‘Well, Brett, what’s the trouble?’
Japp was looking down also at the huddled figure.
‘Position’s all right,’ said the doctor. ‘If she shot herself she’d probably have slipped from the chair into just that position. The door was locked and the window was fastened on the inside.’
‘That’s all right, you say. Then what’s wrong?’
‘Take a look at the pistol. I haven’t handled it—waiting for the fingerprint men. But you can see quite well what I mean.’
Together Poirot and Japp knelt down and examined the pistol closely.
‘I see what you mean,’ said Japp rising. ‘It’s in the curve of her hand. It looks as though she’s holding it—but as a matter of fact she isn’t holding it. Anything else?’
‘Plenty. She’s got the pistol in her right hand. Now take a look at the wound. The pistol was held close to the head just above the left ear—the left ear, mark you.’
‘H’m,’ said Japp. ‘That does seem to settle it. She couldn’t hold a pistol and fire it in that position with her right hand?’
‘Plumb impossible, I should say. You might get your arm round but I doubt if you could fire the shot.’
‘That seems pretty obvious then. Someone else shot her and tried to make it look like suicide. What about the locked door and window, though?’
Inspector Jameson answered this.
‘Window was closed and bolted, sir, but although the door was locked we haven’t been able to find the key.’
Japp nodded.
‘Yes, that was a bad break. Whoever did it locked the door when he left and hoped the absence of the key wouldn’t be noticed.’
Poirot murmured:
‘C’est bête, ça!’
‘Oh, come now, Poirot, old man, you mustn’t judge everybody else by the light of your shining intellect! As a matter of fact that’s the sort of little detail that’s quite apt to be overlooked. Door’s locked. People break in. Woman found dead—pistol in her hand—clear case of suicide—she locked herself in to do it. They don’t go hunting about for keys. As a matter of fact, Miss Plenderleith’s sending for the police was lucky. She might have got one or two of the chauffeurs to come and burst in the door—and then the key question would have been overlooked altogether.’
‘Yes, I suppose that is true,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘It would have been many people’s natural reaction. The police, they are the last resource, are they not?’
He was still staring down at the body.
‘Anything strike you?’ Japp asked.
The question was careless but his eyes were keen and attentive.
Hercule Poirot shook his head slowly.
‘I was looking at her wrist-watch.’
He bent over and just touched it with a finger-tip. It was a dainty jewelled affair on a black moiré strap on the wrist of the hand that held the pistol.
‘Rather a swell piece that,’ observed Japp. ‘Must have cost money!’ He cocked his head inquiringly at Poirot. ‘Something in that maybe?’
‘It is possible—yes.’
Poirot strayed across to the writing-bureau. It was the kind that has a front flap that lets down. This was daintily set out to match the general colour scheme.
There was a somewhat massive silver inkstand in the centre, in front of it a handsome green lacquer blotter. To the left of the blotter was an emerald glass pen-tray containing a silver penholder—a stick of green sealing-wax, a pencil and two stamps. On the right of the blotter was a movable calendar giving the day of the week, date and month. There was also a little glass jar of shot and standing in it a flamboyant green quill pen. Poirot seemed interested in the pen. He took it out and looked at it but the quill was innocent of ink. It was clearly a decoration—nothing more. The silver penholder with the ink-stained nib was the one in use. His eyes strayed to the calendar.
‘Tuesday, November fifth,’ said Japp. ‘Yesterday. That’s all correct.’
He turned to Brett.
‘How long has she been dead?’
‘She was killed at eleven thirty-three yesterday evening,’ said Brett promptly.
Then he grinned as he saw Japp’s surprised face.
‘Sorry, old boy,’ he said. ‘Had to do the super doctor of fiction! As a matter of fact eleven is about as near as I can put it—with a margin of about an hour either way.’
‘Oh, I thought the wrist-watch might have stopped—or something.’
‘It’s stopped all right, but it’s stopped at a quarter past four.’
‘And I suppose she couldn’t have been killed possibly at a quarter past four.’
‘You can put that right out of your mind.’
Poirot had turned back the cover of the blotter.
‘Good idea,’ said Japp. ‘But no luck.’
The blotter showed an innocent white sheet of blotting-paper. Poirot turned over the leaves but they were all the same.
He turned his attention to the waste-paper basket.
It contained two or three torn-up letters and circulars. They were only torn once and were easily reconstructed. An appeal for money from some society for assisting ex-service men, an invitation to a cocktail party on November 3rd, an appointment with a dressmaker. The circulars were an announcement of a furrier’s sale and a catalogue from a department store.
‘Nothing there,’ said Japp.
‘No, it is odd…’ said Poirot.
‘You mean they usually leave a letter when it’s suicide?’
‘Exactly.’
‘In fact, one more proof that it isn’t suicide.’
He moved away.
‘I’ll have my men get to work now. We’d better go down and interview this Miss Plenderleith. Coming, Poirot?’
Poirot still seemed fascinated by the writing-bureau and its appointments.
He left the room, but at the door his eyes went back once more to the flaunting emerald quill pen.
Chapter 2
At the foot of the narrow flight of stairs a door gave admission to a large-sized living-room—actually the converted stable. In this room, the walls of which were finished in a roughened plaster effect and on which hung etchings and woodcuts, two people were sitting.
One, in a chair near the fireplace, her hand stretched out to the blaze, was a dark efficient-looking young woman of twenty-seven or eight. The other, an elderly woman of ample proportions who carried a string bag, was panting and talking when the two men entered the room.
‘—and as I said, Miss, such a turn it gave me I nearly dropped down where I stood. And to think that this morning of all mornings—’
The other cut her short.
‘That will do, Mrs Pierce. These gentlemen are police officers, I think.’
‘Miss Plenderleith?’ asked Japp, advancing.
The girl nodded.
‘That is my name. This is Mrs Pierce who comes in to work for us every day.’
The irrepressible Mrs Pierce broke out again.
‘And as I was saying to Miss Plenderleith, to think that this morning of all mornings, my sister’s Louisa Maud should have been took with a fit and me the only one handy and as I say flesh and blood is flesh and blood, and I didn’t think Mrs Allen would mind, though I never likes to disappoint my ladies—’