The Labours of Hercules

Chapter 2 The Lernean Hydra

Hercule Poirot looked encouragingly at the man seated opposite him.

Dr Charles Oldfield was a man of perhaps forty. He had fair hair slightly grey at the temples and blue eyes that held a worried expression. He stooped a little and his manner was a trifle hesitant. Moreover, he seemed to find difficulty in coming to the point.

He said, stammering slightly:

‘I’ve come to you, M. Poirot, with rather an odd request. And now that I’m here, I’m inclined to funk the whole thing. Because, as I see very well now, it’s the sort of thing that no one can possibly do anything about.’

Hercule Poirot murmured:

‘As to that, you must let me judge.’

Oldfield muttered:

‘I don’t know why I thought that perhaps–’

He broke off.

Hercule Poirot finished the sentence.

‘That perhaps I could help you? Eh bien, perhaps I can. Tell me your problem.’

Oldfield straightened himself. Poirot noted anew how haggard the man looked.

Oldfield said, and his voice had a note of hopelessness in it:

‘You see, it isn’t any good going to the police…They can’t do anything. And yet–every day it’s getting worse and worse. I –I don’t know what to do…’

‘What is getting worse?’

‘The rumours…Oh, it’s quite simple, M. Poirot. Just a little over a year ago, my wife died. She had been an invalid for some years. They are saying, everyone is saying, that I killed her–that I poisoned her!’

‘Aha,’ said Poirot. ‘And did you poison her?’

‘M. Poirot!’ Dr Oldfield sprang to his feet.

‘Calm yourself,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘And sit down again. We will take it, then, that you did not poison your wife. But your practice, I imagine, is situated in a country district–’

‘Yes. Market Loughborough–in Berkshire. I have always realized that it was the kind of place where people gossiped a good deal, but I never imagined that it could reach the lengths it has done.’ He drew his chair a little forward. ‘M. Poirot, you have no idea of what I have gone through. At first I had no inkling of what was going on. I did notice that people seemed less friendly, that there was a tendency to avoid me–but I put it down to–to the fact of my recent bereavement. Then it became more marked. In the street, even, people will cross the road to avoid speaking to me. My practice is falling off. Wherever I go I am conscious of lowered voices, of unfriendly eyes that watch me whilst malicious tongues whisper their deadly poison. I have had one or two letters–vile things.’

He paused–and then went on:

‘And–and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know how to fight this–this vile network of lies and suspicion. How can one refute what is never said openly to your face? I am powerless–trapped–and slowly and mercilessly being destroyed.’

Poirot nodded his head thoughtfully. He said:

‘Yes. Rumour is indeed the nine-headed Hydra of Lernea which cannot be exterminated because as fast as one head is cropped off two grow in its place.’

Dr Oldfield said: ‘That’s just it. There’s nothing I can do–nothing! I came to you as a last resort–but I don’t suppose for a minute that there is anything you can do either.’

Hercule Poirot was silent for a minute or two. Then he said:

‘I am not so sure. Your problem interests me, Doctor Oldfield. I should like to try my hand at destroying the many-headed monster. First of all, tell me a little more about the circumstances which gave rise to this malicious gossip. Your wife died, you say, just over a year ago. What was the cause of death?’

‘Gastric ulcer.’

‘Was there an autopsy?’

‘No. She had been suffering from gastric trouble over a considerable period.’

Poirot nodded.

‘And the symptoms of gastric inflammation and of arsenical poisoning are closely alike–a fact which everybody knows nowadays. Within the last ten years there have been at least four sensational murder cases in each of which the victim has been buried without suspicion with a certificate of gastric disorder. Was your wife older or younger than yourself ?’

‘She was five years older.’

‘How long had you been married?’

‘Fifteen years.’

‘Did she leave any property?’

‘Yes. She was a fairly well-to-do woman. She left, roughly, about thirty thousand pounds.’

‘A very useful sum. It was left to you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were you and your wife on good terms?’

‘Certainly.’

‘No quarrels? No scenes?’

‘Well–’ Charles Oldfield hesitated. ‘My wife was what might be termed a difficult woman. She was an invalid and very concerned over her health and inclined, therefore, to be fretful and difficult to please. There were days when nothing I could do was right.’

Poirot nodded. He said:

‘Ah yes, I know the type. She would complain, possibly, that she was neglected, unappreciated–that her husband was tired of her and would be glad when she was dead.’

Oldfield’s face registered the truth of Poirot’s surmise. He said with a wry smile:

‘You’ve got it exactly!’

Poirot went on:

‘Did she have a hospital nurse to attend on her? Or a companion? Or a devoted maid?’

‘A nurse-companion. A very sensible and competent woman. I really don’t think she would talk.’

‘Even the sensible and the competent have been given tongues by le bon Dieu–and they do not always employ their tongues wisely. I have no doubt that the nurse-companion talked, that the servants talked, that everyone talked! You have all the materials there for the starting of a very enjoyable village scandal. Now I will ask you one more thing. Who is the lady?’

‘I don’t understand.’ Dr Oldfield flushed angrily.

Poirot said gently:

‘I think you do. I am asking you who the lady is with whom your name has been coupled.’

Dr Oldfield rose to his feet. His face was stiff and cold. He said:

‘There is no “lady in the case”. I’m sorry, M. Poirot, to have taken up so much of your time.’

He went towards the door.

Hercule Poirot said:

‘I regret it also. Your case interests me. I would like to have helped you. But I cannot do anything unless I am told the whole truth.’

‘I have told you the truth.’

‘No…’

Dr Oldfield stopped. He wheeled round.

‘Why do you insist that there is a woman concerned in this?’

‘Mon cher docteur! Do you not think I know the female mentality? The village gossip, it is based always, always on the relations of the sexes. If a man poisons his wife in order to travel to the North Pole or to enjoy the peace of a bachelor existence–it would not interest his fellow-villagers for a minute! It is because they are convinced that the murder has been committed in order that the man may marry another woman that the talk grows and spreads. That is elemental psychology.’

Oldfield said irritably:

‘I’m not responsible for what a pack of damned gossiping busybodies think!’

‘Of course you are not.’

Poirot went on:

‘So you might as well come back and sit down and give me the answer to the question I asked you just now.’

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Oldfield came back and resumed his seat.

He said, colouring up to his eyebrows:

‘I suppose it’s possible that they’ve been saying things about Miss Moncrieffe. Jean Moncrieffe is my dispenser, a very fine girl indeed.’

‘How long has she worked for you?’

‘For three years.’

‘Did your wife like her?’

‘Er–well, no, not exactly.’

‘She was jealous?’

‘It was absurd!’

Poirot smiled.

He said:

‘The jealousy of wives is proverbial. But I will tell you something. In my experience jealousy, however far-fetched and extravagant it may seem, is nearly always based on reality. There is a saying, is there not, that the customer is always right? Well, the same is true of the jealous husband or wife. However little concrete evidence there may be, fundamentally they are always right.’

Dr Oldfield said robustly:

‘Nonsense. I’ve never said anything to Jean Moncrieffe that my wife couldn’t have overheard.’

‘That, perhaps. But it does not alter the truth of what I said.’ Hercule Poirot leaned forward. His voice was urgent, compelling. ‘Doctor Oldfield, I am going to do my utmost in this case. But I must have from you the most absolute frankness without regard to conventional appearances or to your own feelings. It is true, is it not, that you had ceased to care for your wife for some time before she died?’

Oldfield was silent for a minute or two. Then he said:

‘This business is killing me. I must have hope. Somehow or other I feel that you will be able to do something for me. I will be honest with you, M. Poirot. I did not care deeply for my wife. I made her, I think, a good husband, but I was never really in love with her.’

‘And this girl, Jean?’

The perspiration came out in a fine dew on the doctor’s forehead. He said:

‘I –I should have asked her to marry me before now if it weren’t for all this scandal and talk.’

Poirot sat back in his chair. He said:

‘Now at last we have come to the true facts! Eh bien, Doctor Oldfield, I will take up your case. But remember this–it is the truth that I shall seek out.’

Oldfield said bitterly:

‘It isn’t the truth that’s going to hurt me!’

He hesitated and said:

‘You know, I’ve contemplated the possibility of an action for slander! If I could pin any one down to a definite accusation–surely then I should be vindicated? At least, sometimes I think so…At other times I think it would only make things worse–give bigger publicity to the whole thing and have people saying: “It mayn’t have been proved but there’s no smoke without fire.”’

He looked at Poirot.

‘Tell me, honestly, is there any way out of this nightmare?’

‘There is always a way,’ said Hercule Poirot.

II

‘We are going into the country, Georges,’ said Hercule Poirot to his valet.

‘Indeed, sir?’ said the imperturbable George.

‘And the purpose of our journey is to destroy a monster with nine heads.’

‘Really, sir? Something after the style of the Loch Ness Monster?’

‘Less tangible than that. I did not refer to a flesh and blood animal, Georges.’

‘I misunderstood you, sir.’

‘It would be easier if it were one. There is nothing so intangible, so difficult to pin down, as the source of a rumour.’

‘Oh yes, indeed, sir. It’s difficult to know how a thing starts sometimes.’

‘Exactly.’

Hercule Poirot did not put up at Dr Oldfield’s house. He went instead to the local inn. The morning after his arrival, he had his first interview with Jean Moncrieffe.

She was a tall girl with copper-coloured hair and steady blue eyes. She had about her a watchful look, as of one who is upon her guard.

She said:

‘So Doctor Oldfield did go to you…I knew he was thinking about it.’

There was a lack of enthusiasm in her tone.

Poirot said:

‘And you did not approve?’

Her eyes met his. She said coldly:

‘What can you do?’

Poirot said quietly:

‘There might be a way of tackling the situation.’

‘What way?’ She threw the words at him scornfully. ‘Do you mean go round to all the whispering old women and say “Really, please, you must stop talking like this. It’s so bad for poor Doctor Oldfield.” And they’d answer you and say: “Of course, I have never believed the story!” That’s the worst of the whole thing–they don’t say: “My dear, has it ever occurred to you that perhaps Mrs Oldfield’s death wasn’t quite what it seemed?” No, they say: “My dear, of course I don’t believe that story about Doctor Oldfield and his wife. I’m sure he wouldn’t do such a thing, though it’s true that he did neglect her just a little perhaps, and I don’t think, really, it’s quite wise to have quite a young girl as his dispenser–of course, I’m not saying for a minute that there was anything wrong between them. Oh no, I’m sure it was quite all right…”’ She stopped. Her face was flushed and her breath came rather fast.

Hercule Poirot said:

‘You seem to know very well just what is being said.’

Her mouth closed sharply. She said bitterly:

‘I know all right!’

‘And what is your own solution?’

Jean Moncrieffe said:

‘The best thing for him to do is to sell his practice and start again somewhere else.’

‘Don’t you think the story might follow him?’

She shrugged her shoulders.

‘He must risk that.’

Poirot was silent for a minute or two. Then he said:

‘Are you going to marry Doctor Oldfield, Miss Moncrieffe?’

She displayed no surprise at the question. She said shortly:

‘He hasn’t asked me to marry him.’

‘Why not?’

Her blue eyes met his and flickered for a second. Then she said:

‘Because I’ve choked him off.’

‘Ah, what a blessing to find someone who can be frank!’

‘I will be as frank as you please. When I realized that people were saying that Charles had got rid of his wife in order to marry me, it seemed to me that if we did marry it would just put the lid on things. I hoped that if there appeared to be no question of marriage between us, the silly scandal might die down.’

‘But it hasn’t?’

‘No it hasn’t.’

‘Surely,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘that is a little odd?’

Jean said bitterly:

‘They haven’t got much to amuse them down here.’

Poirot asked:

‘Do you want to marry Charles Oldfield?’

The girl answered coolly enough.

‘Yes, I do. I wanted to almost as soon as I met him.’

‘Then his wife’s death was very convenient for you?’

Jean Moncrieffe said:

‘Mrs Oldfield was a singularly unpleasant woman. Frankly, I was delighted when she died.’

‘Yes,’ said Poirot. ‘You are certainly frank!’

She gave the same scornful smile.

Poirot said:

‘I have a suggestion to make.’

‘Yes?’

‘Drastic means are required here. I suggest that somebody–possibly yourself–might write to the Home Office.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘I mean that the best way of disposing of this story once and for all is to get the body exhumed and an autopsy performed.’

She took a step back from him. Her lips opened, then shut again. Poirot watched her.

‘Well, Mademoiselle?’ he said at last.

Jean Moncrieffe said quietly:

‘I don’t agree with you.’

‘But why not? Surely a verdict of death from natural causes would silence all tongues?’

‘If you got that verdict, yes.’

‘Do you know what you are suggesting, Mademoiselle?’

Jean Moncrieffe said impatiently:

‘I know what I’m talking about. You’re thinking of arsenic poisoning–you could prove that she was not poisoned by arsenic. But there are other poisons–the vegetable alkaloids. After a year, I doubt if you’d find any traces of them even if they had been used. And I know what these official analyst people are like. They might return a non-committal verdict saying that there was nothing to show what caused death–and then the tongues would wag faster than ever!’

Hercule Poirot was silent for a minute or two. Then he said:

‘Who in your opinion is the most inveterate talker in the village?’

The girl considered. She said at last:

‘I really think old Miss Leatheran is the worst cat of the lot.’

‘Ah! Would it be possible for you to introduce me to Miss Leatheran–in a casual manner if possible?’

‘Nothing could be easier. All the old tabbies are prowling about doing their shopping at this time of the morning. We’ve only got to walk down the main street.’

As Jean had said, there was no difficulty about the procedure. Outside the post office, Jean stopped and spoke to a tall, thin middle-aged woman with a long nose and sharp inquisitive eyes.

‘Good morning, Miss Leatheran.’

‘Good morning, Jean. Such a lovely day, is it not?’

The sharp eyes ranged inquisitively over Jean Moncrieffe’s companion. Jean said:

‘Let me introduce M. Poirot, who is staying down here for a few days.’

III

Nibbling delicately at a scone and balancing a cup of tea on his knee, Hercule Poirot allowed himself to become confidential with his hostess. Miss Leatheran had been kind enough to ask him to tea and had thereupon made it her business to find out exactly what this exotic little foreigner was doing in their midst.

For some time he parried her thrusts with dexterity–thereby whetting her appetite. Then, when he judged the moment ripe, he leant forward:

‘Ah, Miss Leatheran,’ he said. ‘I can see that you are too clever for me! You have guessed my secret. I am down here at the request of the Home Office. But please,’ he lowered his voice, ‘keep this information to yourself.’

‘Of course–of course–’ Miss Leatheran was flustered–thrilled to the core. ‘The Home Office–you don’t mean–not poor Mrs Oldfield?’

Poirot nodded his head slowly several times.

‘We-ell!’ Miss Leatheran breathed into that one word a whole gamut of pleasurable emotion.

Poirot said:

‘It is a delicate matter, you understand. I have been ordered to report whether there is or is not a sufficient case for exhumation.’

Miss Leatheran exclaimed:

‘You are going to dig the poor thing up. How terrible!’

If she had said ‘how splendid’ instead of ‘how terrible’ the words would have suited her tone of voice better.

‘What is your own opinion, Miss Leatheran?’

‘Well, of course, M. Poirot, there has been a lot of talk. But I never listen to talk. There is always so much unreliable gossip going about. There is no doubt that Doctor Oldfield has been very odd in his manner ever since it happened, but as I have said repeatedly we surely need not put that down to a guilty conscience. It might be just grief. Not, of course, that he and his wife were on really affectionate terms. That I do know–on first hand authority. Nurse Harrison, who was with Mrs Oldfield for three or four years up to the time of her death, has admitted that much. And I have always felt, you know, that Nurse Harrison had her suspicions–not that she ever said anything, but one can tell, can’t one, from a person’s manner?’

Poirot said sadly:

‘One has so little to go upon.’

‘Yes, I know, but of course, M. Poirot, if the body is exhumed then you will know.’

‘Yes,’ said Poirot, ‘then we will know.’

‘There have been cases like it before, of course,’ said Miss Leatheran, her nose twitching with pleasurable excitement. ‘Armstrong, for instance, and that other man–I can’t remember his name–and then Crippen, of course. I’ve always wondered if Ethel Le Neve was in it with him or not. Of course, Jean Moncrieffe is a very nice girl, I’m sure…I wouldn’t like to say she led him on exactly–but men do get rather silly about girls, don’t they? And, of course, they were thrown very much together!’

Poirot did not speak. He looked at her with an innocent expression of inquiry calculated to produce a further spate of conversation. Inwardly he amused himself by counting the number of times the words ‘of course’ occurred.

‘And, of course, with a post-mortem and all that, so much would be bound to come out, wouldn’t it? Servants and all that. Servants always know so much, don’t they? And, of course, it’s quite impossible to keep them from gossiping, isn’t it? The Oldfields’ Beatrice was dismissed almost immediately after the funeral–and I’ve always thought that was odd–especially with the difficulty of getting maids nowadays. It looks as though Dr Oldfield was afraid she might know something.’

‘It certainly seems as though there were grounds for an inquiry,’ said Poirot solemnly.

Miss Leatheran gave a little shiver of reluctance.

‘One does so shrink from the idea,’ she said. ‘Our dear quiet little village–dragged into the newspapers–all the publicity!’

‘It appals you?’ asked Poirot.

‘It does a little. I’m old-fashioned, you know.’

‘And, as you say, it is probably nothing but gossip!’

‘Well–I wouldn’t like conscientiously to say that. You know, I do think it’s so true–the saying that there’s no smoke without fire.’

‘I myself was thinking exactly the same thing,’ said Poirot.

He rose.

‘I can trust your discretion, Mademoiselle?’

‘Oh, of course! I shall not say a word to anybody.’

Poirot smiled and took his leave.

On the doorstep he said to the little maid who handed him his hat and coat:

‘I am down here to inquire into the circumstances of Mrs Oldfield’s death, but I shall be obliged if you will keep that strictly to yourself.’

Miss Leatheran’s Gladys nearly fell backward into the umbrella stand. She breathed excitedly:

‘Oh, sir, then the doctor did do her in?’

‘You’ve thought so for some time, haven’t you?’

‘Well, sir, it wasn’t me. It was Beatrice. She was up there when Mrs Oldfield died.’

‘And she thought there had been’ –Poirot selected the melodramatic words deliberately–‘“foul play”?’

Gladys nodded excitedly.

‘Yes, she did. And she said so did Nurse that was up there, Nurse Harrison. Ever so fond of Mrs Oldfield Nurse was, and ever so distressed when she died, and Beatrice always said as how Nurse Harrison knew something about it because she turned right round against the doctor afterwards and she wouldn’t of done that unless there was something wrong, would she?’

‘Where is Nurse Harrison now?’

‘She looks after old Miss Bristow–down at the end of the village. You can’t miss it. It’s got pillars and a porch.’

IV

It was a very short time afterwards that Hercule Poirot found himself sitting opposite to the woman who certainly must know more about the circumstances that had given rise to the rumours than anyone else.

Nurse Harrison was still a handsome woman nearing forty. She had the calm serene features of a Madonna with big sympathetic dark eyes. She listened to him patiently and attentively. Then she said slowly:

‘Yes, I know that there are these unpleasant stories going about. I have done what I could to stop them, but it’s hopeless. People like the excitement, you know.’

Poirot said:

‘But there must have been something to give rise to these rumours?’

He noted that her expression of distress deepened. But she merely shook her head perplexedly.

‘Perhaps,’ Poirot suggested, ‘Doctor Oldfield and his wife did not get on well together and it was that that started the rumour?’

Nurse Harrison shook her head decidedly.

‘Oh no, Doctor Oldfield was always extremely kind and patient with his wife.’

‘He was really very fond of her?’

She hesitated.

‘No–I would not quite say that. Mrs Oldfield was a very difficult woman, not easy to please and making constant demands for sympathy and attention which were not always justified.’

‘You mean,’ said Poirot, ‘that she exaggerated her condition?’

The nurse nodded.

‘Yes–her bad health was largely a matter of her own imagination.’

‘And yet,’ said Poirot gravely, ‘she died…’

‘Oh, I know–I know…’

He watched her for a minute or two; her troubled perplexity–her palpable uncertainty.

He said: ‘I think–I am sure–that you do know what first gave rise to all these stories.’

Nurse Harrison flushed.

She said:

‘Well–I could, perhaps, make a guess. I believe it was the maid, Beatrice, who started all these rumours and I think I know what put it into her head.’

‘Yes?’

Nurse Harrison said rather incoherently:

‘You see, it was something I happened to overhear–a scrap of conversation between Doctor Oldfield and Miss Moncrieffe–and I’m pretty certain Beatrice overheard it too, only I don’t suppose she’d ever admit it.’

‘What was this conversation?’

Nurse Harrison paused for a minute as though to test the accuracy of her own memory, then she said:

‘It was about three weeks before the last attack that killed Mrs Oldfield. They were in the dining-room. I was coming down the stairs when I heard Jean Moncrieffe say:

‘“How much longer will it be? I can’t bear to wait much longer.”

‘And the doctor answered her:

‘“Not much longer now, darling, I swear it.” And she said again:

‘“I can’t bear this waiting. You do think it will be all right, don’t you?” And he said: “Of course. Nothing can go wrong. This time next year we’ll be married.”’

She paused.

‘That was the very first inkling I’d had, M. Poirot, that there was anything between the doctor and Miss Moncrieffe. Of course I knew he admired her and that they were very good friends, but nothing more. I went back up the stairs again–it had given me quite a shock–but I did notice that the kitchen door was open and I’ve thought since that Beatrice must have been listening. And you can see, can’t you, that the way they were talking could be taken two ways? It might just mean that the doctor knew his wife was very ill and couldn’t live much longer–and I’ve no doubt that that was the way he meant it–but to any one like Beatrice it might sound differently–it might look as though the doctor and Jean Moncrieffe were–well–were definitely planning to do away with Mrs Oldfield.’

‘But you don’t think so, yourself ?’

‘No–no, of course not…’

Poirot looked at her searchingly. He said:

‘Nurse Harrison, is there something more that you know? Something that you haven’t told me?’

She flushed and said violently:

‘No. No. Certainly not. What could there be?’

‘I do not know. But I thought that there might be–something?’

She shook her head. The old troubled look had come back.

Hercule Poirot said: ‘It is possible that the Home Office may order an exhumation of Mrs Oldfield’s body!’

‘Oh no!’ Nurse Harrison was horrified. ‘What a horrible thing!’

‘You think it would be a pity?’

‘I think it would be dreadful! Think of the talk it would create! It would be terrible–quite terrible for poor Doctor Oldfield.’

‘You don’t think that it might really be a good thing for him?’

‘How do you mean?’

Poirot said: ‘If he is innocent–his innocence will be proved.’

He broke off. He watched the thought take root in Nurse Harrison’s mind, saw her frown perplexedly, and then saw her brow clear.

She took a deep breath and looked at him.

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she said simply. ‘Of course, it is the only thing to be done.’

There were a series of thumps on the floor overhead. Nurse Harrison jumped up.

‘It’s my old lady, Miss Bristow. She’s woken up from her rest. I must go and get her comfortable before her tea is brought to her and I go out for my walk. Yes, M. Poirot, I think you are quite right. An autopsy will settle the business once and for all. It will scotch the whole thing and all these dreadful rumours against poor Doctor Oldfield will die down.’

She shook hands and hurried out of the room.

V

Hercule Poirot walked along to the post office and put through a call to London.

The voice at the other end was petulant.

‘Must you go nosing out these things, my dear Poirot? Are you sure it’s a case for us? You know what these country town rumours usually amount to–just nothing at all.’

‘This,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘is a special case.’

‘Oh well–if you say so. You have such a tiresome habit of being right. But if it’s all a mare’s nest we shan’t be pleased with you, you know.’

Hercule Poirot smiled to himself. He murmured:

‘No, I shall be the one who is pleased.’

‘What’s that you say? Can’t hear.’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’

He rang off.

Emerging into the post office he leaned across the counter. He said in his most engaging tones:

‘Can you by any chance tell me, Madame, where the maid who was formerly with Dr Oldfield–Beatrice her Christian name was–now resides?’

‘Beatrice King? She’s had two places since then. She’s with Mrs Marley over the Bank now.’

Poirot thanked her, bought two postcards, a book of stamps and a piece of local pottery. During the purchase, he contrived to bring the death of the late Mrs Oldfield into the conversation. He was quick to note the peculiar furtive expression that stole across the post-mistress’s face. She said:

‘Very sudden, wasn’t it? It’s made a lot of talk as you may have heard.’

A gleam of interest came into her eyes as she asked:

‘Maybe that’s what you’d be wanting to see Beatrice King for? We all thought it odd the way she was got out of there all of a sudden. Somebody thought she knew something–and maybe she did. She’s dropped some pretty broad hints.’

Beatrice King was a short rather sly-looking girl with adenoids. She presented an appearance of stolid stupidity but her eyes were more intelligent than her manner would have led one to expect. It seemed, however, that there was nothing to be got out of Beatrice King. She repeated:

‘I don’t know nothing about anything…It’s not for me to say what went on up there…I don’t know what you mean by overhearing a conversation betwen the Doctor and Miss Moncrieffe. I’m not one to go listening to doors, and you’ve no right to say I did. I don’t know nothing.’

Poirot said:

‘Have you ever heard of poisoning by arsenic?’

A flicker of quick furtive interest came into the girl’s sullen face.

She said:

‘So that’s what it was in the medicine bottle?’

‘What medicine bottle?’

Beatrice said:

‘One of the bottles of medicine what that Miss Moncrieffe made up for the Missus. Nurse was all upset–I could see that. Tasted it, she did, and smelt it, and then poured it away down the sink and filled up the bottle with plain water from the tap. It was white medicine like water, anyway. And once, when Miss Moncrieffe took up a pot of tea to the Missus, Nurse brought it down again and made it fresh–said it hadn’t been made with boiling water but that was just my eye, that was! I thought it was just the sort of fussing way nurses have at the time–but I dunno–it may have been more than that.’

Poirot nodded. He said:

‘Did you like Miss Moncrieffe, Beatrice?’

‘I didn’t mind her…A bit standoffish. Of course, I always knew as she was sweet on the doctor. You’d only to see the way she looked at him.’

Again Poirot nodded his head. He went back to the inn.

There he gave certain instructions to George.

VI

Dr Alan Garcia, the Home Office Analyst, rubbed his hands and twinkled at Hercule Poirot. He said:

‘Well, this suits you, M. Poirot, I suppose? The man who’s always right.’

Poirot said:

‘You are too kind.’

‘What put you on to it? Gossip?’

‘As you say–Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues.’

The following day Poirot once more took a train to Market Loughborough.

Market Loughborough was buzzing like a beehive. It had buzzed mildly ever since the exhumation proceedings.

Now that the findings of the autopsy had leaked out, excitement had reached fever heat.

Poirot had been at the inn for about an hour and had just finished a hearty lunch of steak and kidney pudding washed down by beer when word was brought to him that a lady was waiting to see him.

It was Nurse Harrison. Her face was white and haggard.

She came straight to Poirot.

‘Is this true? Is this really true, M. Poirot?’

He put her gently into a chair.

‘Yes. More than sufficient arsenic to cause death has been found.’

Nurse Harrison cried:

‘I never thought–I never for one moment thought–’ and burst into tears.

Poirot said gently:

‘The truth had to come out, you know.’

She sobbed.

‘Will they hang him?’

Poirot said:

‘A lot has to be proved still. Opportunity–access to poison–the vehicle in which it was administered.’

‘But supposing, M. Poirot, that he had nothing to do with it–nothing at all.’

‘In that case,’ Poirot shrugged his shoulders, ‘he will be acquitted.’

Nurse Harrison said slowly:

‘There is something–something that, I suppose, I ought to have told you before–but I didn’t think that there was really anything in it. It was just queer.’

‘I knew there was something,’ said Poirot. ‘You had better tell it to me now.’

‘It isn’t much. It’s just that one day when I went down to the dispensary for something, Jean Moncrieffe was doing something rather–odd.’ ‘Yes?’

‘It sounds so silly. It’s only that she was filling up her powder compact–a pink enamel one–’

‘Yes?’

‘But she wasn’t filling it up with powder–with face powder, I mean. She was tipping something into it from one of the bottles out of the poison cupboard. When she saw me she started and shut up the compact and whipped it into her bag–and put back the bottle quickly into the cupboard so that I couldn’t see what it was. I daresay it doesn’t mean anything–but now that I know that Mrs Oldfield really was poisoned–’ She broke off.

Poirot said: ‘You will excuse me?’

He went out and telephoned to Detective Sergeant Grey of the Berkshire Police.

Hercule Poirot came back and he and Nurse Harrison sat in silence.

Poirot was seeing the face of a girl with red hair and hearing a clear hard voice say: ‘I don’t agree.’ Jean Moncrieffe had not wanted an autopsy. She had given a plausible enough excuse, but the fact remained. A competent girl–efficient–resolute. In love with a man who was tied to a complaining invalid wife, who might easily live for years since, according to Nurse Harrison, she had very little the matter with her.

Hercule Poirot sighed.

Nurse Harrison said:

‘What are you thinking of ?’

Poirot answered:

‘The pity of things…’

Nurse Harrison said:

‘I don’t believe for a minute he knew anything about it.’

Poirot said:

‘No. I am sure he did not.’

The door opened and Detective Sergeant Grey came in. He had something in his hand, wrapped in a silk handkerchief. He unwrapped it and set it carefully down. It was a bright rose pink enamel compact.

Nurse Harrison said:

‘That’s the one I saw.’

Grey said:

‘Found it pushed right to the back of Miss Moncrieffe’s bureau drawer. Inside a handkerchief sachet. As far as I can see there are no fingerprints on it, but I’ll be careful.’

With the handkerchief over his hand he pressed the spring. The case flew open. Grey said:

‘This stuff isn’t face powder.’

He dipped a finger and tasted it gingerly on the tip of his tongue.

‘No particular taste.’

Poirot said:

‘White arsenic does not taste.’

Grey said:

‘It will be analysed at once.’ He looked at Nurse Harrison. ‘You can swear to this being the same case?’

‘Yes. I’m positive. That’s the case I saw Miss Moncrieffe with in the dispensary about a week before Mrs Oldfield’s death.’

Sergeant Grey sighed. He looked at Poirot and nodded. The latter rang the bell.

‘Send my servant here, please.’

George, the perfect valet, discreet, unobtrusive, entered and looked inquiringly at his master.

Hercule Poirot said:

‘You have identified this powder compact, Miss Harrison, as one you saw in the possession of Miss Moncrieffe over a year ago. Would you be surprised to learn that this particular case was sold by Messrs Woolworth only a few weeks ago and that, moreover, it is of a pattern and colour that has only been manufactured for the last three months?’

Nurse Harrison gasped. She stared at Poirot, her eyes round and dark. Poirot said:

‘Have you seen this compact before, Georges?’

George stepped forward:

‘Yes, sir. I observed this person, Nurse Harrison, purchase it at Woolworth’s on Friday the 18th. Pursuant to your instructions I followed this lady whenever she went out. She took a bus over to Darnington on the day I have mentioned and purchased this compact. She took it home with her. Later, the same day, she came to the house in which Miss Moncrieffe lodges. Acting as by your instructions, I was already in the house. I observed her go into Miss Moncrieffe’s bedroom and hide this in the back of the bureau drawer. I had a good view through the crack of the door. She then left the house believing herself unobserved. I may say that no one locks their front doors down here and it was dusk.’

Poirot said to Nurse Harrison, and his voice was hard and venomous:

‘Can you explain these facts, Nurse Harrison? I think not. There was no arsenic in that box when it left Messrs Woolworth, but there was when it left Miss Bristow’s house.’ He added softly, ‘It was unwise of you to keep a supply of arsenic in your possession.’

Nurse Harrison buried her face in her hands. She said in a low dull voice:

‘It’s true–it’s all true…I killed her. And all for nothing–nothing…I was mad.’

VII

Jean Moncrieffe said:

‘I must ask you to forgive me, M. Poirot. I have been so angry with you–so terribly angry with you. It seemed to me that you were making everything so much worse.’

Poirot said with a smile:

‘So I was to begin with. It is like in the old legend of the Lernean Hydra. Every time a head was cut off, two heads grew in its place. So, to begin with, the rumours grew and multiplied. But you see my task, like that of my namesake Hercules, was to reach the first–the original head. Who had started this rumour? It did not take me long to discover that the originator of the story was Nurse Harrison. I went to see her. She appeared to be a very nice woman–intelligent and sympathetic. But almost at once she made a bad mistake–she repeated to me a conversation which she had overheard taking place between you and the doctor, and that conversation, you see, was all wrong. It was psychologically most unlikely. If you and the doctor had planned together to kill Mrs Oldfield, you are both of you far too intelligent and level-headed to hold such a conversation in a room with an open door, easily overheard by someone on the stairs or someone in the kitchen. Moreover, the words attributed to you did not fit in at all with your mental make-up. They were the words of a much older woman and of one of a quite different type. They were words such as would be imagined by Nurse Harrison as being used by herself in like circumstances.

‘I had, up to then, regarded the whole matter as fairly simple. Nurse Harrison, I realized, was a fairly young and still handsome woman–she had been thrown closely with Doctor Oldfield for nearly three years–the doctor had been very fond of her and grateful to her for her tact and sympathy. She had formed the impression that if Mrs Oldfield died, the doctor would probably ask her to marry him. Instead of that, after Mrs Oldfield’s death, she learns that Doctor Oldfield is in love with you. Straightaway, driven by anger and jealousy, she starts spreading the rumour that Doctor Oldfield has poisoned his wife.

‘That, as I say, was how I had visualized the position at first. It was a case of a jealous woman and a lying rumour. But the old trite phrase “no smoke without fire” recurred to me significantly. I wondered if Nurse Harrison had done more than spread a rumour. Certain things she said rang strangely. She told me that Mrs Oldfield’s illness was largely imaginary–that she did not really suffer much pain. But the doctor himself had been in no doubt about the reality of his wife’s suffering. He had not been surprised by her death. He had called in another doctor shortly before her death and the other doctor had realized the gravity of her condition. Tentatively I brought forward the suggestion of exhumation…Nurse Harrison was at first frightened out of her wits by the idea. Then, almost at once, her jealousy and hatred took command of her. Let them find arsenic–no suspicion would attach to her. It would be the doctor and Jean Moncrieffe who would suffer.

‘There was only one hope. To make Nurse Harrison over-reach herself. If there were a chance that Jean Moncrieffe would escape, I fancied that Nurse Harrison would strain every nerve to involve her in the crime. I gave instructions to my faithful Georges–the most unobtrusive of men whom she did not know by sight. He was to follow her closely. And so–all ended well.’

Jean Moncrieffe said:

‘You’ve been wonderful.’

Dr Oldfield chimed in. He said:

‘Yes, indeed. I can never thank you enough. What a blind fool I was!’

Poirot asked curiously:

‘Were you as blind, Mademoiselle?’

Jean Moncrieffe said slowly:

‘I have been terribly worried. You see, the arsenic in the poison cupboard didn’t tally…’

Oldfield cried:

‘Jean–you didn’t think–?’

‘No, no–not you. What I did think was that Mrs Oldfield had somehow or other got hold of it–and that she was taking it so as to make herself ill and get sympathy and that she had inadvertently taken too much. But I was afraid that if there was an autopsy and arsenic was found, they would never consider that theory and would leap to the conclusion that you’d done it. That’s why I never said anything about the missing arsenic. I even cooked the poison book! But the last person I would ever have suspected was Nurse Harrison.’

Oldfield said:

‘I too. She was such a gentle womanly creature. Like a Madonna.’

Poirot said sadly:

‘Yes, she would have made, probably, a good wife and mother…Her emotions were just a little too strong for her.’ He sighed and murmured once more under his breath:

‘The pity of it.’

Then he smiled at the happy-looking middle-aged man and the eager-faced girl opposite him. He said to himself:

‘These two have come out of its shadow into the sun…and I –I have performed the second Labour of Hercules.’