The Clocks - Christie Agatha - Страница 53

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Hardcastle refused to be interested in past history. He gathered up the exercise books and took the sheet of hotel paper from my hand. For the last two minutes I had been staring at it, fascinated. Hardcastle had scribbled down Enderby’s address without troubling to turn the sheet the right way up. The hotel address was upside down in the left-hand bottom corner.

Staring at the sheet of paper, I knew what a fool I had been.

‘Well, thank you, M. Poirot,’ said Hardcastle. ‘You’ve certainly given us something to think about. Whether anything will come of it-’

‘I am most delighted if I have been of any assistance.’

Poirot was playing it modestly.

‘I’ll have to check various things-’

‘Naturally-naturally-’

Goodbyes were said. Hardcastle took his departure.

Poirot turned his attention to me. His eyebrows rose.

‘Eh bien-and what, may I ask, is biting you?-you look like a man who has seen an apparition.’

‘I’ve seen what a fool I’ve been.’

‘Aha. Well, that happens to many of us.’

But presumably not to Hercule Poirot! I had to attack him. 

‘Just tell me one thing, Poirot. If, as you said, you could do all this sitting in your chair in London and could have got me and Dick Hardcastle to come to you there, why-oh, why, did you come down here at all?’

‘I told you, they make the reparation in my apartment.’

‘They would have lent you another apartment. Or you could have gone to the Ritz, you would have been more comfortable there than in the Curlew Hotel.’

‘Indubitably,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘The coffee here,mon dieu, the coffee!’

‘Well, then,why?’

Hercule Poirot flew into a rage.

‘Eh bien, since you are too stupid to guess, I will tell you. I am human, am I not? I can be the machine if it is necessary. I can lie back and think. I can solve the problem so. But I am human, I tell you. And the problems concern human beings.’

‘And so?’

‘The explanation is as simple as the murder was simple. I came out of human curiosity,’ said Hercule Poirot, with an attempt at dignity.

Once more I was in Wilbraham Crescent, proceeding in a westerly direction.

I stopped before the gate of No. 19. No one came screaming out of the house this time. It was neat and peaceful.

I went up to the front door and rang the bell.

Miss Millicent Pebmarsh opened it.

‘This is Colin Lamb,’ I said. ‘May I come in and speak to you?’

‘Certainly.’

She preceded me into the sitting-room.

‘You seem to spend a lot of time down here, Mr Lamb. I understood that you werenot connected with the local police-’

‘You understood rightly. I think, really, you have known exactly who I am from the first day you spoke to me.’ 

‘I’m not sure quite what you mean by that.’

‘I’ve been extremely stupid, Miss Pebmarsh. I came to this place to look for you. I found you the first day I was here-and I didn’t know I had found you!’

‘Possibly murder distracted you.’

‘As you say. I was also stupid enough to look at a piece of paper the wrong way up.’

‘And what is the point of all this?’

‘Just that the game is up, Miss Pebmarsh. I’ve found the headquarters where all the planning is done. Such records and memoranda as are necessary are kept by you on the micro dot system in Braille. The information Larkin got at Portlebury was passed to you. From here it went to its destination by means of Ramsay. He came across when necessary from his house to yours at night by way of the garden. He dropped a Czech coin in your garden one day-’

‘That was careless of him.’

‘We’re all careless at some time or another. Your cover is very good. You’re blind, you work at an institute for disabled children, you keep children’s books in Braille in your house as is only natural-you are a woman of unusual intelligence and personality. I don’t know what is the driving power that animates you-’

‘Say if you like that I am dedicated.’

‘Yes. I thought it might be like that.’ 

‘And why are you telling me all this? It seems unusual.’

I looked at my watch.

‘You have two hours, Miss Pebmarsh. In two hours’ time members of the special branch will come here and take charge-’

‘I don’t understand you. Why do you come here ahead of your people, to give me what seems to be a warning-’

‘Itis a warning. I have come here myself, and shall remain here until my people arrive, to see that nothing leaves this house-with one exception. That exception is you yourself. You have two hours’ start if you choose to go.’

‘But why?Why? ’

I said slowly:

‘Because I think there is an off-chance that you might shortly become my mother-in-law…I may be quite wrong.’

There was a silence. Millicent Pebmarsh got up and went to the window. I didn’t take my eyes off her. I had no illusions about Millicent Pebmarsh. I didn’t trust her an inch. She was blind but even a blind woman can catch you if you are off guard. Her blindness wouldn’t handicap her if she once got her chance to jam an automatic against my spine.

She said quietly: 

‘I shall not tell you if you’re right or wrong. What makes you think that-that it might be so?’

‘Eyes.’

‘But we are not alike in character.’

‘No.’

She spoke almost defiantly.

‘I did the best I could for her.’

‘That’s a matter of opinion. With you a cause came first.’

‘As it should do.’

‘I don’t agree.’

There was silence again. Then I asked, ‘Did you know who she was-that day?’

‘Not until I heard the name…I had kept myself informed about her-always.’

‘You were never as inhuman as you would have liked to be.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense.’

I looked at my watch again.

‘Time is going on,’ I said.

She came back from the window and across to the desk.

‘I have a photograph of her here-as a child…’

I was behind her as she pulled the drawer open. It wasn’t an automatic. It was a small very deadly knife…

My hand closed over hers and took it away. 

‘I may be soft, but I’m not a fool,’ I said.

She felt for a chair and sat down. She displayed no emotion whatever.

‘I am not taking advantage of your offer. What would be the use? I shall stay here until-they come. There are always opportunities-even in prison.’

‘Of indoctrination, you mean?’

‘If you like to put it that way.’

We sat there, hostile to each other, but with understanding.

‘I’ve resigned from the Service,’ I told her. ‘I’m going back to my old job-marine biology. There’s a post going at a university in Australia.’

‘I think you are wise. You haven’t got what it takes for this job. You are like Rosemary’s father. He couldn’t understand Lenin’s dictum: “Away with softness”.’

I thought of Hercule Poirot’s words.

‘I’m content,’ I said, ‘to be human…’

We sat there in silence, each of us convinced that the other’s point of view was wrong.

Letter from Detective Inspector Hardcastle to M. Hercule Poirot

Dear M. Poirot,

We are now in possession of certain facts, and I feel you may be interested to hear about them. 

A Mr Quentin Duguesclin of Quebec left Canada for Europe approximately four weeks ago. He has no near relatives and his plans for return were indefinite. His passport was found by the proprietor of a small restaurant in Boulogne, who handed it in to the police. It has not so far been claimed.

Mr Duguesclin was a lifelong friend of the Montresor family of Quebec. The head of that family, Mr Henry Montresor, died eighteen months ago, leaving his very considerable fortune to his only surviving relative, his great-niece Valerie, described as the wife of Josaiah Bland of Portlebury, England. A very reputable firm of London solicitors acted for the Canadian executors. All communications between Mrs Bland and her family in Canada ceased from the time of her marriage of which her family did not approve. Mr Duguesclin mentioned to one of his friends that he intended to look up the Blands while he was in England, since he had always been very fond of Valerie.

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