I nodded.
“Robert left Ward 6 a few moments after Dr. Wall and Bee had left, and went to Ward 5. I followed him. We both then went to Ward 4, but not before half past two. We stayed on 5 for longer than ten minutes, I should say.”
“You and Dr. Osgood were together that whole time, then?”
“Oh, no.” There was unmistakable anger in her voice that seemed to have come from nowhere.
“No?”
“No,” she said firmly. “Robert was alone, or rather, he was keeping company with Vivienne Laurier in his mind—whispering endearments to her, no doubt. I, meanwhile, was following him around, unnoticed.”
I tried not to look as shocked as I was by her little speech. Why on earth was she still engaged to be married to Osgood if she knew he was in love with another woman?
“Robert must have been delighted that Vivienne was so distraught about Stanley Niven’s murder. I found them together a little later, after I had handed Professor Burnett over to the Ward 7 nurses. They were standing by Robert’s car, outside, and he had his arm around her shoulders, comforting her. She was sobbing into her hands and mumbling something about the killer having intended to kill her husband Arnold, not Stanley Niven. Silly woman. What killer would make a ridiculous mistake like that?”
Nurse Olga lifted her chin and said defiantly, “Go on, ask the obvious question: why do I remain engaged to be married to Robert in the circumstances? The answer is simple: because he chooses, every day, to remain engaged to me. That tells me a lot. It means he knows, deep down, that Vivienne Laurier does not love him and never will. He also knows I would do anything for him. I would die for him without a second’s hesitation.”
I assumed that “How foolish of you, when he treats you so poorly” would not be deemed an appropriate response, so I said nothing.
“Deep down, Robert knows he will be better off with a young, strong wife who can bear him children than witha distraught widow older than he is. This great love he believes he has for Vivienne is nothing more than a little emotional tantrum of the sort that vain men like to entertain themselves with. He will soon see sense once we are married. But first Arnold needs to die, Robert needs to propose to Vivienne and she needs to reject him. Only then will he accept the reality of his situation.”
Nurse Olga smiled. “At that point, I think he will find that he does love me rather a lot after all.”
I had heard enough, and changed the subject. “When you left Ward 6 just after twenty minutes past two, do you happen to remember if the door of Arnold Laurier’s room was open or closed?”
“On the day Mr. Niven died?” She frowned. “I do not think I... Wait. Yes, it was closed. Definitely closed. Unless I am thinking of the door to Stanley Niven’s room. The two are side by side, you see—only five or six feet between them.”
I translated her words for my own benefit: she didn’t know.
“What I can tell you for certain is that I did not take my eyes off Robert for so much as a second between two o’clock and ten to three,” Olga Woodruff announced.
I was thinking to myself that it was unsubtle and possibly counterproductive to emphasize this in the precise way she had, when she took it even further. “I am not only his fiancée,” she said bluntly, staring at me wide-eyed as if to drive the point home. “I am also his very solid alibi. There is no way that Robert could have killed Stanley Niven, so if he is on your list of suspects, or Inspector Mackle’s, you should strike him off immediately.”
22 December 1931
Chapter 24
Murder-Solving Oil
Given the number of tasks I had been assigned by Poirot, I had not expected to be back at St. Walstan’s Hospital quite so soon. Yet here I was at ten the next morning, full of a white, blinding rage that had taken possession of my whole being. At no point before in my life had I ever felt anger like it. When it first took hold of me, I had to sit still with my head bowed and concentrate on nothing more than breathing in and out. I looked at my pocket watch afterwards and saw that it had been nearly forty minutes that I had sat motionless, vibrating with disbelief and fury:surely this could not be true. Surely not.
It is a funny thing, anger. Once it has taken root inside you, it affects the way you view everything. As I strode along Ward 4’s corridor toward Poirot’s room, I wanted to push over the unimaginatively decorated Christmas tree, the chairs, the stupid plant in its pot next to the nurses’ station. None of them had done me any harm, but I resented them for being in my field of vision when all I wanted tosee was Poirot, sitting upright in his bed, smiling and on his way to a full recovery. I vowed to myself that if by some chance he did not recover, I would abandon all fears for my immortal soul and wreak the most horrible revenge I was capable of inflicting...
Of course, any smile would soon be wiped off Poirot’s face by what I was about to tell him. No, I corrected myself, not me; the culprit would have to do the telling. Surprisingly, she had declared herself willing and agreed to accompany me to the hospital for that purpose. No doubt her confession would be made in exactly the manner that it had been to me, at the breakfast table at Frellingsloe House this morning: casually, as if such things were to be both expected and quite reasonable in their own way.
Relief diluted my rage a little when we reached at Poirot’s room and I saw that he was in far better fettle than he had been yesterday. He was sitting up in bed. There was more color in his cheeks and I noticed at once that his eyes were that vivid shade of green that I only ever saw when he was in a state of intellectual excitement. He must have made some sort of progress on the investigative front, I thought. I was keen to hear what it was, but first there was the other, disgusting business that needed to be dealt with.
“Catchpool!” Poirot smiled. “And Madame Catchpool also. What a gratifying surprise. I was not expecting either of you.”
“How are you, Monsieur Poirot?” said Mother. “On the mend, by the look of it. Well, that’s very good news indeed. A lot of fuss about nothing, I dare say.”
“I have never in my life felt worse, madame. Catchpool, what is the matter? You look frightful—like an apparition. Why are you not at Frellingsloe House taking care of the matters we discussed yesterday?”
“I’m afraid I had done no more than speak to Sergeant James Wight and give him his instructions when I made a horrifying discovery that pushed all other thoughts from my mind. Tell him, Mother.”
“Goodness me, the melodrama,” she said. “Edward is fibbing, Monsieur Poirot. He did not ‘make a discovery.’ I told him something. The two are quite different.”
“Tell him,” I said.
