Arnold Laurier might have gone, secretly, to St. Walstan’s on 8 September and killed Stanley Niven. (This is why Vivienne is afraid to have him go to the hospital again—in case Mr. Hurt-His-Head identifies him as the murderer.)
Arnold Laurier’s motive for this murder could have been that he wanted Stanley Niven’s room on Ward 6, in preference to the adjacent room that is reserved for him.
“And now, Catchpool, I will tell you everything I have been told today about the murder of Stanley Niven, and you will write it all down. Are you ready?”
I was. He started with his visit to the two nurses, Bee Haskins and Zillah Hunt, and their disagreement about whether the door of Arnold Laurier’s hospital room was open or closed while the five Lauriers and Nurse Zillah were inside it on the afternoon of 8 September. As he spoke, moving around the room at twice his usual pace, I did my best to keep up. Where there seemed to be connections between different parts, I drew arrows and lines.
There were some things he remembered vividly, andothers he recalled less clearly. Gerald Mackle had furnished him with much of the finer detail—the specifics from witness statements and such like—at the worst possible time: when Poirot was full of dread on account of the alleged disappearance of Arnold Laurier from Frellingsloe House. Still, Poirot’s memory was excellent even when he was not at his best, and there was an impressive amount of information to be recorded about people’s precise movements on the afternoon of 8 September.
I put down my pencil only when I sensed Poirot leaning over me. He rested his forearm on my shoulder, and made a peculiar, strangled noise. When I turned to look up at him, I saw that he had pulled a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and was mopping his brow. “What is this disordered jumble, Catchpool? How are we supposed to make sense of it? It bears no resemblance to what I have told you. What is this? Is it a word or a... a...?”
“It’s the word ‘doctor.’ I understand every pencil stroke,” I told him. “And, assuming you have finished your account, I shall now produce a neat version.”
“Thank you.” He sounded relieved. I resisted the temptation to point out that he need only have glanced at the beautifully decorated Christmas tree in the corner of the room in order to be assured of my talent for order.
To spare readers of my narrative the distress that Poirot experienced when confronted by my first scribblings, I have decided not to include my first draft in this account. Instead, I offer the exemplar of clarity that it was soon to become:
Things told to Poirot on 20 December
Stanley Niven was murdered between two o’clock and ten minutes before three, in his hospital room on Ward 6. He was last seen alive by Dr. Wall and Nurse Bee Haskins at two o’clock. They left his room less than a minute after two. He was found dead by Dr. Robert Osgood at ten minutes to three.
Several members of the Laurier family were present on Ward 6 when Mr. Niven was murdered. They were in the adjacent room, which was empty and will soon be occupied by Arnold Laurier.
Nurse Zillah Hunt and all five members of the Laurier family say that the door of the room was closed throughout. This is disputed by Bee Haskins, who claims to have looked across the courtyard from Professor Burnett’s room on Ward 7 thirty minutes after two o’clock and seen the door to the room that contained Nurse Zillah and the Lauriers standing ajar.
The Laurier party arrived on Ward 6 that day at fifteen minutes past two in the afternoon. Their estimate of their arrival time was confirmed by Dr. Robert Osgood, who was in the corridor when they entered the ward. He then went to find Nurse Zillah Hunt, who had been assigned the task of showing the Lauriersthe room that will be Arnold’s from January. Nurse Zillah spent roughly five minutes exchanging words with Dr. Osgood and the Lauriers while standing in the corridor outside Arnold’s room.
Dr. Wall and Nurse Bee Haskins, who had been busy checking on other patients on Ward 6 since two o’clock, emerged on to the corridor at twenty minutes after two, having finished their rounds of the Ward 6 patients. They saw Nurse Zillah and Dr. Osgood in the corridor and, beyond them, a cluster of others whom they correctly judged to be visitors to the ward; this was the Laurier party.
Also in the ward corridor at the same time, twenty minutes past two, was Nurse Olga Woodruff. Bee Haskins, Zillah Hunt and Dr. Wall all say she was there. Dr. Osgood at first said Nurse Olga was not present at that time, then later amended his statement to say she might have been, but he did not notice her. Nurse Olga herself insists she was there, and burst into tears when Inspector Mackle put it to her that she might not have been; that Dr. Osgood had no recollection of her presence. Mackle told Poirot that if he had been less convinced of Clarence Niven’s guilt, he might have suspected Nurse Olga, on account of her “hysterical” reaction when interviewed.
Nurse Zillah took the Lauriers into Arnold’s room just after twenty minutes past two o’clock. An argument immediately ensued: the courtyard controversy. At the same time, Nurse Bee Haskins and Dr. Wall were making their way to Ward 7. When they arrived there, they checked first on a patient with pneumonia and then on Professor Burnett (Mr. Hurt-His-Head). The professor’s demeanor was markedly different from usual. He did not greet them with his usual salutation: “Son of man has no place to lay his head.” He was not in bed, where they were accustomed to finding him, but staring out of his window. He might have witnessed the murder of Stanley Niven: Nurse Bee believes that he did, and that this explains his altered manner and the change to his oft-recited saying. Since the afternoon of 8 September, he has only occasionally repeated the phrase in its original biblical form. Far more often, he says “Son of man has no place tohurthis head.” Bee Haskins believes this means he saw the murderer hurting Stanley Niven’s head with the vase.
Dr. Wall was not alarmed by the professor’s changed behavior and thinks it does not necessarily mean the professor must have witnessed Stanley Niven’s murder. His contention is that patient behavior often changes for neurological rather than environmental reasons.
My note: if Mr. Hurt-His-Head witnessed the killing of Stanley Niven, and that was why he was standing at the window at half past two when Nurse Bee Haskins and Dr. Wall checked on him, then the murder must have happened between two and half past two. However, between fifteen and twenty minutes past two, the Lauriers, Dr. Osgood, Nurse Zillah Hunt and Nurse Olga Woodruff were in the corridor, as well as Nurse Bee Haskins and Dr. Wall from twenty past two until a very short time later, when they left to go to Ward 7. And between two and a quarter past, Dr. Osgood was busy in the ward corridor and insists no one went into Stanley Niven’s room. Therefore the killer must have entered Niven’s room between twenty and thirty minutes past two. (And when did the murderer leave the room? Might he still have been hiding in there at ten minutes to three, when Niven’s body was found?)
Between twenty past two and ten minutes to three, Dr. Osgood and Nurse Olga Woodruff both told police they were “in and out” of Ward 6. Both said they also spent quite a bit of time during that period on Wards 4 and 5.
At five minutes to three, Vivienne Laurier opened the door of Arnold’s room so that the party of six, having finished in there, could leave. They emerged on to the Ward corridor to findMr. Hurt-His-Head standing there. He was extremely distressed and said to Vivienne Laurier, “Son of man has no place to hurt his head,” then repeated the phrase several times, becoming ever more distressed. Nurse Olga Woodruff took him back to Ward 7 against his will. (Vivienne Laurier said that he seemed terrified and lunged toward her, as if hoping she might pull him back, helping him to escape Nurse Olga Woodruff’s clutches.)
Once Nurse Olga and Mr. Hurt-His-Head had left the ward, Dr. Osgood told the Laurier party and Nurse Zillah that Stanley Niven had been murdered and that the police were on their way. All seemed stunned. Vivienne Laurier put her head in her hands and started to weep. She refused to travel back to Frellingsloe House with her sons and their wives, and Dr. Osgood had to leave work and take her back there in his car.
“Why a vase?” I asked, looking up from my notes.
“Pardon?” Poirot said faintly, mopping his brow again with his grey silk handkerchief. He could not be too hot, surely. I felt a little chilly, and I could think of no previous occasion when I had felt the cold more intensely than he had.
“The vase, as a murder weapon,” I said. “Wouldn’t you think that, in a hospital, medicines might be to hand—substances standing around that, if a chap were to imbibetoo much of them, might knock him out not just temporarily but permanently? Poirot, are you all right? You look unwell.”
“I do not feel good. Here.” He moved his hand slowly toward his stomach, then raised it and let it hover in the air. It was as if he could not decide between stomach and chest. “Wait. Ah, it has subsided. Go on, please. The vase?”
“I think you should sit down, old boy.”
“There is no need. Continue.”
“For some reason, I am suspicious of Dr. Osgood. I don’t know why. But if he is the murderer, he surely had many easier methods at his disposal. A syringe full of something that would instantly stop the heart—that would be child’s play for a doctor.”
“If I were a doctor who wished to commit a murder, I would choose a method to which no doctor would ever need to resort,” said Poirot. “To divert suspicion from myself.”
