Like most people, Ellen had not glanced at the name on the order Poirot had held out to her on his arrival. She nodded her head slowly.
“That was it,” she said. “Hercules Poirot.” She added an S to the Christian name and sounded the T of the surname.
“My word!” she exclaimed. “Cook will be surprised.”
Poirot said, quickly:
“Would it not be advisable, perhaps, for us to go to the kitchen and there in company with your friend, we could talk this matter over?”
“Well—if you don’t mind, sir.”
Ellen sounded just a little doubtful. This particular social dilemma was clearly new to her. But Poirot’s matter-of-fact manner reassured her and we departed forthwith to the kitchen, Ellen elucidating the situation to a large, pleasant-faced woman who was just lifting a kettle from a gas ring.
“You’ll never believe it, Annie. This is actually the gentleman that letter was to. You know, the one I found
in the blotter.”
“You must remember I am in the dark,” said Poirot. “Perhaps you will tell me how the letter came to be posted so late in the day?”
“Well, sir, to tell the truth I didn’t know what to do. Neither of us did, did we?”
“Indeed, we didn’t,” the cook confirmed.
“You see, sir, when Miss Lawson was turning out things after the mistress’s death a good lot of things were given away or thrown away. Among them was a little papier-mâché, I think they call it, blotter. Very pretty it was, with a lily of the valley on it. The mistress always used it when she wrote in bed. Well, Miss Lawson didn’t want it so she gave it to me along with a lot of other little odds and ends that had belonged to the mistress. I put it away in a drawer, and it wasn’t till yesterday that I took it out. I was going to put some new blotting paper in it so that it was ready for me to use. There was a sort of pocket inside and I just slipped my hand in it when what should I find but a letter in the mistress’s handwriting, tucked away.
“Well, as I say I didn’t know rightly what to do about it. It was the mistress’s hand all right, and I saw as she’d written it and slipped it in there waiting to post it the next day and then she’d forgot, which is the kind of thing she did many a time, poor dear. Once it was a dividend warrant to her bank and no one could think where it had got to, and at last it was found pushed right back in the pigeonholes of the desk.”
“Was she untidy?”
“Oh, no, sir, just the opposite. She was always putting things away and clearing them up. That was half the trouble. If she’d left things about it would really have been better. It was their being tidied away and then forgotten that was always happening.”
“Things like Bob’s ball, for instance?” asked Poirot with a smile.
The sagacious terrier had just trotted in from outdoors and greeted us anew in a very friendly manner.
“Yes, indeed, sir. As soon as Bob finished playing with his ball she’d put it away. But that was all right because it had its own place—in the drawer I showed you.”
“I see. But I interrupted you. Pray go on. You discovered the letter in the blotter?”
“Yes, sir, that was the way of it, and I asked Annie what she thought I’d better do. I didn’t like to put it in the fire—and of course, I couldn’t take upon myself to open it, and neither Annie nor I could see that it was any business of Miss Lawson’s so after we’d talked it over a bit, I just put a stamp on it and ran out to the postbox and posted it.”
Poirot turned slightly to me.
“Voilà,” he murmured.
I could not help saying, maliciously:
“Amazing how simple an explanation can be!”
I thought he looked a little crestfallen, and rather wished I hadn’t been so quick to try and rub it in.
He turned again to Ellen.
“As my friend says: How simple an explanation can be! You understand, when I received a letter dated over two months ago, I was somewhat surprised.”
“Yes, I suppose you must have been, sir. We didn’t think of that.”
“Also—” Poirot coughed. “I am in a little dilemma. That letter, you see—it was a commission with which Miss Arundell wished to entrust me. A matter of a somewhat private character.” He cleared his throat importantly. “Now that Miss Arundell is dead I am in some doubt how to act. Would Miss Arundell have wished me to undertake the commission in these circumstances or not? It is difficult—very difficult.”