‘Nearly all the students have rucksacks—they all hitch-hike a lot, you know. And a great many of the rucksacks are alike—bought at the same place, so it’s hard to identify one from the other. But it seems fairly certain that this one belonged to Leonard Bateson or Colin McNabb.’
‘And the silk scarf that was also cut about. To whom did that belong?’
‘To Valerie Hobhouse. She had it as a Christmas present—it was emerald green and really good quality.’
‘Miss Hobhouse… I see.’
Poirot closed his eyes. What he perceived mentally was a kaleidoscope, no more, no less. Pieces of cut-up scarves and rucksacks, cookery books, lipsticks, bath salts; names and thumbnail sketches of odd students. Nowhere was there cohesion or form. Unrelated incidents and people whirled round in space. But Poirot knew quite well that somehow and somewhere there must be a pattern. Possibly several patterns. Possibly each time one shook the kaleidoscope one got a different pattern… But one of the patterns would be the right pattern… The question was where to start…
He opened his eyes.
‘This is a matter that needs some reflection. A good deal of reflection.’
‘Oh, I’m sure it does, M. Poirot,’ assented Mrs Hubbard eagerly. ‘And I’m sure I didn’t want to trouble you—’
‘You are not troubling me. I am intrigued. But whilst I am reflecting, we might make a start on the practical side. A start… The shoe, the evening shoe…yes, we might make a start there. Miss Lemon.’
‘Yes, M. Poirot?’ Miss Lemon banished filing from her thoughts, sat even more upright, and reached automatically for pad and pencil.
‘Mrs Hubbard will obtain for you, perhaps, the remaining shoe. Then go to Baker Street Station, to the lost property department. The loss occurred—when?’
Mrs Hubbard considered.
‘Well, I can’t remember exactly now, M. Poirot. Perhaps two months ago. I can’t get nearer than that. But I could find out from Sally Finch the date of the party.’
‘Yes. Well—’ He turned once more to Miss Lemon. ‘You can be a little vague. You will say you left a shoe in an Inner Circle train—that is the most likely—or you may have left it in some other train. Or possibly a bus. How many buses serve the neighbourhood of Hickory Road?’
‘Two only, M. Poirot.’
‘Good. If you get no results from Baker Street, try Scotland Yard and say it was left in a taxi.’
‘Lambeth,’ corrected Miss Lemon efficiently.
Poirot waved a hand.
‘You always know these things.’
‘But why do you think—’ began Mrs Hubbard.
Poirot interrupted her.
‘Let us see first what results we get. Then, if they are negative or positive, you and I, Mrs Hubbard, must consult again. You will tell me then those things which it is necessary that I should know.’
‘I really think I’ve told you everything I can.’
‘No, no. I disagree. Here we have young people herded together, of varying temperaments, of different sexes. A loves B, but B loves C, and D and E are at daggers drawn because of A perhaps. It is all that I need to know. The interplay of human emotions. The quarrels, the jealousies, the friendships, the malice and all uncharitableness.’
‘I’m sure,’ said Mrs Hubbard, uncomfortably, ‘I don’t know anything about that sort of thing. I don’t mix at all. I just run the place and see to the catering and all that.’
‘But you are interested in people. You have told me so. You like young people. You took this post, not because it was of much interest financially, but because it would bring you in contact with human problems. There will be those of the students that you like and some that you do not like so well, or indeed at all, perhaps. You will tell me—yes, you will tell me! Because you are worried—not about what has been happening—you could go to the police about that—’
‘Mrs Nicoletis wouldn’t like to have the police in, I assure you.’
Poirot swept on, disregarding the interruption.
‘No, you are worried about someone—someone who you think may have been responsible or at least mixed up in this. Someone, therefore, that you like.’
‘Really, M. Poirot.’
‘Yes, really. And I think you are right to be worried. For that silk scarf cut to pieces, it is not nice. And the slashed rucksack, that also is not nice. For the rest it seems childishness—and yet—I am not sure. No, I am not sure at all!’
CHAPTER 3
Hurrying a little as she went up the steps, Mrs Hubbard inserted her latch key into the door of 26 Hickory Road. Just as the door opened, a big young man with fiery red hair ran up the steps behind her.
‘Hallo, Ma,’ he said, for in such fashion did Len Bateson usually address her. He was a friendly soul, with a Cockney accent and mercifully free from any kind of inferiority complex. ‘Been out gallivanting?’
‘I’ve been out to tea, Mr Bateson. Don’t delay me now, I’m late.’
‘I cut up a lovely corpse today,’ said Len. ‘Smashing!’
‘Don’t be so horrid, you nasty boy. A lovely corpse, indeed! The idea. You make me feel quite squeamish.’
Len Bateson laughed, and the hall echoed the sound in a great ha ha.
‘Nothing to Celia,’ he said. ‘I went along to the Dispensary. “Come to tell you about a corpse,” I said. She went as white as a sheet and I thought she was going to pass out. What do you think of that, Mother Hubbard?’
‘I don’t wonder at it,’ said Mrs Hubbard. ‘The idea! Celia probably thought you meant a real one.’
‘What do you mean—a real one? What do you think our corpses are? Synthetic?’
A thin young man with long untidy hair strolled out of a room on the right, and said in a waspish way:
‘Oh, it’s only you. I thought it was at least a posse of strong men. The voice is but the voice of one man, but the volume is as the volume of ten.’
‘Hope it doesn’t get on your nerves, I’m sure.’
‘Not more than usual,’ said Nigel Chapman and went back again.
‘Our delicate flower,’ said Len.
‘Now don’t you two scrap,’ said Mrs Hubbard. ‘Good temper, that’s what I like, and a bit of give and take.’
The big young man grinned down at her affectionately.
‘I don’t mind our Nigel, Ma,’ he said.
A girl coming down the stairs at that moment said:
‘Oh, Mrs Hubbard, Mrs Nicoletis is in her room and said she would like to see you as soon as you got back.’
Mrs Hubbard sighed and started up the stairs. The tall dark girl who had given the message stood against the wall to let her pass.
Len Bateson, divesting himself of his mackintosh said, ‘What’s up, Valerie? Complaints of our behaviour to be passed on by Mother Hubbard in due course?’
The girl shrugged her thin elegant shoulders. She came down the stairs and across the hall.
‘This place gets more like a madhouse every day,’ she said over her shoulder.
She went through the door at the right as she spoke. She moved with that insolent effortless grace that is common to those who have been professional mannequins.
Twenty-six Hickory Road was in reality two houses, 24 and 26 semi-detached. They had been thrown into one on the ground floor so that there was both a communal sitting-room and a large dining-room on the ground floor, as well as two cloak-rooms and a small office towards the back of the house. Two separate staircases led to the floors above which remained detached. The girls occupied bedrooms in the right-hand side of the house, and the men on the other, the original No. 24.
Mrs Hubbard went upstairs loosening the collar of her coat. She sighed as she turned in the direction of Mrs Nicoletis’s room.
‘In one of her states again, I suppose,’ she muttered.
She tapped on the door and entered.
Mrs Nicoletis’s sitting-room was kept very hot. The big electric fire had all its bars turned on and the window was tightly shut. Mrs Nicoletis was sitting smoking on a sofa surrounded by a lot of rather dirty silk and velvet sofa cushions. She was a big dark woman, still good-looking, with a bad-tempered mouth and enormous brown eyes.
‘Ah! So there you are.’ Mrs Nicoletis made it sound like an accusation.
Mrs Hubbard, true to her Lemon blood, was unperturbed.
‘Yes,’ she said tartly, ‘I’m here. I was told you wanted to see me specially.’
‘Yes, indeed I do. It is monstrous, no less, monstrous!’
‘What’s monstrous?’
‘These bills! Your accounts!’ Mrs Nicoletis produced a sheaf of papers from beneath a cushion in the manner of a successful conjuror. ‘What are we feeding these miserable students on? Foie gras and quails? Is this the Ritz? Who do they think they are, these students?’
‘Young people with a healthy appetite,’ said Mrs Hubbard. ‘They get a good breakfast and a decent evening meal—plain food but nourishing. It all works out very economically.’
‘Economically? Economically? You dare to say that to me? When I am being ruined?’
‘You make a very substantial profit, Mrs Nicoletis, out of this place. For students, the rates are on the high side.’
‘But am I not always full? Do I ever have a vacancy that is not applied for three times over? Am I not sent students by the British Council, by London University Lodging Board—by the Embassies—by the French Lycée? Are not there always three applications for every vacancy?’
‘That’s very largely because the meals here are appetising and sufficient. Young people must be properly fed.’
‘Bah! These totals are scandalous. It is that Italian cook and her husband. They swindle you over the food.’
‘Oh no, they don’t, Mrs Nicoletis. I can assure you that no foreigner is going to put anything over on me.’
‘Then it is you yourself—you who are robbing me.’
Mrs Hubbard remained unperturbed.
‘I can’t allow you to say things like that,’ she said, in the voice an old-fashioned Nanny might have used to a particularly truculent charge. ‘It isn’t a nice thing to do, and one of these days it will land you in trouble.’
‘Ah!’ Mrs Nicoletis threw the sheaf of bills dramatically up in the air whence they fluttered to the ground in all directions. Mrs Hubbard bent and picked them up, pursing her lips. ‘You enrage me,’ shouted her employer.
‘I dare say,’ said Mrs Hubbard, ‘but it’s bad for you, you know, getting all worked up. Tempers are bad for the blood pressure.’
‘You admit that these totals are higher than those of last week?’
‘Of course they are. There’s been some very good cut price stuff going at Lampson’s Stores. I’ve taken advantage of it. Next week’s totals will be below average.’
Mrs Nicoletis looked sulky.
‘You explain everything so plausibly.’
‘There.’ Mrs Hubbard put the bills in a neat pile on the table. ‘Anything else?’
‘The American girl, Sally Finch, she talks of leaving—I do not want her to go. She is a Fulbright scholar. She will bring here other Fulbright scholars. She must not leave.’
‘What’s her reason for leaving?’
Mrs Nicoletis humped monumental shoulders.
‘How can I remember? It was not genuine. I could tell that. I always know.’
Mrs Hubbard nodded thoughtfully. She was inclined to believe Mrs Nicoletis on that point.
‘Sally hasn’t said anything to me,’ she said.
‘But you will talk to her?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘And if it is these coloured students, these Indians, these Negresses—then they can all go, you understand? The colour bar, it means everything to these Americans—and for me it is the Americans that matter—as for these coloured ones—scram!’
She made a dramatic gesture.
‘Not while I’m in charge,’ said Mrs Hubbard coldly. ‘And anyway, you’re wrong. There’s no feeling of that sort here amongst the students, and Sally certainly isn’t like that. She and Mr Akibombo have lunch together quite often, and nobody could be blacker than he is.’
‘Then it is Communists—you know what the Americans are about Communists. Nigel Chapman now—he is a Communist.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Yes, yes. You should have heard what he was saying the other evening.’
‘Nigel will say anything to annoy people. He is very tiresome that way.’
‘You know them all so well. Dear Mrs Hubbard, you are wonderful! I say to myself again and again—what should I do without Mrs Hubbard? I rely on you utterly. You are a wonderful, wonderful woman.’
‘After the powder, the jam,’ said Mrs Hubbard.
‘What is that?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll do what I can.’
She left the room, cutting short a gushing speech of thanks.
Muttering to herself: ‘Wasting my time—what a maddening woman she is!’ she hurried along the passage and into her own sitting-room.
But there was to be no peace for Mrs Hubbard as yet. A tall figure rose to her feet as Mrs Hubbard entered and said:
‘I should be glad to speak to you for a few minutes, please.’
‘Of course, Elizabeth.’
Mrs Hubbard was rather surprised. Elizabeth Johnston was a girl from the West Indies who was studying law. She was a hard worker, ambitious, who kept very much to herself. She had always seemed particularly well balanced and competent, and Mrs Hubbard had always regarded her as one of the most satisfactory students in the hostel.
She was perfectly controlled now, but Mrs Hubbard caught the slight tremor in her voice although the dark features were quite impassive.
‘Is something the matter?’
‘Yes. Will you come with me to my room, please?’
‘Just a moment.’ Mrs Hubbard threw off her coat and gloves and then followed the girl out of the room and up the next flight of stairs. The girl had a room on the top floor. She opened the door and went across to a table near the window.
‘Here are the notes of my work,’ she said. ‘This represents several months of hard study. You see what has been done?’
Mrs Hubbard caught her breath with a slight gasp.
Ink had been spilled on the table. It had run all over the papers, soaking them through. Mrs Hubbard touched it with her fingertip. It was still wet.
She said, knowing the question to be foolish as she asked it:
‘You didn’t spill the ink yourself?’
‘No. It was done whilst I was out.’
‘Mrs Biggs, do you think—’
Mrs Biggs was the cleaning woman who looked after the top-floor bedrooms.
‘It was not Mrs Biggs. It was not even my own ink. That is here on the shelf by my bed. It has not been touched. It was done by someone who brought ink here and did it deliberately.’
Mrs Hubbard was shocked.
‘What a very wicked—and cruel thing to do.’
‘Yes, it is a bad thing.’
The girl spoke quietly, but Mrs Hubbard did not make the mistake of underrating her feelings.
‘Well, Elizabeth, I hardly know what to say. I am shocked, badly shocked, and I shall do my utmost to find out who did this wicked malicious thing. You’ve no ideas yourself as to that?’
The girl replied at once.
‘This is green ink, you saw that.’
‘Yes, I noticed that.’
‘It is not very common, this green ink. I know one person here who uses it. Nigel Chapman.’
‘Nigel? Do you think Nigel would do a thing like that?’
‘I should not have thought so—no. But he writes his letters and his notes with green ink.’
‘I shall have to ask a lot of questions. I’m very sorry, Elizabeth, that such a thing should happen in this house and I can only tell you that I shall do my best to get to the bottom of it.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Hubbard. There have been—other things, have there not?’
‘Yes—er—yes.’
Mrs Hubbard left the room and started towards the stairs. But she stopped suddenly before proceeding down and instead went along the passage to a door at the end of the corridor. She knocked and the voice of Miss Sally Finch bade her enter.
The room was a pleasant one and Sally Finch herself, a cheerful redhead, was a pleasant person.
She was writing on a pad and looked up with a bulging cheek. She held out an open box of sweets and said indistinctly:
‘Candy from home. Have some.’
‘Thank you, Sally. Not just now. I’m rather upset.’ She paused. ‘Have you heard what’s happened to Elizabeth Johnston?’
‘What’s happened to Black Bess?’
The nickname was an affectionate one and had been accepted as such by the girl herself.
Mrs Hubbard described what had happened. Sally showed every sign of sympathetic anger.
‘I’ll say that’s a mean thing to do. I wouldn’t believe anyone would do a thing like that to our Bess. Everybody likes her. She’s quiet and doesn’t get around much, or join in, but I’m sure there’s no one who dislikes her.’
‘That’s what I should have said.’
‘Well, it’s all of a piece, isn’t it, with the other things? That’s why—’
‘That’s why what?’ Mrs Hubbard asked as the girl stopped abruptly.
Sally said slowly:
‘That’s why I’m getting out of here. Did Mrs Nick tell you?’
‘Yes. She was very upset about it. Seemed to think you hadn’t given her the real reason.’
‘Well, I didn’t. No point in making her go up in smoke. You know what she’s like. But that’s the reason, right enough. I just don’t like what’s going on here. It was odd losing my shoe, and then Valerie’s scarf being all cut to bits and Len’s rucksack…it wasn’t so much things being pinched—after all, that may happen any time—it’s not nice but it’s roughly normal—but this other isn’t.’ She paused for a moment, smiling, and then suddenly grinned. ‘Akibombo’s scared,’ she said. ‘He’s always very superior and civilised—but there’s a good old West African belief in magic very close to the surface.’
‘Tchah!’ said Mrs Hubbard crossly. ‘I’ve no patience with superstitious nonsense. Just some ordinary human being making a nuisance of themselves. That’s all there is to it.’
Sally’s mouth curved up in a wide cat-like grin.
‘The emphasis,’ she said, ‘is on ordinary. I’ve a sort of feeling that there’s a person in this house who isn’t ordinary!’
Mrs Hubbard went on down the stairs. She turned into the students’ common-room on the ground floor. There were four people in the room. Valerie Hobhouse, prone on a sofa with her narrow, elegant feet stuck up over the arm of it; Nigel Chapman sitting at a table with a heavy book open in front of him; Patricia Lane leaning against the mantelpiece, and a girl in a mackintosh who had just come in and who was pulling off a woolly cap as Mrs Hubbard entered. She was a stocky, fair girl with brown eyes set wide apart and a mouth that was usually just a little open so that she seemed perpetually startled.
Valerie, removing a cigarette from her mouth, said in a lazy, drawling voice:
‘Hallo, Ma, have you administered soothing syrup to the old devil, our revered proprietress?’
Patricia Lane said:
‘Has she been on the warpath?’
‘And how!’ said Valerie and chuckled.
‘Something very unpleasant has happened,’ said Mrs Hubbard. ‘Nigel, I want you to help me.’
‘Me, ma’am?’ Nigel looked at her and shut his book. His thin, malicious face was suddenly illuminated by a mischievous but surprisingly sweet smile. ‘What have I done?’
‘Nothing, I hope,’ said Mrs Hubbard. ‘But ink has been deliberately and maliciously spilt all over Elizabeth Johnston’s notes, and it’s green ink. You write with green ink, Nigel.’
He stared at her, his smile disappearing.
‘Yes, I use green ink.’
‘Horrid stuff,’ said Patricia. ‘I wish you wouldn’t, Nigel. I’ve always told you I think it’s horribly affected of you.’
‘I like being affected,’ said Nigel. ‘Lilac ink would be even better, I think. I must try and get some. But are you serious, Mum? About the sabotage, I mean?’
‘Yes, I am serious. Was it your doing, Nigel?’
‘No, of course not. I like annoying people, as you know, but I’d never do a filthy trick like that—and certainly not to Black Bess who minds her own business in a way that’s an example to some people I could mention. Where is that ink of mine? I filled my pen yesterday evening, I remember. I usually keep it on the shelf over there.’ He sprang up and went across the room. ‘Here it is.’ He picked the bottle up, then whistled. ‘You’re right. The bottle’s nearly empty. It should be practically full.’
The girl in the mackintosh gave a little gasp.
‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Oh dear, I don’t like it—’
Nigel wheeled at her accusingly.
‘Have you got an alibi, Celia?’ he said menacingly.
The girl gave a gasp.
‘I didn’t do it. I really didn’t do it. Anyway, I’ve been at the hospital all day. I couldn’t—’
‘Now, Nigel,’ said Mrs Hubbard. ‘Don’t tease Celia.’
Patricia Lane said angrily:
‘I don’t see why Nigel should be suspected. Just because his ink was taken—’
Valerie said cattishly:
‘That’s right, darling, defend your young.’
‘But it’s so unfair—’
‘But really I didn’t have anything to do with it,’ Celia protested earnestly.
‘Nobody thinks you did, infant,’ said Valerie impatiently. ‘All the same, you know,’ her eyes met Mrs Hubbard’s and exchanged a glance, ‘all this is getting beyond a joke. Something will have to be done about it.’
‘Something is going to be done,’ said Mrs Hubbard grimly.
CHAPTER 4
‘Here you are, M. Poirot.’
Miss Lemon laid a small brown paper parcel before Poirot. He removed the paper and looked appraisingly at a well-cut silver evening shoe.
‘It was at Baker Street just as you said.’
‘That has saved us trouble,’ said Poirot. ‘Also it confirms my ideas.’
‘Quite,’ said Miss Lemon, who was sublimely incurious by nature.
She was, however, susceptible to the claims of family affection. She said:
‘If it is not troubling you too much, M. Poirot, I received a letter from my sister. There have been some new developments.’
‘You permit that I read it?’
She handed it to him and, after reading it, he directed Miss Lemon to get her sister on the telephone. Presently Miss Lemon indicated that the connection had been obtained. Poirot took the receiver.
‘Mrs Hubbard?’
‘Oh yes, M. Poirot. So kind of you to ring me up so promptly. I was really very—’
Poirot interrupted her.
‘Where are you speaking from?’
‘Why—from 26 Hickory Road, of course. Oh I see what you mean. I am in my own sitting-room.’
‘There is an extension?’
‘This is the extension. The main phone is downstairs in the hall.’
‘Who is in the house who might listen in?’
‘All the students are out at this time of day. The cook is out marketing. Geronimo, her husband, understands very little English. There is a cleaning woman, but she is deaf and I’m quite sure wouldn’t bother to listen in.’
‘Very good, then. I can speak freely. Do you occasionally have lectures in the evening, or films? Entertainments of some kind?’
‘We do have lectures occasionally. Miss Baltrout, the explorer, came not long ago, with her coloured transparencies. And we had an appeal for Far Eastern Missions, though I am afraid that quite a lot of the students went out that night.’
‘Ah. Then this evening you will have prevailed on M. Hercule Poirot, the employer of your sister, to come and discourse to your students on the more interesting of his cases.’
‘That will be very nice, I’m sure, but do you think—’
‘It is not a question of thinking. I am sure!’
That evening, students entering the common-room found a notice tacked up on the board which stood just inside the door.
M. Hercule Poirot, the celebrated private detective, has kindly consented to give a talk this evening on the theory and practice of successful detection, with an account of certain celebrated criminal cases.
Returning students made varied comments on this.
