When you said you were always nervous towards the end of a case?” “I feared another death–yes.” Poirot5 s face was set and stern. We said very little as we drove towards Euston. Once or twice Poirot shook his head.
I said timidly: “You don’t think–? Could it be an accident?”
“No, Hastings–no. It was not an acci1.
dent.” “How on earth did he find out where she had gone?” Poirot only shook his head without replying.
I The Coniston was an unsavoury-looking place quite near Euston station. Poirot, with his card, and a suddenly bullying manner, , soon fought his way into the manager’s ofy-fice.
^fc The facts were quite simple. ^| Mrs. Peters, as she had called herself, and her two children had arrived about half-past twelve. They had had lunch at one o’clock.
At four o’clock a man had arrived with a note for Mrs. Peters. The note had been sent up to her. A few minutes later she had come down with the two children and a suitcase.
The children had then left with the visitor.
Mrs. Peters had gone to the office and explained that she should only want the one room after all.
She had not appeared exceptionally distressed or upset, indeed she had seemed quite calm and collected. She had had dinner about seven-thirty and had gone to her room soon afterwards.
On calling her in the morning the chambermaid had found her dead.
A doctor had been sent for and had pronounced her to have been dead for some hours. An empty glass was found on the table by the bed. It seemed fairly obvious that she had taken a sleeping-draught, and, by mistake, taken an overdose. Chloral hydrate, the doctor said, was a somewhat uncertain drug.
There were no indications of suicide. No letter had been left. Searching for means of notifying her relations. Miss Lawson’s name and address had been found and she had been communicated with by telephone.
Poirot asked if anything had been found tin the way of letters or papers. The letter, for instance, brought by the man who had called for the children.
No papers of any kind had been found, the man said, but there was a pile of charred paper on the hearth.
Poirot nodded thoughtfully.
As far as any one could say, Mrs. Peters had had no visitors and no one had come to her room—with the solitary exception of the man who had called for the two children.
I questioned the porter myself as to his appearance, but the man was very vague. A man of medium height—he thought fairhaired—rather military build—of somewhat nondescript appearance. No, he was positive the man had no beard.
“It wasn’t Tanios,” I murmured to Poirot.
“My dear Hastings! Do you really believe that Mrs. Tanios, after all the trouble she was taking to get the children away from their father, would quite meekly hand them over to him without the least fuss or protest?
A, that, no!” “Then who was the man?” “Clearly it was some one in whom Mrs.
‘anios had confidence or rather it was some one sent by a third person in whom Mrs.
Tanios had confidence.” “A man of medium height,” I mused.
“You need hardly trouble yourself about his appearance, Hastings. I am quite sure that the man who actually called for the children was some quite unimportant personage.
The real agent kept himself in the background!”
“And the note was from this third person?”
“Yes.” “Some one in whom Mrs. Tanios had confidence?”
“Obviously.” “And the note is now burnt?” “Yes, she was instructed to burn it.” “What about that resume of the case that you gave her?” Poirot’s face looked unusually grim.
“That, too, is burned. But that does not matter!” “No?” “No. For you see–it is all in the head of Hercule Poirot.” He took me by the arm.
“Come, Hastings, let us leave here. Our concern is not with the dead but with the living. It is with them I have to deal.”
XXIX Inquest at Littlegreen House
it was eleven o’clock the following morning.
Seven people were assembled at Littlegreen House. Hercule Poirot stood by the mantelpiece. Charles and Theresa Arundell were on the sofa, Charles on the arm of it with his hand on Theresa’s shoulder. Dr.