Hickory Dickory Dock

"Complicated thing, finance," he said. "We've had a busy time haring round from one Bank to the other. She covered her tracks well-her financial tracks, I mean. I'd say that in a couple of years" time she could have cleared out, gone abroad and lived happily ever after, as they say, on ill-gotten gains. It wasn't a big show-illicit diamonds, sapphires, etc., coming instolen stuff going out-and narcotics on the side, as you might say. Thoroughly well organised. She went abroad under her own and under different names, but never too often, and the actual smuggling was always done, unknowingly, by someone else. She had agents abroad who saw to the exchange of rucksacks at the right moment. Yes, it was a clever idea. And we've got Mr. Poirot here to thank for putting us on to it. It was smart of her, too, to suoeaeagest that psychological stealing stunt to poor little Miss Austin. You were wise to that almost at once, weren't you, M. Poirot?" Poirot smiled in a deprecating manner and Mrs. Hubbard looked admiringly at him. The conversation was strictly off the record in Mrs. Hubbard's sitting room.

"Greed was her undoing," said Mr. Poirot.

"She was tempted by that fine diamond in Patricia Lane's ring. It was foolish of her because it suggested at once that she was used to handling precious stones-that business of prising the diamond out and replacing it with a zircon. Yes, that certainly gave me ideas about Valerie Hobhouse. She was clever, though, when I taxed her with inspiring Celia, she admitted it and explained it in a thoroughly sympathetic way." "But murder!" said Mrs. Hubbard.

"Cold-blooded murder. I can't really believe it even now." Inspector Sharpe looked gloomy.

"We aren't in a position to charge her with the murder of Celia Austin yet," he said. "We've got her cold on the smuggling, of course. No difficulties about that. But the murder charge is more tricky. The public prosecutor doesn't see his way.

There's motive, of course, and opportunity. She probably knew all about the bet and Nigel's possession of morphia, but there's no real evidence, and there are the two other deaths to take into account. She could have poisoned Mrs.

Nicoletis all right-but on the other hand, she definitely did not kill Patricia Lane.

Actually she's about the only person who's completely in the clear. Geronimo says positively that she left the house at six o'clock.

He sticks to that. I don't know whether she bribed him" "No," said Poirot, shaking his head. "She did not bribe him." "And we've the evidence of the chemist at the corner of the road. He knows her quite well and he sticks to it that she came in at five minutes past six and bought face powder and aspirin and used the telephone. She left his shop at quarter past six and took a taxi from the rank outside." Poirot sat up in his chair.

"But that," he said, "is magnificentl It is just what we want!" "What on earth do you mean?" "I mean that she actually telephoned from the box at the chemist's shop." Inspector Sharpe looked at him in an exasperated fashion.

"Now, see here, Mr. Poirot. Let's take the known facts. At eight minutes past six, Patricia Lane is alive and telephoning to the police station from this room. You agree to that?" "I do not think she was telephoning from this room." "Well then, from the hall downstairs." "Not from the hall either." Inspector Sharpe sighed.

"I suppose you don't deny that a call was put through to the police station? You don't think that I and my Sergeant and Police Constable Nye, and Nigel Chapman were the victims of mass hallucination?" "Assuredly not. A call was put through to you. I should say at a guess that it was put through from the public call box at the chemist's on the corner." Inspector Sharpe's jaw dropped for a moment.

"You mean that Valerie Hobhouse put through that call? That she pretended to speak as Patricia Lane, and that Patricia Lane was already dead?" "That is what I mean, yes." The Inspector was silent for a moment, then he brou,eaealit down his fist with a crash on the table.

"I don't believe it. The voice-I heard it myself" "You heard it, yes. A girl's voice-breathless, agitated. But you didn't know Patricia Lane's voice well enough to say definitely that it was her voice." "I didn't, perhaps. But it was Nigel Chapman who actually took the call. You can't ten me that Nigel Chapman could be deceived. It isn't so easy to disguile a voice over the telephone, or to counterfeit somebody else's voice. Nigel Chapman would have known if it wasn't Pat's voice speaking." "Yes," said Poirot. - "Nigel Chapman would have known. Nigel Chapman knew quite well that it wasn't Patricia. Who should know better than he, since he had killed her with a blow on the back of the head only a short while before." It was a moment or two before the Inspector recovered his voice.