostly go to him. He’s a bit crotchety and he has his fancies but he’s a good doctor, none better. He’s got a young partner, Dr. Donaldson. He’s more the newfangled kind. Some folk prefer him. Then, of course, there’s Dr. Harding, but he doesn’t do much.”

  “Dr. Grainger was Miss Arundell’s doctor, I suppose?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s pulled her through many a bad turn. He’s the kind that fair bullies you into living whether you want to or not.”

  Poirot nodded.

  “One should learn a little about a place before one comes to settle in it,” he remarked. “A good doctor is one of the most important people.”

  “That’s very true, sir.”

  Poirot then asked
for his bill to which he added a substantial tip.

  “Thank you, sir. Thank you very much, sir. I’m sure I hope you’ll settle here, sir.”

  “I hope so, too,” said Poirot mendaciously.

  We set forth from the George.

  “Satisfied yet, Poirot?” I asked as we emerged into the street.

  “Not in the least, my friend.”

  He turned in an unexpected direction.

  “Where are you off to now, Poirot?”

  “The church, my friend. It may be interesting. Some brasses—an old monument.” I shook my head doubtfully.

  Poirot’s scrutiny of the interior of the church was brief. Though an attractive specimen of what the guidebook calls Early Perp., it had been so conscientiously restored in Victorian vandal days that little of interest remained.

  Poirot next wandered seemingly aimlessly about the churchyard reading some of the epitaphs, commenting on the number of deaths in certain families, occasionally exclaiming over the quaintness of a name.

  I was not surprised, however, when he finally halted before what I was pretty sure had been his objective from the beginning:

  An imposing marble slab bore a partly effaced inscription:

  SACRED

  TO THE MEMORY OF

  JOHN LAVERTON ARUNDELL

  GENERAL 24TH SIKHS

  WHO FELL ASLEEP IN CHRIST MAY 19TH 1888

  AGED 69

  “FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT WITH ALL THY MIGHT”

  ALSO OF

  MATILDA ANN ARUNDELL

  DIED MARCH 10TH 1912

  “I WILL ARISE AND GO TO MY FATHER”

  ALSO OF

  AGNES GEORGINA MARY ARUNDELL

  DIED NOVEMBER 20TH 1921

  “ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE”

  Then came a brand new piece of lettering, evidently just done:

  ALSO OF

  EMILY HARRIET LAVERTON ARUNDELL DIED MAY 1ST 1936

  “THY WILL BE DONE”

  Poirot stood looking for some time.

  He murmured softly:

  “May 1st… May 1st… And today, June 28th, I receive her letter. You see, do you not, Hastings, that that fact has got to be explained?”

  I saw that it had.

  That is to say, I saw that Poirot was determined that it should be explained.