I
In one of the smaller classrooms Miss Bulstrode looked at the assembled people. All the members of her staff were there: Miss Chadwick, Miss Johnson, Miss Rich and the two younger mistresses.
Ann Shapland sat with her pad and pencil in case Miss Bulstrode wanted her to take notes. Beside Miss Bulstrode sat Inspector Kelsey and beyond him, Hercule Poirot. Adam Goodman sat in a no-man’s-land of his own halfway between the staff and what he called to himself the executive body. Miss Bulstrode rose and spoke in her practised, decisive voice.
“I feel it is due to you all,” she said, “as members of my staff, and interested in the fortunes of the school, to know exactly to what point this inquiry has progressed. I have been informed by Inspector Kelsey of several facts. M. Hercule Poirot who has international connections, has obtained valuable assistance from Switzerland and will report himself on that particular matter. We have not yet come to the end of the inquiry, I am sorry to say, but certain minor matters have been cleared up and I thought it would be a relief to you all to know how matters stand at the present moment.” Miss Bulstrode looked towards Inspector Kelsey, and he rose.
“Officially,” he said, “I am not in a position to disclose all that I know. I can only reassure you to the extent of saying that we are making progress and we are beginning to have a good idea who is responsible for the three crimes that have been committed on the premises. Beyond that I will not go. My friend, M. Hercule Poirot, who is not bound by official secrecy and is at perfect liberty to give you his own ideas, will disclose to you certain information which he himself has been influential in procuring. I am sure you are all loyal to Meadowbank and to Miss Bulstrode and will keep to yourselves various matters upon which M. Poirot is going to touch and which are not of any public interest. The less gossip or speculation about them the better, so I will ask you to keep the facts that you will learn here today to yourselves. Is that understood?”
“Of course,” said Miss Chadwick, speaking first and with emphasis. “Of course we’re all loyal to Meadowbank, I should hope.”
“Naturally,” said Miss Johnson.
“Oh yes,” said the two younger mistresses.
“I agree,” said Eileen Rich.
“Then perhaps, M. Poirot?”
Hercule Poirot rose to his feet, beamed on his audience and carefully twisted his moustaches. The two younger mistresses had a sudden desire to giggle, and looked away from each other pursing their lips together.
“It has been a difficult and anxious time for you all,” he said. “I want you to know first that I do appreciate that. It has naturally been worst of all for Miss Bulstrode herself, but you have all suffered. You have suffered first the loss of three of your colleagues, one of whom has been here for a considerable period of time. I refer to Miss Vansittart. Miss Springer and Mademoiselle Blanche were, of course, newcomers, but I do not doubt that their deaths were a great shock to you and a distressing happening. You must also have suffered a good deal of apprehension yourselves, for it must have seemed as though there were a kind of vendetta aimed against the mistresses of Meadowbank school. That I can assure you, and Inspector Kelsey will assure you also, is not so. Meadowbank by a fortuitous series of chances became the centre for the attentions of various undesirable interests. There has been, shall we say, a cat among the pigeons. There have been three murders here and also a kidnapping. I will deal first with the kidnapping, for all through this business the difficulty has been to clear out of the way extraneous matters which, though criminal in themselves, obscure the most important thread—the thread of a ruthless and determined killer in your midst.”
He took from his pocket a photograph.
“First, I will pass round this photograph.”
Kelsey took it, handed it to Miss Bulstrode and she in turn handed it to the staff. It was returned to Poirot. He looked at their faces, which were quite blank.
“I ask you, all of you, do you recognize the girl in that photograph?”
One and all they shook their heads.
“You should do so,” said Poirot. “Since that is a photograph obtained by me from Geneva of Princess Shaista.”
“But it’s not Shaista at all,” cried Miss Chadwick.
“Exactly,” said Poirot. “The threads of all this business start in Ramat where, as you know, a revolutionary coup d’état took place about three months ago. The ruler, Prince Ali Yusuf, managed to escape, flown out by his own private pilot. Their plane, however, crashed in the mountains north of Ramat and was not discovered until later in the year. A certain article of great value, which was always carried on Prince Ali’s person, was missing. It was not found in the wreck and there were rumours that it had been brought to this country. Several groups of people were anxious to get hold of this very valuable article. One of their leads to it was Prince Ali Yusuf’s only remaining relation, his first cousin, a girl who was then at a school in Switzerland. It seemed likely that if the precious article had been safely got out of Ramat it would be brought to Princess Shaista or to her relatives and guardians. Certain agents were detailed to keep an eye on her uncle, the Emir Ibrahim, and others to keep an eye on the Princess herself. It was known that she was due to come to this school, Meadowbank, this term. Therefore it would have been only natural that someone should be detailed to obtain employment here and to keep a close watch on anyone who approached the Princess, her letters, and any telephone messages. But an even simpler and more efficacious idea was evolved, that of kidnapping Shaista and sending one of their own number to the school as Princess Shaista herself. This could be done successfully since the Emir Ibrahim was in Egypt and did not propose to visit England until late summer. Miss Bulstrode herself had not seen the girl and all arrangements that she had made concerning her reception had been made with the Embassy in London.
“The plan was simple in the extreme. The real Shaista left Switzerland accompanied by a representative from the Embassy in London. Or so it was supposed. Actually, the Embassy in London was informed that a representative from the Swiss school would accompany the girl to London. The real Shaista was taken to a very pleasant chalet in Switzerland where she has been ever since, and an entirely different girl arrived in London, was met there by a representative of the Embassy and subsequently brought to this school. This substitute, of course, was necessarily much older than the real Shaista. But that would hardly attract attention since Eastern girls noticeably look much more mature than their age. A young French actress who specializes in playing schoolgirl parts was the agent chosen.
“I did ask,” said Hercule Poirot, in a thoughtful voice, “as to whether anyone had noticed Shaista’s knees. Knees are a very good indication of age. The knees of a woman of twenty-three or twenty-four can never really be mistaken for the knees of a girl of fourteen or fifteen. Nobody, alas, had noticed her knees.
“The plan was hardly as successful as had been hoped. Nobody attempted to get in touch with Shaista, no letters or telephone calls of significance arrived for her and as time went on an added anxiety arose. The Emir Ibrahim might arrive in England ahead of schedule. He was not a man who announced his plans ahead. He was in the habit, I understand, of saying one evening, ‘Tomorrow I go to London’ and thereupon to go.
“The false Shaista, then, was aware that at any moment someone who knew the real Shaista might arrive. Especially was this so after the murder and therefore she began to prepare the way for a kidnapping by talking about it to Inspector Kelsey. Of course, the actual kidnapping was nothing of the kind. As soon as she learned that her uncle was coming to take her out the following morning, she sent a brief message by telephone, and half an hour earlier than the genuine car, a showy car with false C.D. plates on it arrived and Shaista was officially ‘kidnapped.’ Actually, of course, she was set down by the car in the first large town where she at once resumed her own personality. An amateurish ransom note was sent just to keep up the fiction.”
Hercule Poirot paused, then said, “It was, as you can see, merely the trick of the conjurer. Misdirection. You focus the eyes on the kidnapping here and it does not occur to anyone that the kidnapping really occurred three weeks earlier in Switzerland.”
What Poirot really meant, but was too polite to say, was that it had not occurred to anyone but himself!
“We pass now,” he said, “to something far more serious than kidnapping—murder.
“The false Shaista could, of course, have killed Miss Springer but she could not have killed Miss Vansittart or Mademoiselle Blanche, and would have had no motive to kill anybody, nor was such a thing required of her. Her role was simply to receive a valuable packet if, as seemed likely, it should be brought to her: or, alternatively, to receive news of it.
“Let us go back now to Ramat where all this started. It was widely rumoured in Ramat that Prince Ali Yusuf had given this valuable packet to Bob Rawlinson, his private pilot, and that Bob Rawlinson had arranged for its despatch to England. On the day in question Rawlinson went to Ramat’s principal hotel where his sister, Mrs. Sutcliffe, and her daughter Jennifer were staying. Mrs. Sutcliffe and Jennifer were out, but Bob Rawlinson went up to their room where he remained for at least twenty minutes. That is rather a long time under the circumstances. He might of course have been writing a long letter to his sister. But that was not so. He merely left a short note which he could have scribbled in a couple of minutes.
“It was a very fair inference then, inferred by several separate parties, that during his time in her room he had placed this object amongst his sister’s effects and that she had brought it back to England. Now we come to what I may call the dividing of two separate threads. One set of interests—(or possibly more than one set)—assumed that Mrs. Sutcliffe had brought this article back to England and in consequence her house in the country was ransacked and a thorough search made. This showed that whoever was searching did not know where exactly the article was hidden. Only that it was probably somewhere in Mrs. Sutcliffe’s possession.
“But somebody else knew very definitely exactly where that article was, and I think that by now it will do no harm for me to tell you where, in fact, Bob Rawlinson did conceal it. He concealed it in the handle of a tennis racquet, hollowing out the handle and afterwards piecing it together again so skilfully that it was difficult to see what had been done.
“The tennis racquet belonged, not to his sister, but to her daughter Jennifer. Someone who knew exactly where the cache was, went out to the Sports Pavilion one night, having previously taken an impression of the key and got a key cut. At that time of night everyone should have been in bed and asleep. But that was not so. Miss Springer saw the light of a torch in the Sports Pavilion from the house, and went out to investigate. She was a tough hefty young woman and had no doubts of her own ability to cope with anything she might find. The person in question was probably sorting through the tennis racquets to find the right one. Discovered and recognized by Miss Springer, there was no hesitation … The searcher was a killer, and shot Miss Springer dead. Afterwards, however, the killer had to act fast. The shot had been heard, people were approaching. At all costs the killer must get out of the Sports Pavilion unseen. The racquet must be left where it was for the moment….
“Within a few days another method was tried. A strange woman with a faked American accent waylaid Jennifer Sutcliffe as she was coming from the tennis courts, and told her a plausible story about a relative of hers having sent her down a new tennis racquet. Jennifer unsuspiciously accepted this story and gladly exchanged the racquet she was carrying for the new, expensive one the stranger had brought. But a circumstance had arisen which the woman with the American accent knew nothing about. That was that a few days previously Jennifer Sutcliffe and Julia Upjohn had exchanged racquets so that what the strange woman took away with her was in actual fact Julia Upjohn’s old racquet, though the identifying tape on it bore Jennifer’s name.
“We come now to the second tragedy. Miss Vansittart for some unknown reason, but possibly connected with the kidnapping of Shaista which had taken place that afternoon, took a torch and went out to the Sports Pavilion after everybody had gone to bed. Somebody who had followed her there struck her down with a cosh or a sandbag, as she was stooping down by Shaista’s locker. Again the crime was discovered almost immediately. Miss Chadwick saw a light in the Sports Pavilion and hurried out there.
“The police once more took charge at the Sports Pavilion, and again the killer was debarred from searching and examining the tennis racquets there. But by now, Julia Upjohn, an intelligent child, had thought things over and had come to the logical conclusion that the racquet she possessed and which had originally belonged to Jennifer, was in some way important. She investigated on her own behalf, found that she was correct in her surmise, and brought the contents of the racquet to me.
“These are now,” said Hercule Poirot, “in safe custody and need concern us here no longer.” He paused and then went on, “It remains to consider the third tragedy.
“What Mademoiselle Blanche knew or suspected we shall never know. She may have seen someone leaving the house on the night of Miss Springer’s murder. Whatever it was that she knew or suspected, she knew the identity of the murderer. And she kept that knowledge to herself. She planned to obtain money in return for her silence.
“There is nothing,” said Hercule Poirot, with feeling, “more dangerous than levying blackmail on a person who has killed perhaps twice already. Mademoiselle Blanche may have taken her own precautions but whatever they were, they were inadequate. She made an appointment with the murderer and she was killed.”
He paused again.
“So there,” he said, looking round at them, “you have the account of this whole affair.”
They were all staring at him. Their faces, which at first had reflected interest, surprise, excitement, seemed now frozen into a uniform calm. It was as though they were terrified to display any emotion. Hercule Poirot nodded at them.
“Yes,” he said, “I know how you feel. It has come, has it not, very near home? That is why, you see, I and Inspector Kelsey and Mr. Adam Goodman have been making the inquiries. We have to know, you see, if there is still a cat among the pigeons! You understand what I mean? Is there still someone here who is masquerading under false colours?”
There was a slight ripple passing through those who listened to him, a brief almost furtive sidelong glance as though they wished to look at each other, but did not dare do so.
“I am happy to reassure you,” said Poirot. “All of you here at this moment are exactly who you say you are. Miss Chadwick, for instance, is Miss Chadwick—that is certainly not open to doubt, she has been here as long as Meadowbank itself! Miss Johnson, too, is unmistakably Miss Johnson. Miss Rich is Miss Rich. Miss Shapland is Miss Shapland. Miss Rowan and Miss Blake are Miss Rowan and Miss Blake. To go further,” said Poirot, turning his head, “Adam Goodman who works here in the garden, is, if not precisely Adam Goodman, at any rate the person whose name is on his credentials. So then, where are we? We must seek not for someone masquerading as someone else, but for someone who is, in his or her proper identity, a murderer.”
The room was very still now. There was menace in the air.
Poirot went on.
“We want, primarily, someone who was in Ramat three months ago. Knowledge that the prize was concealed in the tennis racquet could only have been acquired in one way. Someone must have seen it put there by Bob Rawlinson. It is as simple as that. Who then, of all of you present here, was in Ramat three months ago? Miss Chadwick was here, Miss Johnson was here.” His eyes went on to the two junior Mistresses. “Miss Rowan and Miss Blake were here.”
His finger went out pointing.
“But Miss Rich—Miss Rich was not here last term, was she?”
“I—no. I was ill.” She spoke hurriedly. “I was away for a term.”
“That is the thing we did not know,” said Hercule Poirot, “until a few days ago somebody mentioned it casually. When questioned by the police originally, you merely said that you had been at Meadowbank for a year and a half. That in itself is true enough. But you were absent last term. You could have been in Ramat—I think you were in Ramat. Be careful. It can be verified, you know, from your passport.”
There was a moment’s silence, then Eileen Rich looked up.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I was in Ramat. Why not?”
“Why did you go to Ramat, Miss Rich?”
“You already know. I had been ill. I was advised to take a rest—to go abroad. I wrote to Miss Bulstrode and explained that I must take a term off. She quite understood.”
“That is so,” said Miss Bulstrode. “A doctor’s certificate was enclosed which said that it would be unwise for Miss Rich to resume her duties until the following term.”
“So—you went to Ramat?” said Hercule Poirot.
“Why shouldn’t I go to Ramat?” said Eileen Rich. Her voice trembled slightly. “There are cheap fares offered to schoolteachers. I wanted a rest. I wanted sunshine. I went out to Ramat. I spent two months there. Why not? Why not, I say?”
“You have never mentioned that you were at Ramat at the time of the Revolution.”
“Why should I? What has it got to do with anyone here? I haven’t killed anyone, I tell you. I haven’t killed anyone.”
“You were recognized, you know,” said Hercule Poirot. “Not recognized definitely, but indefinitely. The child Jennifer was very vague. She said she thought she’d seen you in Ramat but concluded it couldn’t be you because, she said, the person she had seen was fat, not thin.” He leaned forward, his eyes boring into Eileen Rich’s face.
“What have you to say, Miss Rich?”
She wheeled round. “I know what you’re trying to make out!” she cried. “You’re trying to make out that it wasn’t a secret agent or anything of that kind who did these murders. That it was someone who just happened to be there, someone who happened to see this treasure hidden in a tennis racquet. Someone who realized that the child was coming to Meadowbank and that she’d have an opportunity to take for herself this hidden thing. But I tell you it isn’t true!”
“I think that is what happened. Yes,” said Poirot. “Someone saw the jewels being hidden and forgot all other duties or interests in the determination to possess them!”
“It isn’t true, I tell you. I saw nothing—”
“Inspector Kelsey.” Poirot turned his head.
Inspector Kelsey nodded—went to the door, opened it, and Mrs. Upjohn walked into the room.
II
“How do you do, Miss Bulstrode,” said Mrs. Upjohn, looking rather embarrassed. “I’m sorry I’m looking rather untidy, but I was somewhere near Ankara yesterday and I’ve just flown home. I’m in a terrible mess and I really haven’t had time to clean myself up or do anything.”
“That does not matter,” said Hercule Poirot. “We want to ask you something.”
“Mrs. Upjohn,” said Kelsey, “when you came here to bring your daughter to the school and you were in Miss Bulstrode’s sitting room, you looked out of the window—the window which gives on the front drive—and you uttered an exclamation as though you recognized someone you saw there. That is so, is it not?”
Mrs. Upjohn stared at him. “When I was in Miss Bulstrode’s sitting room? I looked—oh, yes, of course! Yes, I did see someone.”
“Someone you were surprised to see?”
“Well, I was rather … You see, it had all been such years ago.”
“You mean the days when you were working in Intelligence towards the end of the war?”
“Yes. It was about fifteen years ago. Of course, she looked much older, but I recognized her at once. And I wondered what on earth she could be doing here.”
“Mrs. Upjohn, will you look round this room and tell me if you see that person here now?”
“Yes, of course,” said Mrs. Upjohn. “I saw her as soon as I came in. That’s her.”
She stretched out a pointing finger. Inspector Kelsey was quick and so was Adam, but they were not quick enough. Ann Shapland had sprung to her feet. In her hand was a small wicked-looking automatic and it pointed straight at Mrs. Upjohn. Miss Bulstrode, quicker than the two men, moved sharply forward, but swifter still was Miss Chadwick. It was not Mrs. Upjohn that she was trying to shield, it was the woman who was standing between Ann Shapland and Mrs. Upjohn.
“No, you shan’t,” cried Chaddy, and flung herself on Miss Bulstrode just as the small automatic went off.
Miss Chadwick staggered, then slowly crumpled down. Miss Johnson ran to her. Adam and Kelsey had got hold of Ann Shapland now. She was struggling like a wild cat, but they wrested the small automatic from her.
Mrs. Upjohn said breathlessly:
“They said then that she was a killer. Although she was so young. One of the most dangerous agents they had. Angelica was her code name.”
“You lying bitch!” Ann Shapland fairly spat out the words.
Hercule Poirot said:
“She does not lie. You are dangerous. You have always led a dangerous life. Up to now, you have never been suspected in your own identity. All the jobs you have taken in your own name have been perfectly genuine jobs, efficiently performed—but they have all been jobs with a purpose, and that purpose has been the gaining of information. You have worked with an Oil Company, with an archaeologist whose work took him to a certain part of the globe, with an actress whose protector was an eminent politician. Ever since you were seventeen you have worked as an agent—though for many different masters. Your services have been for hire and have been highly paid. You have played a dual role. Most of your assignments have been carried out in your own name, but there were certain jobs for which you assumed different identities. Those were the times when ostensibly you had to go home and be with your mother.
“But I strongly suspect, Miss Shapland, that the elderly woman I visited who lives in a small village with a nurse-companion to look after her, an elderly woman who is genuinely a mental patient with a confused mind, is not your mother at all. She has been your excuse for retiring from employment and from the circle of your friends. The three months this winter that you spent with your ‘mother’ who had one of her ‘bad turns’ covers the time when you went out to Ramat. Not as Ann Shapland but as Angelica de Toredo, a Spanish, or near-Spanish cabaret dancer. You occupied the room in the hotel next to that of Mrs. Sutcliffe and somehow you managed to see Bob Rawlinson conceal the jewels in the racquet. You had no opportunity of taking the racquet then for there was the sudden evacuation of all British people, but you had read the labels on their luggage and it was easy to find out something about them. To obtain a secretarial post here was not difficult. I have made some inquiries. You paid a substantial sum to Miss Bulstrode’s former secretary to vacate her post on the plea of a ‘breakdown.’ And you had quite a plausible story. You had been commissioned to write a series of articles on a famous girls’ school ‘from within.’
“It all seemed quite easy, did it not? If a child’s racquet was missing, what of it? Simpler still, you would go out at night to the Sports Pavilion, and abstract the jewels. But you had not reckoned with Miss Springer. Perhaps she had already seen you examining the racquets. Perhaps she just happened to wake that night. She followed you out there and you shot her. Later, Mademoiselle Blanche tried to blackmail you, and you killed her. It comes natural to you, does it not, to kill?”
He stopped. In a monotonous official voice, Inspector Kelsey cautioned his prisoner.
She did not listen. Turning towards Hercule Poirot, she burst out in a low-pitched flood of invective that startled everyone in the room.
“Whew!” said Adam, as Kelsey took her away. “And I thought she was a nice girl!”
Miss Johnson had been kneeling by Miss Chadwick.
“I’m afraid she’s badly hurt,” she said. “She’d better not be moved until the doctor comes.”
[Cat Among the Pigeons -Agatha Christie] Twenty-three Showdown