Hickory Dickory Dock

‘Oh, I’m sure it does, M. Poirot,’ assented Mrs Hubbard eagerly. ‘And I’m sure I didn’t want to trouble you—’

‘You are not troubling me. I am intrigued. But whilst I am reflecting, we might make a start on the practical side. A start… The shoe, the evening shoe…yes, we might make a start there. Miss Lemon.’

‘Yes, M. Poirot?’ Miss Lemon banished filing from her thoughts, sat even more upright, and reached automatically for pad and pencil.

‘Mrs Hubbard will obtain for you, perhaps, the remaining shoe. Then go to Baker Street Station, to the lost property department. The loss occurred—when?’

Mrs Hubbard considered.

‘Well, I can’t remember exactly now, M. Poirot. Perhaps two months ago. I can’t get nearer than that. But I could find out from Sally Finch the date of the party.’

‘Yes. Well—’ He turned once more to Miss Lemon. ‘You can be a little vague. You will say you left a shoe in an Inner Circle train—that is the most likely—or you may have left it in some other train. Or possibly a bus. How many buses serve the neighbourhood of Hickory Road?’

‘Two only, M. Poirot.’

‘Good. If you get no results from Baker Street, try Scotland Yard and say it was left in a taxi.’

‘Lambeth,’ corrected Miss Lemon efficiently.

Poirot waved a hand.

‘You always know these things.’

‘But why do you think—’ began Mrs Hubbard.

Poirot interrupted her.

‘Let us see first what results we get. Then, if they are negative or positive, you and I, Mrs Hubbard, must consult again. You will tell me then those things which it is necessary that I should know.’

‘I really think I’ve told you everything I can.’

‘No, no. I disagree. Here we have young people herded together, of varying temperaments, of different sexes. A loves B, but B loves C, and D and E are at daggers drawn because of A perhaps. It is all that I need to know. The interplay of human emotions. The quarrels, the jealousies, the friendships, the malice and all uncharitableness.’

‘I’m sure,’ said Mrs Hubbard, uncomfortably, ‘I don’t know anything about that sort of thing. I don’t mix at all. I just run the place and see to the catering and all that.’

‘But you are interested in people. You have told me so. You like young people. You took this post, not because it was of much interest financially, but because it would bring you in contact with human problems. There will be those of the students that you like and some that you do not like so well, or indeed at all, perhaps. You will tell me—yes, you will tell me! Because you are worried—not about what has been happening—you could go to the police about that—’

‘Mrs Nicoletis wouldn’t like to have the police in, I assure you.’

Poirot swept on, disregarding the interruption.

‘No, you are worried about someone—someone who you think may have been responsible or at least mixed up in this. Someone, therefore, that you like.’

‘Really, M. Poirot.’

‘Yes, really. And I think you are right to be worried. For that silk scarf cut to pieces, it is not nice. And the slashed rucksack, that also is not nice. For the rest it seems childishness—and yet—I am not sure. No, I am not sure at all!’

CHAPTER 3 (#u049153c2-9d25-5af5-96cf-92a90a6e46b3)

Hurrying a little as she went up the steps, Mrs Hubbard inserted her latch key into the door of 26 Hickory Road. Just as the door opened, a big young man with fiery red hair ran up the steps behind her.

‘Hallo, Ma,’ he said, for in such fashion did Len Bateson usually address her. He was a friendly soul, with a Cockney accent and mercifully free from any kind of inferiority complex. ‘Been out gallivanting?’

‘I’ve been out to tea, Mr Bateson. Don’t delay me now, I’m late.’

‘I cut up a lovely corpse today,’ said Len. ‘Smashing!’

‘Don’t be so horrid, you nasty boy. A lovely corpse, indeed! The idea. You make me feel quite squeamish.’

Len Bateson laughed, and the hall echoed the sound in a great ha ha.

‘Nothing to Celia,’ he said. ‘I went along to the Dispensary. “Come to tell you about a corpse,” I said. She went as white as a sheet and I thought she was going to pass out. What do you think of that, Mother Hubbard?’

‘I don’t wonder at it,’ said Mrs Hubbard. ‘The idea! Celia probably thought you meant a real one.’

‘What do you mean—a real one? What do you think our corpses are? Synthetic?’

A thin young man with long untidy hair strolled out of a room on the right, and said in a waspish way:

‘Oh, it’s only you. I thought it was at least a posse of strong men. The voice is but the voice of one man, but the volume is as the volume of ten.’

‘Hope it doesn’t get on your nerves, I’m sure.’

‘Not more than usual,’ said Nigel Chapman and went back again.

‘Our delicate flower,’ said Len.

‘Now don’t you two scrap,’ said Mrs Hubbard. ‘Good temper, that’s what I like, and a bit of give and take.’

The big young man grinned down at her affectionately.

‘I don’t mind our Nigel, Ma,’ he said.

A girl coming down the stairs at that moment said:

‘Oh, Mrs Hubbard, Mrs Nicoletis is in her room and said she would like to see you as soon as you got back.’

Mrs Hubbard sighed and started up the stairs. The tall dark girl who had given the message stood against the wall to let her pass.

Len Bateson, divesting himself of his mackintosh said, ‘What’s up, Valerie? Complaints of our behaviour to be passed on by Mother Hubbard in due course?’

The girl shrugged her thin elegant shoulders. She came down the stairs and across the hall.

‘This place gets more like a madhouse every day,’ she said over her shoulder.

She went through the door at the right as she spoke. She moved with that insolent effortless grace that is common to those who have been professional mannequins.

Twenty-six Hickory Road was in reality two houses, 24 and 26 semi-detached. They had been thrown into one on the ground floor so that there was both a communal sitting-room and a large dining-room on the ground floor, as well as two cloak-rooms and a small office towards the back of the house. Two separate staircases led to the floors above which remained detached. The girls occupied bedrooms in the right-hand side of the house, and the men on the other, the original No. 24.