Free Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie

wagging his tail furiously as he watched its progress.
    â€œHe’ll stay like that for hours, sir. Regular game of his. He’d go on all day at it. That’ll do now, Bob. The gentlemen have got something else to do than play with you.”
    A dog is a great promoter of friendly intercourse. Our interest and liking for Bob had quite broken down the natural stiffness of the good servant. As we went up to the bedroom floors, our guide was talking quite garrulously as she gave us accounts of Bob’s wonderful sagacity. The ball had been left at the foot of the stairs. As we passed him, Bob gave us a look of deep disgust and stalked down in a dignified fashion to retrieve it. As we turned to the right I saw him slowly coming up again with it in his mouth, his gait that of anextremely old man forced by unthinking persons to exert himself unduly.
    As we went round the bedrooms, Poirot began gradually to draw our conductress out.
    â€œThere were four Miss Arundells lived here, did they not?” he asked.
    â€œOriginally, yes, sir, but that was before my time. There was only Miss Agnes and Miss Emily when I came and Miss Agnes died soon afterwards. She was the youngest of the family. It seemed odd she should go before her sister.”
    â€œI suppose she was not so strong as her sister?”
    â€œNo, sir, it’s odd that. My Miss Arundell, Miss Emily, she was always the delicate one. She’d had a lot to do with doctors all her life. Miss Agnes was always strong and robust and yet she went first and Miss Emily who’d been delicate from a child outlived all the family. Very odd the way things happen.”
    â€œAstonishing how often that is the case.”
    Poirot plunged into (I feel sure) a wholly mendacious story of an invalid uncle which I will not trouble to repeat here. It suffices to say that it had its effect. Discussions of death and such matters do more to unlock the human tongue than any other subject. Poirot was in a position to ask questions that would have been regarded with suspicious hostility twenty minutes earlier.
    â€œWas Miss Arundell’s illness a long and painful one?”
    â€œNo, I wouldn’t say that, sir. She’d been ailing, if you know what I mean, for a long time—ever since two winters before. Very bad she was then—this here jaundice. Yellow in the face they go and the whites of their eyes—”
    â€œAh, yes, indeed—” (Anecdote of Poirot’s cousin who appeared to have been the Yellow Peril in person.)
    â€œThat’s right—just as you say, sir. Terribly ill she was, poor dear. Couldn’t keep anything down. If you ask me, Dr. Grainger hardly thought she’d pull through. But he’d a wonderful way with her—bullying, you know. ‘Made up your mind to lie back and order your tombstone?’ he’d say. And she’d say, ‘I’ve a bit of fight in me still, doctor,’ and he’d say, ‘That’s right—that’s what I like to hear.’ A hospital nurse we had, and she made up her mind that it was all over—even said to the doctor once that she supposed she’d better not worry the old lady too much by forcing her to take food—but the doctor rounded on her. ‘Nonsense,’ he said, ‘Worry her? You’ve got to bully her into taking nourishment.’ Valentine’s beef juice at such and such a time, Brand’s essence—teaspoonfuls of brandy. And at the end he said something that I’ve never forgotten. ‘You’re young, my girl,’ he said to her, ‘you don’t realize what fine fighting material there is in age. It’s young people who turn up their toes and die because they’re not interested enough to live. You show me anyone who’s lived to over seventy and you show me a fighter—someone who’s got the will to live.’ And it’s true, sir—we’re always saying how wonderful old