He said gravely:
“Of disturbing the dogs that sleep. That is one of your proverbs, is it not? To let the sleeping dogs lie! That is what our murderer does at present—sleeps happily in the sun… Do we not know, you and I, Hastings, how often a murderer, his confidence disturbed, turns and kills a second—or even a third time!”
“You are afraid of that happening?”
He nodded.
“Yes. If there is a murderer in the woodpile—and I think there is, Hastings. Yes, I think there is….”
Nineteen
VISIT TO MR. PURVIS
Poirot called for his bill and paid it.
“What do we do next?” I asked.
“We are going to do what you suggested earlier in the morning. We are going to Harchester to interview Mr. Purvis. That is why I telephoned from the Durham Hotel.”
“You telephoned to Purvis?”
“No, to Theresa Arundell. I asked her to write me a letter of introduction to him. To approach him with any chance of success we must be accredited by the family. She promised to send it round to my flat by hand. It should be awaiting us there now.”
We found not only the letter but Charles Arundell who had brought it round in person.
“Nice place you have here, M. Poirot,” he remarked, glancing round the sitting room of the flat.
At that moment my eye was caught by an imperfectly shut drawer in the desk. A small slip of paper was preventing it from shutting.
Now if there was one thing absolutely incredible it was that Poirot should shut a drawer in such a fashion! I looked thoughtfully at Charles. He had been alone in this room awaiting our arrival. I had no doubt that he had been passing the time by snooping among Poirot’s papers. What a young crook the fellow was! I felt myself burning with indignation.
Charles himself was in a most cheerful mood.
“Here we are,” he remarked, presenting a letter. “All present and correct—and I hope you’ll have more luck with old Purvis than we did.”
“He held out very little hope, I suppose?”
“Definitely discouraging… In his opinion the Lawson bird had clearly got away with the doings.”
“You and your sister have never considered an appeal to the lady’s feelings?”
Charles grinned.
“I considered it—yes. But there seemed to be nothing doing. My eloquence was in vain. The pathetic picture of the disinherited black sheep—and a sheep not so black as he was painted—(or so I endeavoured to suggest)—failed to move the woman! You know, she definitely seems to dislike me! I don’t know why.” He laughed. “Most old women fall for me quite easily. They think I’ve never been properly understood and that I’ve never had a fair chance!”
“A useful point of view.”
“Oh, it’s been extremely useful before now. But, as I say, with the Lawson, nothing doing. I think she’s rather anti-man. Probably used to chain herself to railings and wave a suffragette flag in good old prewar days.”
“Ah, well,” said Poirot, shaking his head. “If simpler methods fail—”
“We must take to crime,” said Charles cheerfully.
“Aha,” said Poirot. “Now, speaking of crime, young man, is it true that you threatened your aunt—that you said that you would ‘bump her off,’ or words to that effect?”
Charles sat down in a chair, stretched his legs out in front of him and stared hard at Poirot.
“Now who told you that?” he said.