Hickory Dickory Dock

Very bad that. Police not like comt. All this in Manchester, I think, or Sheffield so he ran away from there and he come here, but police come after him and they talk to Mrs. Hubbard about him. Yes. And she say he not stop here because she no like him and she send him away." "I see. They were trying to trace I".gg@.

"Scusi?" "They were trying to find him?" "Yes, yes, that is right. They find him and then they put him in prison because he live on woman and live on woman must not do. This is nice house here. Nothing like that here." "And that was the day the bulbs were missing?" "Yes. Because I turn switch and nothing happen.

And I go into Common Room and no bulb there, and I look in drawer here for spares and I see bulbs have been taken away. So I go down to kitchen and ask Maria if she know where spare bulbs-but she angry because she not like police come and she say spare bulbs not her business, so I bring just candles." Poirot digested this story as he followed Geronimo up the stairs to Mrs. Hubbard's room.

Poirot was welcomed warmly by Mrs. Hubbard, who was looking tired and harassed. She held out, at once, a piece of paper to him.

"I've done my best, Mr. Poirot, to write down these things in the proper order but I wouldn't like to say that it's a hundred percent accurate now. You see, it's very difficult when you look back over a period of months to remember just when this, that or the other happened." "I am deeply grateful to you, Madame. And how is Mrs. Nicoletis?" "I've given her a sedative and I hope she's asleep now. She made a terrible fuss over the search warrant. She refused to open the cupboard in her room and the Inspector broke it open and quantities of empty bottles tumbled out." "Ah," said Poirot, making a tactful sound.

"Which really explains quite a lot of things," said Mrs. Hubbard. "I really can't imagine why I didn't think of that before, having seen as much of drink as I have out in Singapore. But all that, I'm sure, isn't what interests you." "Everything interests me," said Poirot.

He sat down and studied the piece of paper that Mrs. Hubbard had handed to him.

"Ah!" he said, after a moment or two. "I see that now the rucksack heads the list." "Yes. It wasn't a very important thing, but I do remember now, definitely, that it happened before the jewelry and those sort of things began to disappear. It was all rather mixed up with some trouble we had about one of the coloured students. He'd left a day or two before this happened and I remembered thinking that it might have been a revengeful act on his part before he went. There'd been-well-a little trouble." "Ah! Geronimo has recounted to me something like that. You had, I believe, the police here? Is that right?" "Yes. It seems they had an enquiry from Sheffield or Birmingham or somewhere. It had all been rather a scandal. L equals oral earnings and all that sort of thing.

He was had up about it in court later. Actually, he'd only stayed here about three or four days.

Then I didn't like his behaviour, the way he was carrying on, so I told him that his room was engaged and that he'd have to go. I wasn't really at all surprised when the police called. Of course, I couldn't tell them where he'd gone to, but they got on his track all right." "And it was after that that you found the rucksack?" "Yes, I think so-it's hard to remember. You see, Len Bateson was going off on a hitch-hike and he couldn't find his rucksack anywhere and he created a terrible fuss about it - and everyone did a lot of searching and at last Geronimo found it shoved behind the boiler all cut to ribbons. Such an odd thing to happen. So curious and pointless, M. Poirot." "Yes," Poirot agreed. "Curious and pointless." He remained thoughtful for a moment.

"And it was on that same day, the day that the police came to enquire about this African student, that some electric bulbs disappeared-or so Geronimo tells me. Was it that day?" "WeII, I really can't remember. Yes, yes, I think you're right, because I remember coming downstairs with the police inspector and going into the Common Room with him and there were candles there. We wanted to ask Akibombo' whether this other young man had spoken to him at an or told him where he was going to stay." "Who else was in the Common Room?" "Oh, I think most of the students had come back by that time. It was in the evening, you know, just about six o'clock. I asked Geronimo about the bulbs and he said they'd been taken out. I asked him why he hadn't replaced them and he said we were right out of electric bulbs. I was rather annoyed as it seemed such a silly pointless joke. I thought of it as a joke, not as stealing, but I was surp'n'sed that we had no more electric bulbs because we usually keep quite a good supply in stock. Still, I didn't take it seriously, Mr.

Poirot, not at that time." "The bulbs and the rucksack," said Poirot thoughtfully.

"But it still seems to me possible," said Mrs.