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 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., Messrs 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. 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.
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.
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 accurately enough.
Poirot and I were only drawn into 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 with his paper-cutter. 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!
So much was this the case that the least interruption of the rhythm attracted one’s attention.
I was sitting by the window, looking out at the passing traffic. I had recently returned from the Argentine and there was something particularly exciting to me in being once more in the roar of London.
Turning my head, I said with a smile:
‘Poirot, I—the humble Watson—am going to hazard a deduction.’
‘Enchanted, my friend. What is it?’
I struck an attitude and said pompously:
‘You have received this morning one letter of particular interest!’
‘You are indeed the Sherlock Holmes! Yes, you are perfectly right.’
I laughed.
‘You see, I know your methods, Poirot. If you read a letter through twice it must mean that it is of special interest.’
‘You shall judge for yourself, Hastings.’
With a smile my friend tendered me the letter in question.
I took it with no little interest, but immediately made a slight grimace. It was written in one of those old-fashioned spidery handwritings, and it was, moreover, crossed on two pages.
‘Must I read this, Poirot?’ I complained.
‘Ah, no, there is no compulsion. Assuredly not.’
‘Can’t you tell me what it says?’
‘I would prefer you to form your own judgement. But do not trouble if it bores you.’
‘No, no, I want to know what it’s all about,’ I protested.
My friend remarked drily:
‘You can hardly do that. In effect, the letter says nothing at all.’
Taking this as an exaggeration I plunged without more ado into the letter.
‘M. Hercule Poirot.
Dear Sir,
After much doubt and indecision, I am writing (the last word was crossed out and the letter went on) I am emboldened to write to you in the hope that you may be able to assist me in a matter of a strictly private nature. (The words strictly private were underlined three times.) I may say that your name is not unknown to me. It was mentioned to me by a Miss Fox of Exeter, and although Miss Fox was not herself acquainted with you, she mentioned that her brother-in-law’s sister (whose name I cannot, I am sorry to say, recall) had spoken of your kindness and discretion in the highest terms (highest terms underlined once). I did not inquire, of course, as to the nature (nature underlined) of the inquiry you had conducted on her behalf, but I understood from Miss Fox that it was of a painful and confidential nature (last four words underlined heavily).’
I broke off my difficult task of spelling out the spidery words.
‘Poirot,’ I said. ‘Must I go on? Does she ever get to the point?’
‘Continue, my friend. Patience.’
‘Patience!’
