The child who had admitted us had murmured something and disappeared, but her voice was clearly audible in an upper story.
"Two gentlemen to see you, miss."
A sort of twitter of female voices arose and presently with a good deal of creaking and rustling a lady descended the staircase and came graciously towards us.
She was nearer fifty than forty, her hair was parted in the middle in Madonna fashion, her eyes were brown and slightly prominent. She wore a sprigged muslin dress that conveyed an odd suggestion of fancy dress.
Poirot stepped forward and started the conversation in his most flourishing manner.
"I must apologize for intruding upon you, mademoiselle, but I am in somewhat of a predicament. I came here to find a certain lady, but she has left Market Basing and I was told that you would certainly have her address."
"Really? Who was that?"
"Miss Lawson."
"Oh, Minnie Lawson. Of course! We are the greatest friends. Do sit down, Mr - er -"
"Parotti - my friend. Captain Hastings."
Miss Tripp acknowledged the introductions and began to fuss a little.
"Sit here, won't you - no, please - really, I always prefer an upright chair myself. Now, are you sure you are comfortable there? Dear Minnie Lawson - oh, here is my sister."
More creaking and rustling and we were joined by a second lady, dressed in green gingham that would have been suitable for a girl of sixteen.
"My sister Isabel - Mr - er - Parrot - and - er - Captain Hawkins. Isabel dear, these gentlemen are friends of Minnie Lawson's."
Miss Isabel Tripp was less buxom than her sister. She might indeed have been described as scraggy. She had very fair hair done up into a large quantity of rather messy curls. She cultivated a girlish manner and was easily recognizable as the subject of most of the flower poses in photography. She clasped her hands now in girlish excitement.
"How delightful! Dear Minnie! You have seen her lately?"
"Not for some years," explained Poirot. "We have quite lost touch with each other. I have been travelling. That is why I was so astonished and delighted to hear of the good fortune that had befallen my old friend."
"Yes, indeed. And so well deserved! Minnie is such a rare soul. So simple - so earnest."
"Julia," cried Isabel.
"Yes, Isabel?"
"How remarkable. P. You remember the planchette distinctly insisted on P. last night. A visitor from over the water and the initial P."
"So it did," agreed Julia.
Both ladies looked at Poirot in rapt and delighted surprise.
"It never lies," said Miss Julia softly. "Are you interested at all in the occult, Mr Parrot?"
"I have little experience, mademoiselle, but - like any one who has travelled much in the East, I am bound to admit that there is much one does not understand and that cannot be explained by natural means."
"So true," said Julia. "Profoundly true."
"The East," murmured Isabel. "The home of mysticism and the occult."
Poirot's travellings in the East, as far as I knew, consisted of one journey to Syria extended to Iraq, and which occupied perhaps a few weeks. To judge by his present conversation one would swear that he had spent most of his life in jungles and bazaars and in intimate converse with fakirs, dervishes and mahatmas.
As far as I could make out the Misses Tripp were vegetarians, theosophists, British Israelites, Christian Scientists, spiritualists and enthusiastic amateur photographers.
"One sometimes feels," said Julia with a sigh, "that Market Basing is an impossible place to live. There is no beauty here - no soul. One must have soul, don't you think so, Captain Hawkins?"
"Quite," I said, slightly embarrassed. "Oh, quite."
"Without vision the people perish," quoted Isabel with a sigh. "I have often tried to discuss things with the vicar, but I find him most painfully narrow. Don't you think, Mr Parrot, that any definite creed is bound to be narrowing?"
"And everything is so simple, really," put in her sister. "As we knew so well, everything is joy and love!"
"As you say, as you say," said Poirot. "What a pity it seems that misunderstandings and quarrels should arise - especially over money."
"Money is so sordid," sighed Julia.
"I gather that the late Miss Arundell was one of your converts?" said Poirot.
The two sisters looked at each other.
"I wonder," said Isabel.
"We were never quite sure," breathed Julia. "One minute she seemed to be convinced and then she would say something - so - so ribald."
"Ah, but you remember that last manifestation," said Julia. "That was really most remarkable." She turned to Poirot. "It was the night dear Miss Arundell was taken ill. My sister and I went round after dinner and we had a sitting - just the four of us. And you know we saw - we all three saw - most distinctly, a kind of halo round Miss Arundell's head."
"Comment?"
"Yes. It was a kind of luminous haze." She turned to her sister. "Isn't that how you would describe it, Isabel?"
"Yes. Yes, just that. A luminous haze gradually surrounding Miss Arundell's head - an aureole of faint light. It was a sign - we know that now - a sign that she was about to pass over to the other side."
"Remarkable," said Poirot in a suitably impressed voice. "It was dark in the room, yes?"
"Oh, yes, we always get better results in the dark, and it was quite a warm evening, so we didn't even have the fire on."
"A most interesting spirit spoke to us," said Isabel. "Fatima, her name was. She told us she had passed over in the time of the Crusades. She gave us a most beautiful message."
"She actually spoke to you?"
"No, not direct voice. She rapped it out. Love. Hope. Life. Beautiful words."
"And Miss Arundell was actually taken ill at the seance?"
"It was just after. Some sandwiches and port wine were brought in, and dear Miss Arundell said she wouldn't have any as she wasn't feeling very well. That was the beginning of her illness. Mercifully, she did not have to endure much suffering."
"She passed over four days later," said Isabel.
"And we have already had messages from her," said Julia eagerly. "Saying that she is very happy and that everything is beautiful and that she hopes that there is love and peace among all her dear ones."
Poirot coughed.
"That - er - is hardly the case, I fear."
"The relations have behaved disgracefully to poor Minnie," said Isabel. Her face flushed with indignation.
"Minnie is the most unworldly soul," chimed in Julia.
"People have gone about saying the unkindest things - that she schemed for this money to be left her!"
"When really it was the greatest surprise to her -"
"She could hardly believe her ears when the lawyer read the will -"
"She told us so herself. 'Julia,' she said to me. 'My dear, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Just a few bequests to the servants and then Littlegreen House and the residue of my estate to Wilhelmina Lawson.' She was so flabbergasted she could hardly speak. And when she could she asked how much it would be - thinking perhaps it would be a few thousand pounds - and Mr Purvis, after humming and hawing and talking about confusing things like gross and net personalities, said it would be in the neighborhood of three hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds. Poor Minnie nearly fainted, she told us."
"She had no idea," the other sister reiterated. "She never thought of such a thing happening!"
"That is what she told you, yes?"
"Oh, yes, she repeated it several times. And that's what makes it so wicked of the Arundell family to go on as they have done - cold-shouldering her and treating her with suspicion. After all, this is a free country -"
"English people seem to labour under that misapprehension," murmured Poirot.
"And I should hope any one can leave their money exactly as they choose! I think Miss Arundell acted very wisely. Obviously she mistrusted her own relatives and I dare say she had her reasons."
"Ah?" Poirot leant forward with interest. "Indeed?"
This flattering attention encouraged Isabel to proceed.
"Yes, indeed. Mr Charles Arundell, her nephew, is a thoroughly bad lot. That's well known! I believe he's even wanted by the police in some foreign country. Not at all a desirable character. As for his sister, well, I've not actually spoken to her, but she's a very queer-looking girl. Ultra modern, of course, and terribly made-up. Really, the sight of her mouth made me quite ill. It looked like blood. And I rather suspect she takes drugs - her manner was so odd sometimes. She's by way of being engaged to that nice young Dr Donaldson, but I fancy even he looked a little disgusted sometimes. Of course, she is attractive in her way, but I hope that he will come to his senses in time and marry some nice English girl who is fond of country life and outdoor pursuits."
"And the other relations?"
"Well, there you are again. Very undesirable. Not that I've anything to say against Mrs Tanios - she's quite a nice woman - but absolutely stupid and completely under her husband's thumb. Of course, he's really a Turk, I believe - rather dreadful for an English girl to marry a Turk, I think, don't you? It shows a certain lack of fastidiousness. Of course, Mrs Tanios is a very good mother, though the children are singularly unattractive, poor little things."
"So altogether you think Miss Lawson was a more worthy recipient of Miss Arundell's fortune?"
Julia said serenely:
"Minnie Lawson is a thoroughly good woman. And so unworldly. It isn't as though she had ever thought about money. She was never grasping."
"Still, she has never thought of refusing to accept the legacy?"
Isabel drew back a little.
"Oh, well - one would hardly do that."
Poirot smiled.
"No, perhaps not..."
"You see, Mr Parrot," put in Julia, "she regards it as a trust - a sacred trust."
"And she is quite willing to do something for Mrs Tanios or for the Tanios children," went on Isabel. "Only she doesn't want him to get hold of it."
"She even said she would consider making Theresa an allowance."
"And that, I think, was very generous of her - considering the off-hand way that girl has always treated her."
"Indeed, Mr Parrot, Minnie is the most generous of creatures. But there now, you know her, of course!"
"Yes," said Poirot. "I know her. But I still do not know - her address."
"Of course! How stupid of me! Shall I write it down for you?"
"I can write it down."
Poirot produced the invariable notebook.
"17 Clanroyden Mansions, W.2. Not very far from Whiteleys. You'll give her our love, won't you? We haven't heard from her just lately."
Poirot rose and I followed suit.
"I have to thank you both very much," he declared, "for a most charming talk, as well as for your kindness in supplying me with my friend's address."
"I wonder they didn't give it to you at the house," exclaimed Isabel. "It must be that Ellen! Servants are so jealous and so small-minded. They used to be quite rude to Minnie sometimes."
Julia shook hands in a grande dame manner.
"We have enjoyed your visit," she declared graciously. "I wonder -"
She flashed a glance of inquiry at her sister.
"You would, perhaps -" Isabel flushed a little. "Would you, that is to say, stay and share our evening meal? A very simple one - some shredded, raw vegetables, brown bread and butter, fruit."
"It sounds delicious," Poirot said hastily. "But alas! my friend and I have to return to London."
With renewed handshaking and messages to be delivered to Miss Lawson, we at last made our exit.
Chapter 12
POIROT DISCUSSES THE CASE
"Thank goodness, Poirot," I said with fervour, "you got us out of those raw carrots! What awful women!"
"Pour nous, un bon bifteck - with the fried potatoes - and a good bottle of wine. What should we have had to drink there, I wonder?"
"Well water, I should think," I replied with a shudder. "Or non-alcoholic cider. It was that kind of place! I bet there's no bath and no sanitation except an earth closet in the garden!"
"Strange how women enjoy living an uncomfortable life," said Poirot thoughtfully. "It is not always poverty, though they are good at making the best of straitened circumstances."
"What orders for the chauffeur now?" I asked as I negotiated the last bend of the winding lanes, and we emerged on the road to Market Basing. "On what local light do we call next? Or do we return to The George and interrogate the asthmatic waiter once more?"
"You will be glad to hear, Hastings, that we have finished with Market Basing -"
"Splendid."
"For the moment only. I shall return!"
"Still on the track of your unsuccessful murderer?"
"Exactly."
"Did you learn anything from the fandango of nonsense we've just been listening to?"
Poirot said precisely:
"There were certain points deserving of attention. The various characters in our drama begin to emerge more clearly. In some ways it resembles, does it not, a novelette of olden days. The humble companion, once despised, is raised to affluence and now plays the part of lady bountiful."
"I should imagine that such a patronage must be very galling to people who regard themselves as the rightful heirs!"
"As you say, Hastings. Yes, that is very true."
We drove on in silence for some minutes. We had passed through Market Basing and were now once more on the main road. I hummed to myself softly the tune of "Little Man, You've Had a Busy Day."
