Ah, yes, somebody had said—Charles—that she had slipped on Bob’s ball which he had left on the top of the stairs…
The ball had been there—he had held it up in his hand…
Emily Arundell’s head ached. Her shoulder throbbed. Her bruised body suffered…
But in the midst of her suffering her mind was clear and lucid. She was no longer confused by shock. Her memory was perfectly clear.
She went over in her mind all the events from six o’clock yesterday evening… She retraced every step.. .till she came to the moment when she arrived at the stairhead and started to descend the stairs…
A thrill of incredulous horror shot through her…
Surely—surely, she must be mistaken… One often had queer fancies after an event had happened. She tried— earnestly she tried—to recall the slippery roundness of Bob’s ball under her foot…
But she could recall nothing of the kind[76].
Instead—
‘Sheer nerves,’ said Emily Arundell. ‘Ridiculous fancies.’
But her sensible, shrewd, Victorian mind would not admit that for a moment. There was no foolish optimism about the Victorians. They could believe the worst with the utmost ease.
Emily Arundell believed the worst.
CHAPTER 4. Miss Arundell Writes a Letter
It was Friday.
The relations had left.
They left on the Wednesday as originally planned. One and all[77], they had offered to stay on. One and all they had been steadfastly refused. Miss Arundell explained that she preferred to be ‘quite quiet’.
During the two days that had elapsed since their departure, Emily Arundell had been alarmingly meditative. Often she did not hear what Minnie Lawson said to her. She would stare at her and curtly order her to begin all over again.
‘It’s the shock, poor dear,’ said Miss Lawson.
And she added with the kind of gloomy relish in disaster which brightens so many otherwise drab lives:
‘I dare say she’ll never be quite herself again.’
Dr Grainger, on the other hand, rallied her heartily.
He told her that she’d be downstairs again by the end of the week, that it was a positive disgrace she had no bones broken, and what kind of patient was she for a struggling medical man? If all his patients were like her, he might as well take down his plate straight away.
Emily Arundell replied with spirit[78]—she and old Dr Grainger were allies of long standing[79]. He bullied and she defied—they always got a good deal of pleasure out of each other’s company!
But now, after the doctor had stumped away, the old lady lay with a frown on her face, thinking—thinking— responding absent-mindedly to Minnie Lawson’s well-meant fussing—and then suddenly coming back to consciousness and rending her with a vitriolic tongue.
‘Poor little Bobsie,’ twittered Miss Lawson, bending over Bob who had a rug spread on the corner of his mistress’s bed. ‘Wouldn’t little Bobsie be unhappy if he knew what he’d done to his poor, poor Missus?’
Miss Arundell snapped:
‘Don’t be idiotic, Minnie. And where’s your English sense of justice? Don’t you know that everyone in this country is accounted innocent until he or she is proved guilty?’
‘Oh, but we do know—’
Emily snapped:
‘We don’t know anything at all. Do stop fidgeting, Minnie. Pulling this and pulling that. Haven’t you any idea how to behave in a sick-room? Go away and send Ellen to me.’
Meekly Miss Lawson crept away.
Emily Arundell looked after her with a slight feeling of self-reproach. Maddening as Minnie was, she did her best.
Then the frown settled down again on her face.
She was desperately unhappy. She had all a vigorous strong-minded old lady’s dislike of inaction in any given situation. But in this particular situation she could not decide upon her line of action.
There were moments when she distrusted her own faculties, her own memory of events. And there was no-one, absolutely no-one in whom she could confide.
Half an hour later, when Miss Lawson tiptoed creakingly into the room, carrying a cup of beef-tea, and then paused irresolute at the view of her employer lying with closed eyes, Emily Arundell suddenly spoke two words with such force and decision that Miss Lawson nearly dropped the cup.
‘Mary Fox,’ said Miss Arundell.
‘A box, dear?’ said Miss Lawson. ‘Did you say you wanted a box?’
‘You’re getting deaf, Minnie. I didn’t say anything about a box. I said Mary Fox. The woman I met at Cheltenham last year. She was the sister of one of the Canons[80] of Exeter Cathedral. Give me that cup. You’ve spilt it into the saucer. And don’t tiptoe when you come into a room. You don’t know how irritating it is. Now go downstairs and get me the London telephone book.’
‘Can I find the number for you, dear? Or the address?’ ‘If I’d wanted you to do that I’d have told you so. Do what I tell you. Bring it here, and put my writing things by the bed.’
Miss Lawson obeyed orders.
As she was going out of the room after having done everything required of her, Emily Arundell said unexpectedly:
‘You’re a good, faithful creature, Minnie. Don’t mind my bark. It’s a good deal worse than my bite. You’re very patient and good to me.’
Miss Lawson went out of the room with her face pink and incoherent words burbling from her lips.
Sitting up in bed, Miss Arundell wrote a letter. She wrote it slowly and carefully, with numerous pauses for thought and copious underlining. She crossed and recrossed the page—for she had been brought up in a school that was taught never to waste notepaper. Finally, with a sigh of satisfaction, she signed her name and put it into an envelope. She wrote a name upon the envelope. Then she took a fresh sheet of paper. This time she made a rough draft and after having reread it and made certain alterations and erasures, she wrote out a fair copy. She read the whole thing through very carefully, then satisfied that she had expressed her meaning she enclosed it in an envelope and addressed it to William Purvis, Esq[81]., Messrs[82] Purvis, Purvis, Charlesworth and Purvis, Solicitors, Harchester.
She took up the first envelope again, which was addressed to M. Hercule Poirot, and opened the telephone directory[83]. Having found the address she added it.
A tap sounded at the door.
Miss Arundell hastily thrust the letter she had just finished addressing—the letter to Hercule Poirot—inside the flap of her writing-case[84].
She had no intention of rousing Minnie’s curiosity. Minnie was a great deal too inquisitive.
She called ‘Come in’ and lay back on her pillows with a sigh of relief.
She had taken steps to deal with the situation.
CHAPTER 5. Hercule Poirot Receives a Letter
The events which I have just narrated were not, of course, known to me until a long time afterwards. But by questioning various members of the family in detail, I have, I think, set them down[85] accurately enough.
Poirot and I were only drawn into[86] the affair when we received Miss Arundell’s letter.
I remember the day well. It was a hot, airless morning towards the end of June.
Poirot had a particular routine when opening his morning correspondence. He picked up each letter, scrutinized it carefully and neatly slit the envelope open[87] with his paper-cutter[88]. Its contents were perused and then placed in one of four piles beyond the chocolate-pot. (Poirot always drank chocolate for breakfast—a revolting habit.) All this with a machine-like regularity!
81
Esq. = esqire – эсквайр (данное понятие возникло в XV в. и относилось к молодому человеку знатного происхождения; с середины XVI в. это слово стало обычным вежливым обращением к любому совершеннолетнему мужчине в письмах)