鸽群中的猫21

Twenty

CONVERSATION

“Well—I don’t know what to say,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe. “Really I don’t know what to say—”

She looked with definite distaste at Hercule Poirot.

“Henry, of course,” she said, “is not at home.”

The meaning of this pronouncement was slightly obscure, but Hercule Poirot thought that heknew what was in her mind. Henry, she was feeling, would be able to deal with this sort of thing.

Henry had so many international dealings. He was always flying to the Middle East and to Ghanaand to South America and to Geneva, and even occasionally, but not so often, to Paris.

“The whole thing,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe, “has been most distressing¹. I was so glad to haveJennifer safely at home with me. Though, I must say,” she added, with a trace of vexation,“Jennifer has really been most tiresome². After having made a great fuss about going toMeadowbank and being quite sure she wouldn’t like it there, and saying it was a snobby³ kind ofschool and not the kind she wanted to go to, now she sulks all day long because I’ve taken heraway. It’s really too bad.”

“It is undeniably a very good school,” said Hercule Poirot. “Many people say the best school inEngland.”

“It was, I daresay,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe.

“And will be again,” said Hercule Poirot.

“You think so?” Mrs. Sutcliffe looked at him doubtfully. His sympathetic manner was graduallypiercing her defences. There is nothing that eases the burden of a mother’s life more than to bepermitted to unburden herself of the difficulties, rebuffs and frustrations⁴ which she has in dealingwith her offspring. Loyalty⁵ so often compels silent endurance. But to a foreigner like HerculePoirot Mrs. Sutcliffe felt that this loyalty was not applicable. It was not like talking to the motherof another daughter.

“Meadowbank,” said Hercule Poirot, “is just passing through an unfortunate phase.”

It was the best thing he could think of to say at the moment. He felt its inadequacy⁶ and Mrs.

Sutcliffe pounced⁷ upon the inadequacy immediately.

“Rather more than unfortunate!” she said. “Two murders! And a girl kidnapped. You can’t sendyour daughter to a school where the mistresses are being murdered all the time.”

It seemed a highly reasonable point of view.

“If the murders,” said Poirot, “turn out to be the work of one person and that person isapprehended, that makes a difference, does it not?”

“Well—I suppose so. Yes,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe doubtfully. “I mean—you mean—oh, I see, youmean like Jack⁸ the Ripper or that other man—who was it? Something to do with Devonshire.

Cream? Neil Cream. Who went about killing⁹ an unfortunate type of woman. I suppose thismurderer just goes about killing schoolmistresses! If once you’ve got him safely in prison, andhanged too, I hope, because you’re only allowed one murder, aren’t you?—like a dog with a bite—what was I saying? Oh yes, if he’s safely caught, well, then I suppose it would be different. Ofcourse there can’t be many people like that, can there?”

“One certainly hopes not,” said Hercule Poirot.

“But then there’s this kidnapping too,” pointed¹⁰ out Mrs. Sutcliffe. “You don’t want to send yourdaughter to a school where she may be kidnapped, either, do you?”

“Assuredly not, madame. I see how clearly you have thought out the whole thing. You are soright in all you say.”

Mrs. Sutcliffe looked faintly pleased. Nobody had said anything like that to her for some time.

Henry had merely said things like “What did you want to send her to Meadowbank for anyway?”

and Jennifer had sulked and refused to answer.

“I have thought about it,” she said. “A great deal.”

“Then I should not let kidnapping worry you, madame. Entre nous, if I may speak inconfidence, about Princess Shaista—It is not exactly a kidnapping—one suspects a romance—”

“You mean the naughty girl just ran away to marry somebody?”

“My lips are sealed,” said Hercule Poirot. “You comprehend it is not desired that there shouldbe any scandal. This is in confidence entre nous. I know you will say nothing.”

“Of course not,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe virtuously¹¹. She looked down at the letter that Poirot hadbrought with him from the Chief Constable¹². “I don’t quite understand who you are, M.—er—Poirot. Are you what they call in books—a private eye?”

“I am a consultant,” said Hercule Poirot loftily.

This flavour of Harley Street encouraged Mrs. Sutcliffe a great deal.

“What do you want to talk to Jennifer about?” she demanded.

“Just to get her impressions of things,” said Poirot. “She is observant—yes?”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t say that,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe. “She’s not what I call a noticing kind ofchild at all. I mean, she is always so matter of fact.”

“It is better than making up things that have never happened at all,” said Poirot.

“Oh, Jennifer wouldn’t do that sort of thing,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe, with certainty. She got up,went to the window and called “Jennifer.”

“I wish,” she said, to Poirot, as she came back again, “that you’d try and get it into Jennifer’shead that her father and I are only doing our best for her.”

Jennifer came into the room with a sulky face and looked with deep suspicion at Hercule Poirot.

“How do you do?” said Poirot. “I am a very old friend of Julia Upjohn. She came to London tofind me.”

“Julia went to London?” said Jennifer, slightly surprised. “Why?”

“To ask my advice,” said Hercule Poirot.

Jennifer looked unbelieving.

“I was able to give it to her,” said Poirot. “She is now back at Meadowbank,” he added.

“So her Aunt Isabel didn’t take her away,” said Jennifer, shooting an irritated look at hermother.

Poirot looked at Mrs. Sutcliffe and for some reason, perhaps because she had been in the middleof counting the laundry when Poirot arrived and perhaps because of some unexplainedcompulsion, she got up and left the room.

“It’s a bit hard,” said Jennifer, “to be out of all that’s going on there. All this fuss! I toldMummy it was silly. After all, none of the pupils have been killed.”

“Have you any ideas of your own about the murders?” asked Poirot.

Jennifer shook her head. “Someone who’s batty?” she offered. She added thoughtfully, “Isuppose Miss Bulstrode will have to get some new mistresses now.”

“It seems possible, yes,” said Poirot. He went on, “I am interested, Mademoiselle Jennifer, inthe woman who came and offered you a new racquet for your old one. Do you remember?”

“I should think I do remember,” said Jennifer. “I’ve never found out to this day who really sentit. It wasn’t Aunt Gina at all.”

“What did this woman look like?” said Poirot.

“The one who brought the racquet?” Jennifer half closed her eyes as though thinking. “Well, Idon’t know. She had on a sort of fussy¹³ dress with a little cape¹⁴, I think. Blue, and a floppy¹⁵ sort ofhat.”

“Yes?” said Poirot. “I meant perhaps not so much her clothes as her face.”

“A good deal of makeup¹⁶, I think,” said Jennifer vaguely¹⁷. “A bit too much for the country, Imean, and fair hair. I think she was an American.”

“Had you ever seen her before?” asked Poirot.

“Oh no,” said Jennifer. “I don’t think she lived down there. She said she’d come down for aluncheon party or a cocktail¹⁸ party or something.”

Poirot looked at her thoughtfully. He was interested in Jennifer’s complete acceptance ofeverything that was said to her. He said gently,“But she might not have been speaking the truth?”

“Oh,” said Jennifer. “No, I suppose not.”

“You’re quite sure you hadn’t seen her before? She could not have been, for instance, one of thegirls dressed up? Or one of the mistresses?”

“Dressed up?” Jennifer looked puzzled.

Poirot laid before her the sketch¹⁹ Eileen Rich had done for him of Mademoiselle Blanche.

“This was not the woman, was it?”

Jennifer looked at it doubtfully.

“It’s a little like her—but I don’t think it’s her.”

Poirot nodded thoughtfully.

There was no sign that Jennifer recognized that this was actually a sketch of MademoiselleBlanche.

“You see,” said Jennifer, “I didn’t really look at her much. She was an American and a stranger,and then she told me about the racquet—”

After that, it was clear, Jennifer would have had eyes for nothing but her new possession.

“I see,” said Poirot. He went on, “Did you ever see at Meadowbank anyone that you’d seen outin Ramat?”

“In Ramat?” Jennifer thought. “Oh no—at least—I don’t think so.”

Poirot pounced on the slight expression of doubt. “But you are not sure, MademoiselleJennifer.”

“Well,” Jennifer scratched her forehead with a worried expression, “I mean, you’re alwaysseeing people who look like somebody else. You can’t quite remember who it is they look like.

Sometimes you see people that you have met but you don’t remember who they are. And they sayto you ‘You don’t remember me,’ and then that’s awfully²⁰ awkward because really you don’t. Imean, you sort of know their face but you can’t remember their names or where you saw them.”

“That is very true,” said Poirot. “Yes, that is very true. One often has that experience.” Hepaused a moment then he went on, prodding²¹ gently, “Princess Shaista, for instance, you probablyrecognized her when you saw her because you must have seen her in Ramat.”

“Oh, was she in Ramat?”

“Very likely,” said Poirot. “After all she is a relation of the ruling house. You might have seenher there?”

“I don’t think I did,” said Jennifer frowning. “Anyway, she wouldn’t go about with her faceshowing there, would she? I mean, they all wear veils and things like that. Though they take themoff in Paris and Cairo, I believe. And in London, of course,” she added.

“Anyway, you had no feeling of having seen anyone at Meadowbank whom you had seenbefore?”

“No, I’m sure I hadn’t. Of course most people do look rather alike and you might have seenthem anywhere. It’s only when somebody’s got an odd sort of face like Miss Rich, that you noticeit.”

“Did you think you’d seen Miss Rich somewhere before?”

“I hadn’t really. It must have been someone like her. But it was someone much fatter than shewas.”

“Someone much fatter,” said Poirot thoughtfully.

“You couldn’t imagine Miss Rich being fat,” said Jennifer with a giggle²². “She’s so frightfullythin and nobbly. And anyway Miss Rich couldn’t have been in Ramat because she was away illlast term.”

“And the other girls?” said Poirot, “had you seen any of the girls before?”

“Only the ones I knew already,” said Jennifer. “I did know one or two of them. After all, youknow, I was only there three weeks and I really don’t know half of the people there even by sight.

I wouldn’t know most of them if I met them tomorrow.”

“You should notice things more,” said Poirot severely²³.

“One can’t notice everything,” protested Jennifer. She went on: “If Meadowbank is carrying onI would like to go back. See if you can do anything with Mummy. Though really,” she added, “Ithink it’s Daddy who’s the stumbling block. It’s awful here in the country. I get no opportunity toimprove my tennis.”

“I assure you I will do what I can,” said Poirot.

 

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