The fact of someone having written something down did not make it true, I reminded myself. Neither did my having read it. I took a deep breath and read on:
And now, to the business of detection. I did not have the chance to tell you about my two leads in the matter of Stanley Niven’s death. I cannot understand why Inspector Mackle patted me on the head and sent me onmy way when I told him these two stories, both of which might be of great significance. I am eager to share them with you and see if you agree. Since I find myself wide awake, feeling well rested and full of the joys of spring at three o’clock in the morning, I shall do so now, in written form. I should add that I feel inordinately guilty for trying initially to withhold this information from you earlier, as a form of leverage. As you correctly pointed out, it was a dishonorable way to proceed and I feel thoroughly ashamed. I share the following information without asking for any favor or concession in return (though neither my wishes nor my intentions have changed. I cannot be deterred from my investigative mission!).
Lead 1
When I met Stanley Niven at the hospital in August, we conversed on several subjects. One of these was our former professions: his work at the post office and mine as a teacher of mathematics. He told me various things I did not know about the life of a postmaster, including that customers were occasionally rather brusque and even sometimes rude. This surprised me. Naturally, I had encountered the occasional obnoxious attitude among my pupils over the years, but it was rare, and I was dealing with eleven-to-sixteen-year-olds. At that age, one has not yet learned that it pays, always, to be courteous and cooperative. As an adult customer of a post office,however, one is reliant upon those who work in that establishment to convey one’s letters and parcels to their intended destinations. Why on earth would you insult the very chap whose job it is to ensure the safe arrival of your every correspondence?
The above might seem to be a digression, M. Poirot, but it provides context. Mr. Niven, after relaying several tales of customer rudeness that I could scarcely credit, laughed and said, “The encounters that really stick with you are not the ones where some fellow lashes out impatiently. Those are very common, I am afraid. No, the episodes that lodge themselves most powerfully in the memory are the truly extraordinary ones—those so peculiar as to be unbelievable even once one has lived through them.”
After that introduction, I was beside myself with curiosity. Mr. Niven then held me in thrall with a story involving a lady whose name he did not tell me—which, regrettably, makes this lead rather difficult to follow up. (Though not impossible, M. Poirot. Nothing is impossible, is it? I am certain you agree with me about that.) In any case, this woman arrived at the post office one day and demanded to speak to the person in charge. That was Stanley Niven, and this happened a few years before he retired. I cannot tell you when he retired, though I dare say you could find out easily enough. The woman insisted on speaking to him in private. He took her to his office, whereupon she burst into floods of tears and accused him of ruining her life.
He was startled, naturally, having never met her before. She was beside herself, weeping and wailing, and at first would not be pacified. This made calm clarification impossible for at least twenty minutes. Eventually Mr. Niven quietened her down and asked what he was supposed to have done to her that was so heinous. It turned out that a man called Henry had been sending her letters that she would have preferred not to receive. There had been four so far, and she believed more would follow. The point was that Henry lived close to Mr. Niven’s post office, and all his letters had been posted from there, the woman said. She held Mr. Niven responsible for the distress she had suffered so far, and told him she found his conduct in the matter both disgusting and shocking. By this, she meant that he had failed to prevent those letters from reaching her. Worse than that: he had positively allowed them to be posted to her.
Is it not extraordinary, M. Poirot, that people can be so illogical and blinkered? This woman had come to tell Mr. Niven that he must on no account allow this Henry chap to send her any more letters; he must refuse to cooperate, refuse to sell him the stamps, and banish him from the post office the moment he appeared.
I looked up. “You have read this?” I asked Poirot.
He had. “Like Monsieur Laurier and Monsieur Niven before him, you are surprised by the irrational expectations and beliefs of the woman in the post office. I am not. Goodsense is not the driving force in the lives of most people.” Nodding at the paper in my hand, he said, “Continue.”
I read on:
Stanley Niven did what most men in his shoes would have done. He told the lady that he and his employees had no idea what words were contained within the many sealed envelopes they handled every day. Tactfully he explained that, even if he were able, somehow, to know the content of each missive, he could not, in his professional capacity as postmaster, decide which letters were acceptable and which should be refused safe passage. Everyone was entitled to express themselves freely, within the confines of the law—surely the lady could see that?
Gentlemen, she could not. She screamed many unpleasant insults, told poor Stanley Niven to rot in hell, and left. As I have said, I cannot understand why Inspector Mackle is so profoundly uninterested in this story. When a murder occurs, one surely looks for anyone who might have had a grudge against the victim, and here we have a grudge of rot-in-hell strength and a personage of, I would argue, obviously unsound mind.
Lead 2
My hand is a little sore and stiff from all this writing, so I shall be succinct. The second lead is Mr. Hurt-His-Head. That is not his real name, which I believe is Burnett. Professor Burnett, Inspector Mackle called him,though I would not take that young man’s word for anything without a thorough checking of the facts. He means well, but is no bright spark.
Mr. Hurt-His-Head is what Vivienne called this Burnett chap when she first told me about him. As a nickname, it is apt. You will soon see why. He is a patient at St. Walstan’s, and made an appearance on Ward 6 on the day Stanley Niven was killed. I do not know if he is still in the hospital.
When Vivienne and the children went to have a look at Ward 6 on 8 September, they argued about whether or not it would be suitable for me to have a room with a window that looked over a courtyard.
“That explains the strange courtyard argument at dinner,” I muttered.
Courtyard or no courtyard, I told Vivienne, I do not mind in the slightest. Put me in a cupboard, so long as I can pursue my murder investigation. While inspecting this courtyard, Vivienne noticed a distinctive-looking man standing at the window of his hospital room on the other side. Ask her to describe him to you: his physical appearance sounds remarkable. The man was staring, though not directly at Vivienne. Instead, he seemed to be looking off somewhere to her right—through his window and across the small yard. Jonathan, Janet, Douglas and Maddie all say they didn’t notice him. Gentlemen, if Vivienne says he was there,that is good enough for me. Ask her about it. She will tell you, now she knows Stanley Niven’s room was next to the one reserved for me, that she is entirely convinced Mr. Hurt-His-Head was watching what was happening in that room. She believes he must have witnessed Mr. Niven’s murder.
Unfortunately, Mr. Hurt-His-Head suffers from a severe cognitive impairment which affects his linguistic skills. Vivienne reports that, after seeing him staring into Stanley Niven’s room, she returned her attention to the silly courtyard contretemps on which the children were still wasting their time and energy. A little later, though by no means soon enough, the Lord had mercy upon my wife: that argument ended. Vivienne says she opened the door of my room (permit me to call it that, though it is not yet mine) and there, standing in front of her, was Mr. Hurt-His-Head. She said he looked poised to knock or barge in.
This next part is corroborated not only by Janet, Jonathan, Maddie and Douglas but also by the nurse who was showing them my room—Nurse Zillah Hunt—and by our very own Dr. Osgood. This patient, Mr. Hurt-His-Head, said in an agitated tone of voice, “Son of man has no place to hurt his head.” He kept looking at the bed, Vivienne said: the hospital bed in my room. He stared at it pointedly, as if he wanted to say something about it but could not. And he kept declaiming those same words, though after a while he abandoned the first part and simply repeated, “To hurt his head! To hurt hishead!” over and over again, quickly and breathlessly. Nurse Olga Woodruff eventually had to intervene, for he was becoming increasingly hysterical. Luckily, Olga is a person of strong and steely character. Vivienne said it was a ghastly scene. The poor man was begging her with his eyes, she told me—begging her not to let Nurse Olga take him away. He reached out to Vivienne as if inviting her to grab his hands and commence a tug of war. She did not, of course. Then, once Nurse Olga and Mr. Hurt-His-Head had gone, Dr. Osgood broke the terrible news: that there had been a murder on the ward, in the room next to mine.
“Is it not a quote from the Bible?” I asked Poirot.
“With one significant difference,” he said. “The correct quote is ‘The son of man has no place tolayhis head.’ Professor Burnett—Monsieur Hurt-His-Head—did not say that. It was not the word ‘lay’ that he repeated in a frantic manner. No, it was the word ‘hurt.’ And he said it a very short time after he had, in all probability, watched someone bring down violently a large vase upon the head of Monsieur Niven.”
“This Nurse Olga,” I said. “How does Arnold, or Vivienne, know about her strong and steely character? He writes as if he knows her well—even refers to her as ‘Olga’ without the ‘Nurse.’”
“He is a dying man, Catchpool. Is it so strange that he should be well acquainted with a nurse at the hospital nearest to his home?”
This, I had to concede, was a fair point. I read the last paragraph of Arnold Laurier’s letter:
Inspector Mackle has been kind enough to check on Mr. Hurt-His-Head at regular intervals, and has assured me as recently as yesterday morning that the poor fellow has come to no harm, which is a relief. Yet Mackle refuses to see sense and treat this episode as undoubtedly the best available lead in the investigation of Stanley Niven’s murder. Perhaps you will be able to persuade him to take it more seriously, M. Poirot. I have every faith in you, and very much look forward to working with you in the service of clarity and justice. It will be the great honor of my life to do so.
Yours with immense admiration,
Arnold Laurier.
“I am inclined to agree with Inspector Mackle that Miss Post Office can be ruled out,” I said. “Even the most irrational neurotic would not murder a post office manager, many years later, because he allowed someone she disliked to send her some unwelcome correspondence.”
