‘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!’
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.
Mrs Hubbard went upstairs loosening the collar of her coat. She sighed as she turned in the direction of Mrs Nicoletis’s room.
‘In one of her states again, I suppose,’ she muttered.
She tapped on the door and entered.
Mrs Nicoletis’s sitting-room was kept very hot. The big electric fire had all its bars turned on and the window was tightly shut. Mrs Nicoletis was sitting smoking on a sofa surrounded by a lot of rather dirty silk and velvet sofa cushions. She was a big dark woman, still good-looking, with a bad-tempered mouth and enormous brown eyes.
‘Ah! So there you are.’ Mrs Nicoletis made it sound like an accusation.
Mrs Hubbard, true to her Lemon blood, was unperturbed.
‘Yes,’ she said tartly, ‘I’m here. I was told you wanted to see me specially.’
‘Yes, indeed I do. It is monstrous, no less, monstrous!’
‘What’s monstrous?’
‘These bills! Your accounts!’ Mrs Nicoletis produced a sheaf of papers from beneath a cushion in the manner of a successful conjuror. ‘What are we feeding these miserable students on? Foie gras and quails? Is this the Ritz? Who do they think they are, these students?’
‘Young people with a healthy appetite,’ said Mrs Hubbard. ‘They get a good breakfast and a decent evening meal—plain food but nourishing. It all works out very economically.’
‘Economically? Economically? You dare to say that to me? When I am being ruined?’
‘You make a very substantial profit, Mrs Nicoletis, out of this place. For students, the rates are on the high side.’
‘But am I not always full? Do I ever have a vacancy that is not applied for three times over? Am I not sent students by the British Council, by London University Lodging Board—by the Embassies—by the French Lycée? Are not there always three applications for every vacancy?’
‘That’s very largely because the meals here are appetising and sufficient. Young people must be properly fed.’
‘Bah! These totals are scandalous. It is that Italian cook and her husband. They swindle you over the food.’
‘Oh no, they don’t, Mrs Nicoletis. I can assure you that no foreigner is going to put anything over on me.’
‘Then it is you yourself—you who are robbing me.’
Mrs Hubbard remained unperturbed.
‘I