Spence looked rather uncomfortable.
‘Those foreigners!’ he seemed to be saying to himself.
‘But here,’ continued Poirot, ‘it is the opposite. Here we guess at a veiled personality—a figure still hidden in darkness. How did Mrs McGinty die? Why did she die? The answer is not to be found in studying the life of Mrs McGinty. The answer is to be found in the personality of the murderer. You agree with me there?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Superintendent Spence cautiously.
‘Someone who wanted—what? To strike down Mrs McGinty? Or to strike down James Bentley?’
The Superintendent gave a doubtful ‘H’m!’
‘Yes—yes, that is one of the first points to be decided. Who is the real victim? Who was intended to be the victim?’
Spence said incredulously: ‘You really think someone would bump off a perfectly inoffensive old woman in order to get someone else hanged for murder?’
‘One cannot make an omelette, they say, without breaking eggs. Mrs McGinty, then, may be the egg, and James Bentley is the omelette. So let me hear, now, what you know of James Bentley.’
‘Nothing much. Father was a doctor—died when Bentley was nine years old. He went to one of the smaller public schools, unfit for the Army, had a weak chest, was in one of the Ministries during the war and lived with a possessive mother.’
‘Well,’ said Poirot, ‘there are certain possibilities there…More than there are in the life history of Mrs McGinty.’
‘Do you seriously believe what you are suggesting?’
‘No, I do not believe anything as yet. But I say that there are two distinct lines of research, and that we have to decide, very soon, which is the right one to follow.’
‘How are you going to set about things, M. Poirot? Is there anything I can do?’
‘First, I should like an interview with James Bentley.’
‘That can be arranged. I’ll get on to his solicitors.’
‘After that and subject, of course, to the result, if any—I am not hopeful—of that interview, I shall go to Broadhinny. There, aided by your notes, I shall, as quickly as possible, go over that same ground where you have passed before me.’
‘In case I’ve missed anything,’ said Spence with a wry smile.
‘In case, I would prefer to say, that some circumstance should strike me in a different light to the one in which it struck you. Human reactions vary and so does human experience. The resemblance of a rich financier to a soap boiler whom I had known in Liège once brought about a most satisfactory result. But no need to go into that. What I should like to do is to eliminate one or other of the trails I indicated just now. And to eliminate the Mrs McGinty trail—trail No. 1—will obviously be quicker and easier than to attack trail No. 2. Where, now, can I stay in Broadhinny? Is there an inn of moderate comfort?’
‘There’s the Three Ducks—but it doesn’t put people up. There’s the Lamb in Cullavon three miles away—or there is a kind of a Guest House in Broadhinny itself. It’s not really a Guest House, just a rather decrepit country house where the young couple who own it take in paying guests. I don’t think,’ said Spence dubiously, ‘that it’s very comfortable.’
Hercule Poirot closed his eyes in agony.
‘If I suffer, I suffer,’ he said. ‘It has to be.’
‘I don’t know what you’ll go there as,’ continued Spence doubtfully as he eyed Poirot. ‘You might be some kind of an opera singer. Voice broken down. Got to rest. That might do.’
‘I shall go,’ said Hercule Poirot, speaking with accents of royal blood, ‘as myself.’
Spence received this pronouncement with pursed lips.
‘D’you think that’s advisable?’
‘I think it is essential! But yes, essential. Consider, cher ami, it is time we are up against. What do we know? Nothing. So the hope, the best hope, is to go pretending that I know a great deal. I am Hercule Poirot. I am the great, the unique Hercule Poirot. And I, Hercule Poirot, am not satisfied about the verdict in the McGinty case. I, Hercule Poirot, have a very shrewd suspicion of what really happened. There is a circumstance that I, alone, estimate at its true value. You see?’
‘And then?’
‘And then, having made my effect, I observe the reactions. For there should be reactions. Very definitely, there should be reactions.’
Superintendent Spence looked uneasily at the little man.
‘Look here, M. Poirot,’ he said. ‘Don’t go sticking out your neck. I don’t want anything to happen to you.’
‘But if it does, you would be proved right beyond the shadow of doubt, is it not so?’
‘I don’t want it proved the hard way,’ said Superintendent Spence.
Chapter 4
With great distaste, Hercule Poirot looked round the room in which he stood. It was a room of gracious proportions but there its attraction ended. Poirot made an eloquent grimace as he drew a suspicious finger along the top of a book case. As he had suspected—dust! He sat down gingerly on a sofa and its broken springs sagged depressingly under him. The two faded armchairs were, as he knew, little better. A large fierce-looking dog whom Poirot suspected of having mange growled from his position on a moderately comfortable fourth chair.
The room was large, and had a faded Morris wall-paper. Steel engravings of unpleasant subjects hung crookedly on the walls with one or two good oil paintings. The chair-covers were both faded and dirty, the carpet had holes in it and had never been of a pleasant design. A good deal of miscellaneous bric-à-brac was scattered haphazard here and there. Tables rocked dangerously owing to absence of castors. One window was open, and no power on earth could, apparently, shut it again. The door, temporarily shut, was not likely to remain so. The latch did not hold, and with every gust of wind it burst open and whirling gusts of cold wind eddied round the room.
‘I suffer,’ said Hercule Poirot to himself in acute self-pity. ‘Yes, I suffer.’
The door burst open and the wind and Mrs Summerhayes came in together. She looked round the room, shouted ‘What?’ to someone in the distance and went out again.
Mrs Summerhayes had red hair and an attractively freckled face and was usually in a distracted state of putting things down, or else looking for them.
Hercule Poirot sprang to his feet and shut the door.
A moment or two later it opened again and Mrs Summerhayes reappeared. This time she was carrying a large enamel basin and a knife.
A man’s voice from some way away called out:
‘Maureen, that cat’s been sick again. What shall I do?’
Mrs Summerhayes called: ‘I’m coming, darling. Hold everything.’
She dropped the basin and the knife and went out again.
Poirot got up again and shut the door. He said:
‘Decidedly, I suffer.’
A car drove up, the large dog leaped from the chair and raised its voice in a crescendo of barking. He jumped on a small table by the window and the table collapsed with a crash.
‘Enfin,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘C’est insupportable!’
The door burst open, the wind surged round the room, the dog rushed out, still barking. Maureen’s voice came, upraised loud and clear.
‘Johnnie, why the hell did you leave the back door open! Those bloody hens are in the larder.’
‘And for this,’ said Hercule Poirot with feeling, ‘I pay seven guineas a week!’
The door banged to with a crash. Through the window came the loud squawking of irate hens.
Then the door opened again and Maureen Summerhayes came in and fell upon the basin with a cry of joy.
‘Couldn’t think where I’d left it. Would you mind frightfully, Mr Er—hum—I mean, would it bother you if I sliced the beans in here? The smell in the kitchen is too frightful.’
‘Madame, I should be enchanted.’
It was not, perhaps, the exact phrase, but it was near enough. It was the first time in twenty-four hours that Poirot had seen any c
hance of a conversation of more than six seconds’ duration.
Mrs Summerhayes flung herself down in a chair and began slicing beans with frenzied energy and considerable awkwardness.
‘I do hope,’ she said, ‘that you’re not too frightfully uncomfortable? If there’s anything you want altered, do say so.’
Poirot had already come to the opinion that the only thing in Long Meadows he could even tolerate was his hostess.
‘You are too kind, madame,’ he replied politely. ‘I only wish it were within my powers to provide you with suitable domestics.’
‘Domestics!’ Mrs Summerhayes gave a squeal. ‘What a hope! Can’t even get hold of a daily. Our really good one was murdered. Just my luck.’
‘That would be Mrs McGinty,’ said Poirot quickly.
‘Mrs McGinty it was. God, how I miss that woman! Of course it was all a big thrill at the time. First murder we’ve ever had right in the family, so to speak, but as I told Johnnie, it was a downright bit of bad luck for us. Without McGinty I just can’t cope.’
‘You were attached to her?’
‘My dear man, she was reliable. She came. Monday afternoons and Thursday mornings—just like a clock. Now I have that Burp woman from up by the station. Five children and a husband. Naturally she’s never here. Either the husband’s taken queer, or the old mother, or the children have some foul disease or other. With old McGinty, at least it was only she herself who came over queer, and I must say she hardly ever did.’
‘And you found her always reliable and honest? You had trust in her?’
‘Oh, she’d never pinch anything—not even food. Of course she snooped a bit. Had a look at one’s letters and all that. But one expects that sort of thing. I mean they must live such awfully drab lives, mustn’t they?’
‘Had Mrs McGinty had a drab life?’
‘Ghastly, I expect,’ said Mrs Summerhayes vaguely. ‘Always on your knees scrubbing. And then piles of other people’s washing-up waiting for you on the sink when you arrive in the morning. If I had to face that every day, I’d be positively relieved to be murdered. I really would.’
The face of Major Summerhayes appeared at the window. Mrs Summerhayes sprang up, upsetting the beans, and rushed across to the window, which she opened to the fullest extent.
‘That damned dog’s eaten the hens’ food again, Maureen.’
‘Oh damn, now he’ll be sick!’
‘Look here,’ John Summerhayes displayed a colander full of greenery, ‘is this enough spinach?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Seems a colossal amount to me.’
‘It’ll be about a teaspoonful when it’s cooked. Don’t you know by now what spinach is like?’
‘Oh Lord!’
‘Has the fish come?’
‘Not a sign of it.’
‘Hell, we’ll have to open a tin of something. You might do that, Johnnie. One of the ones in the corner cupboard. That one we thought was a bit bulged. I expect it’s quite all right really.’
‘What about the spinach?’
‘I’ll get that.’
She leaped through the window, and husband and wife moved away together.
‘Nom d’un nom d’un nom!’ said Hercule Poirot. He crossed the room and closed the window as nearly as he could. The voice of Major Summerhayes came to him borne on the wind.
‘What about this new fellow, Maureen? Looks a bit peculiar to me. What’s his name again?’
‘I couldn’t remember it just now when I was talking to him. Had to say Mr Er-um. Poirot—that’s what it is. He’s French.’
‘You know, Maureen, I seem to have seen that name somewhere.’
‘Home Perm, perhaps. He looks like a hairdresser.’ Poirot winced.
‘N-no. Perhaps it’s pickles. I don’t know. I’m sure it’s familiar. Better get the first seven guineas out of him, quick.’
The voices died away.
Hercule Poirot picked up the beans from the floor where they had scattered far and wide. Just as he finished doing so, Mrs Summerhayes came in again through the door.
He presented them to her politely:
‘Voici, madame.’
‘Oh, thanks awfully. I say, these beans look a bit black. We store them, you know, in crocks, salted down. But these seem to have gone wrong. I’m afraid they won’t be very nice.’
‘I, too, fear that…You permit that I shut the door? There is a decided draught.’
‘Oh yes, do. I’m afraid I always leave doors open.’
‘So I have noticed.’
‘Anyway, that door never stays shut. This house is practically falling to pieces. Johnnie’s father and mother lived here and they were badly off, poor dears, and they never did a thing to it. And then when we came home from India to live here, we couldn’t afford to do anything either. It’s fun for the children in the holidays, though, lots of room to run wild in, and the garden and everything. Having paying guests here just enables us to keep going, though I must say we’ve had a few rude shocks.’
‘Am I your only guest at present?’
‘We’ve got an old lady upstairs. Took to her bed the day she came and has been there ever since. Nothing the matter with her that I can see. But there she is, and I carry up four trays a day. Nothing wrong with her appetite. Anyway, she’s going tomorrow to some niece or other.’
Mrs Summerhayes paused for a moment before resuming in a slightly artificial voice.
‘The fishman will be here in a minute. I wonder if you’d mind—er—forking out the first week’s rent. You are staying a week, aren’t you?’
‘Perhaps longer.’
‘Sorry to bother you. But I’ve not got any cash in the house and you know what these people are like—always dunning you.’
‘Pray do not apologize, madame.’ Poirot took out seven pound notes and added seven shillings. Mrs Summerhayes gathered the money up with avidity.
‘Thanks a lot.’
‘I should, perhaps, madame, tell you a little more about myself. I am Hercule Poirot.’
The revelation left Mrs Summerhayes unmoved.
‘What a lovely name,’ she said kindly. ‘Greek, isn’t it?’
‘I am, as you may know,’ said Poirot, ‘a detective.’ He tapped his chest. ‘Perhaps the most famous detective there is.’
Mrs Summerhayes screamed with amusement.
‘I see you’re a great practical joker, M. Poirot. What are you detecting? Cigarette ash and footprints?’
‘I am investigating the murder of Mrs McGinty,’ said Poirot. ‘And I do not joke.’
‘Ouch,’ said Mrs Summerhayes, ‘I’ve cut my hand.’
She raised a finger and inspected it.
Then she stared at Poirot.
‘Look here,’ she said. ‘Do you mean it? What I mean is, it’s all over, all that. They arrested that poor half-wit who lodged there and he’s been tried and convicted and everything. He’s probably been hanged by now.’
‘No, madame,’ said Poirot. ‘He has not been hanged—yet. And it is not “over”—the case of Mrs McGinty. I will remind you of the line from one of your poets. “A question is never settled until it is settled—right.”’
‘Oo,’ said Mrs Summerhayes, her attention diverted from Poirot to the basin in her lap. ‘I’m bleeding over the beans. Not too good as we’ve got to have them for lunch. Still it won’t matter really because they’ll go into boiling water. Things are always all right if you boil them, aren’t they? Even tins.’
‘I think,’ said Hercule Poirot quietly, ‘that I shall not be in for lunch.’
Chapter 5
‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ said Mrs Burch.
She had said that three times already. Her natural distrust of foreign-looking gentlemen with black moustaches, wearing large fur-lined coats was not to be easily overcome.
‘Very unpleasant, it’s been,’ she went on. ‘Having poor auntie murdered and the police and all that. Tramping round everywhere, and ferreting about
, and asking questions. With the neighbours all agog. I didn’t feel at first we’d ever live it down. And my husband’s mother’s been downright nasty about it. Nothing of that kind ever happened in her family, she kept saying. And “poor Joe” and all that. What about poor me? She was my aunt, wasn’t she? But really I did think it was all over now.’
‘And supposing that James Bentley is innocent, after all?’
‘Nonsense,’ snapped Mrs Burch. ‘Of course he isn’t innocent. He did it all right. I never did like the looks of him. Wandering about muttering to himself. Said to auntie, I did: “You oughtn’t to have a man like that in the house. Might go off his head,” I said. But she said he was quiet and obliging and didn’t give trouble. No drinking, she said, and he didn’t even smoke. Well, she knows better now, poor soul.’
Poirot looked thoughtfully at her. She was a big, plump woman with a healthy colour and a good-humoured mouth. The small house was neat and clean and smelt of furniture polish and Brasso. A faint appetizing smell came from the direction of the kitchen.
A good wife who kept her house clean and took the trouble to cook for her man. He approved. She was prejudiced and obstinate but, after all, why not? Most decidedly, she was not the kind of woman one could imagine using a meat chopper on her aunt, or conniving at her husband’s doing so. Spence had not thought her that kind of woman, and rather reluctantly, Hercule Poirot agreed with him. Spence had gone into the financial background of the Burches and had found no motive there for murder, and Spence was a very thorough man.
He sighed, and persevered with his task, which was the breaking down of Mrs Burch’s suspicion of foreigners. He led the conversation away from murder and focused on the victim of it. He asked questions about ‘poor auntie’, her health, her habits, her preferences in food and drink, her politics, her late husband, her attitude to life, to sex, to sin, to religion, to children, to animals.
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