"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, Mr. 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.
"Hullo, 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 Hubhard?"
"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, 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.
