‘You couldn’t imagine Miss Rich being fat,’ said Jennifer with a giggle. ‘She’s so frightfully thin and nobbly. And anyway Miss Rich couldn’t have been in Ramat because she was away ill last term.’

‘And the other girls?’ said Poirot, ‘had you seen any of the girls before?’

‘Only the ones I knew already,’ said Jennifer. ‘I did know one or two of them. After all, you know, I was only there three weeks and I really don’t know half of the people there even by sight. I wouldn’t know most of them if I met them tomorrow.’

‘You should notice things more,’ said Poirot severely.

‘One can’t notice everything,’ protested Jennifer. She went on: ‘If Meadowbank is carrying on I would like to go back. See if you can do anything with Mummy. Though really,’ she added, ‘I think it’s Daddy who’s the stumbling-block. It’s awful here in the country. I get no opportunity to improve my tennis.’

‘I assure you I will do what I can,’ said Poirot.

Chapter 21

Gathering Threads

‘I want to talk to you, Eileen,’ said Miss Bulstrode.

Eileen Rich followed Miss Bulstrode into the latter’s sitting-room. Meadowbank was strangely quiet. About twenty-five pupils were still there. Pupils whose parents had found it either difficult or unwelcome to fetch them. The panic-stricken rush had, as Miss Bulstrode had hoped, been checked by her own tactics. There was a general feeling that by next term everything would have been cleared up. It was much wiser of Miss Bulstrode, they felt, to close the school.

None of the staff had left. Miss Johnson fretted with too much time on her hands. A day in which there was too little to do did not in the least suit her. Miss Chadwick, looking old and miserable, wandered round in a kind of coma of misery. She was far harder hit to all appearance than Miss Bulstrode. Miss Bulstrode, indeed, managed apparently without difficulty to be completely herself, unperturbed, and with no sign of strain or collapse. The two younger mistresses were not averse to the extra leisure. They bathed in the swimming pool, wrote long letters to friends and relations and sent for cruise literature to study and compare. Ann Shapland had a good deal of time on her hands and did not appear to resent the fact. She spent a good deal of that time in the garden and devoted herself to gardening with quite unexpected efficiency. That she preferred to be instructed in the work by Adam rather than by old Briggs was perhaps a not unnatural phenomenon.

‘Yes, Miss Bulstrode?’ said Eileen Rich.

‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you,’ said Miss Bulstrode. ‘Whether this school can continue or not I do not know. What people will feel is always fairly incalculable because they will all feel differently. But the result will be that whoever feels most strongly will end by converting all the rest. So either Meadowbank is finished—’

‘No,’ said Eileen Rich, interrupting, ‘not finished.’ She almost stamped her foot and her hair immediately began coming down. ‘You mustn’t let it be stopped,’ she said. ‘It would be a sin—a crime.’