Mrs McGinty's Dead

by Agatha Christie

  She stared down into her empty glass as though it were a crystal.

  ‘I ought to know,’ she said. ‘I was an adopted child. My mother parted with me and I had every advantage, as they call it. And it’s always hurt—always—always—to know that you weren’t really wanted, that your mother could let you go.’

  ‘It was a sacrifice for your good, perhaps,’ said Poirot.

  Her clear eyes met his.

  ‘I don’t think that’s ever true. It’s the way they put it to themselves. But what it boils down to is that they can, really, get on without you…And it hurts. I wouldn’t give up my children—not for all the advantages in the world!’

  ‘I think you’re quite right,’ said Mrs Oliver.

  ‘And I, too, agree,’ said Poirot.

  ‘Then that’s all right,’ said Maureen cheerfully. ‘What are we arguing about?’

  Robin, who had come along the terrace to join them, said:

  ‘Yes, what are you arguing about?’

  ‘Adoption,’ said Maureen. ‘I don’t like being adopted, do you?’

  ‘Well, it’s much better than being an orphan, don’t you think so, darling? I think we ought to go now, don’t you, Ariadne?’

  The guests left in a body. Dr Rendell had already had to hurry away. They walked down the hill together talking gaily with that extra hilarity that a series of cocktails induces.

  When they reached the gate of Laburnums, Robin insisted that they should all come in.

  ‘Just to tell Madre all about the party. So boring for her, poor sweet, not to have been able to go because her leg was playing her up. But she so hates being left out of things.’

  They surged in cheerfully and Mrs Upward seemed pleased to see them.

  ‘Who else was there?’ she asked. ‘The Wetherbys?’

  ‘No, Mrs Wetherby didn’t feel well enough, and that dim Henderson girl wouldn’t come without her.’

  ‘She’s really rather pathetic, isn’t she?’ said Shelagh Rendell.

  ‘I think almost pathological, don’t you?’ said Robin.

  ‘It’s that mother of hers,’ said Maureen. ‘Some mothers really do almost eat their young, don’t they?’

  She flushed suddenly as she met Mrs Upward’s quizzical eye.

  ‘Do I devour you, Robin?’ Mrs Upward asked.

  ‘Madre! Of course not!’

  To cover her confusion Maureen hastily plunged into an account of her breeding experiences with Irish wolfhounds. The conversation became technical.

  Mrs Upward said decisively:

  ‘You can’t get away from heredity—in people as well as dogs.’

  Shelagh Rendell murmured:

  ‘Don’t you think it’s environment?’

  Mrs Upward cut her short.

  ‘No, my dear, I don’t. Environment can give a veneer—no more. It’s what’s bred in people that counts.’

  Hercule Poirot’s eyes rested curiously on Shelagh Rendell’s flushed face. She said with what seemed unnecessary passion:

  ‘But that’s cruel—unfair.’

  Mrs Upward said: ‘Life is unfair.’

  The slow lazy voice of Johnnie Summerhayes joined in.

  ‘I agree with Mrs Upward. Breeding tells. That’s been my creed always.’

  Mrs Oliver said questioningly: ‘You mean things are handed down. Unto the third or fourth generation—’

  Maureen Summerhayes said suddenly in her sweet high voice:

  ‘But that quotation goes on: “And show mercy unto thousands.”’

  Once again everybody seemed a little embarrassed, perhaps at the serious note that had crept into the conversation.

  They made a diversion by attacking Poirot.

  ‘Tell us all about Mrs McGinty, M. Poirot. Why didn’t the dreary lodger kill her?’

  ‘He used to mutter, you know,’ said Robin. ‘Walking about in the lanes. I’ve often met him. And really, definitely, he looked frightfully queer.’

  ‘You must have some reason for thinking he didn’t kill her, M. Poirot. Do tell us.’

  Poirot smiled at them. He twirled his moustache.

  ‘If he didn’t kill her, who did?’

  ‘Yes, who did?’

  Mrs Upward said drily: ‘Don’t embarrass the man. He probably suspects one of us.’

  ‘One of us? Oo!’

  In the clamour Poirot’s eyes met those of Mrs Upward. They were amused and—something else—challenging?

  ‘He suspects one of us,’ said Robin delightedly. ‘Now then, Maureen,’ he assumed the manner of a bullying K.C., ‘Where were you on the night of the—what night was it?’

  ‘November 22nd,’ said Poirot.

  ‘On the night of the 22nd?’

  ‘Gracious, I don’t know,’ said Maureen.

  ‘Nobody could know after all this time,’ said Mrs Rendell.

  ‘Well, I can,’ said Robin. ‘Because I was broadcasting that night. I drove to Coalport to give a talk on Some Aspects of the Theatre. I remember because I discussed Galsworthy’s charwoman in the Silver Box at great length and the next day Mrs McGinty was killed and I wondered if the charwoman in the play had been like her.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Shelagh Rendell suddenly. ‘And I remember now because you said your mother would be all alone because it was Janet’s night off, and I came down here after dinner to keep her company. Only unfortunately I couldn’t make her hear.’

  ‘Let me think,’ said Mrs Upward. ‘Oh! Yes, of course. I’d gone to bed with a headache and my bedroom faces the back garden.’

  ‘And next day,’ said Shelagh, ‘when I heard Mrs McGinty had been killed, I thought, “Oo! I might have passed the murderer in the dark”—because at first we all thought it must have been some tramp who broke in.’

  ‘Well, I still don’t remember what I was doing,’ said Maureen. ‘But I do remember the next morning. It was the baker told us. “Old Mrs McGinty’s been done in,” he said. And there I was, wondering why she hadn’t turned up as usual.’

  She gave a shiver.

  ‘It’s horrible really, isn’t it?’ she said.

  Mrs Upward was still watching Poirot.

  He thought to himself: ‘She is a very intelligent woman—and a ruthless one. Also selfish. In whatever she did, she would have no qualms and no remorse…’

  A thin voice was speaking—urging, querulous.

  ‘Haven’t you got any clues, M. Poirot?’

  It was Shelagh Rendell.

  Johnnie Summerhayes’ long dark face lit up enthusiastically.

  ‘That’s it, clues,’ he said. ‘That’s what I like in detective stories. Clues that mean everything to the detective—and nothing to you—until the end when you fairly kick yourself. Can’t you give us one little clue, M. Poirot?’

  Laughing, pleading faces turned to him. A game to them all (or perhaps not to one of them?). But murder wasn’t a game—murder was dangerous. You never knew.

  With a sudden brusque movement, Poirot pulled out four photographs from his pocket.

  ‘You want a clue?’ he said. ‘Voilà!’

  And with a dramatic gesture he tossed them down on the table.

  They clustered round, bending over, and uttering ejaculations.

  ‘Look!’

  ‘What frightful frumps!’

  ‘Just look at the roses. “Rowses, rowses, all the way!”’

  ‘My dear, that hat!’

  ‘What a frightful child!’

  ‘But who are they?’

  ‘Aren’t fashions ridiculous?’

  ‘That woman must really have been rather good-looking once.’

  ‘But why are they clues?’

  ‘Who are they?’

  Poirot looked slowly round at the circle of faces.

  He saw nothing other than he might have expected to see.

  ‘You do not recognize any of them?’

  ‘Recognize?’

  ‘You do not, shall I say, remember having seen any of those photographs bef
ore? But yes—Mrs Upward? You recognize something, do you not?’

  Mrs Upward hesitated.

  ‘Yes—I think—’

  ‘Which one?’

  Her forefinger went out and rested on the spectacled child-like face of Lily Gamboll.

  ‘You have seen that photograph—when?’

  ‘Quite recently…Now where—no, I can’t remember. But I’m sure I’ve seen a photograph just like that.’

  She sat frowning, her brows drawn together.

  She came out of her abstraction as Mrs Rendell came to her.

  ‘Goodbye, Mrs Upward. I do hope you’ll come to tea with me one day if you feel up to it.’

  ‘Thank you, my dear. If Robin pushes me up the hill.’

  ‘Of course, Madre. I’ve developed the most tremendous muscles pushing that chair. Do you remember the day we went to the Wetherbys and it was so muddy—’

  ‘Ah!’ said Mrs Upward suddenly.

  ‘What is it, Madre?’

  ‘Nothing. Go on.’

  ‘Getting you up the hill again. First the chair skidded and then I skidded. I thought we’d never get home.’

  Laughing, they took their leave and trooped out.

  Alcohol, Poirot thought, certainly loosens the tongue.

  Had he been wise or foolish to display those photographs? Had that gesture also been the result of alcohol?

  He wasn’t sure.

  But, murmuring an excuse, he turned back.

  He pushed open the gate and walked up to the house. Through the open window on his left he heard the murmur of two voices. They were the voices of Robin and Mrs Oliver. Very little of Mrs Oliver and a good deal of Robin.

  Poirot pushed the door open and went through the right-hand door into the room he had left a few moments before. Mrs Upward was sitting before the fire. There was a rather grim look on her face. She had been so deeply in thought that his entry startled her.

  At the sound of the apologetic little cough he gave, she looked up sharply, with a start.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It’s you. You startled me.’

  ‘I am sorry, madame. Did you think it was someone else? Who did you think it was?’

  She did not answer that, merely said:

  ‘Did you leave something behind?’

  ‘What I feared I had left was danger.’

  ‘Danger?’

  ‘Danger, perhaps, to you. Because you recognized one of those photographs just now.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say recognized. All old photographs look exactly alike.’

  ‘Listen, madame. Mrs McGinty also, or so I believe, recognized one of those photographs. And Mrs McGinty is dead.’

  With an unexpected glint of humour in her eye, Mrs Upward said:

  ‘Mrs McGinty’s dead. How did she die? Sticking her neck out just like I. Is that what you mean?’

  ‘Yes. If you know anything—anything at all, tell it to me now. It will be safer so.’

  ‘My dear man, it’s not nearly so simple as that. I’m not at all sure that I do know anything—certainly nothing as definite as a fact. Vague recollections are very tricky things. One would have to have some idea of how and where and when, if you follow what I mean.’

  ‘But it seems to me that you already have that idea.’

  ‘There is more to it than that. There are various factors to be taken into consideration. Now it’s no good your rushing me, M. Poirot. I’m not the kind of person who rushes into decisions. I’ve a mind of my own, and I take time to make it up. When I come to a decision, I act. But not till I’m ready.’

  ‘You are in many ways a secretive woman, madame.’

  ‘Perhaps—up to a point. Knowledge is power. Power must only be used for the right ends. You will excuse my saying that you don’t perhaps appreciate the pattern of our English country life.’

  ‘In other words you say to me, “You are only a damned foreigner.”’

  Mrs Upward smiled slightly.

  ‘I shouldn’t be as rude as that.’

  ‘If you do not want to talk to me, there is Superintendent Spence.’

  ‘My dear M. Poirot. Not the police. Not at this stage.’

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I have warned you,’ he said.

  For he was sure that by now Mrs Upward remembered quite well exactly when and where she had seen the photograph of Lily Gamboll.

  Chapter 14

  I

  ‘Decidedly,’ said Hercule Poirot to himself the following morning, ‘the spring is here.’

  His apprehensions of the night before seemed singularly groundless.

  Mrs Upward was a sensible woman who could take good care of herself.

  Nevertheless in some curious way, she intrigued him. He did not at all understand her reactions. Clearly she did not want him to. She had recognized the photograph of Lily Gamboll and she was determined to play a lone hand.

  Poirot, pacing a garden path while he pursued these reflections, was startled by a voice behind him.

  ‘M. Poirot.’

  Mrs Rendell had come up so quietly that he had not heard her. Since yesterday he had felt extremely nervous.

  ‘Pardon, madame. You made me jump.’

  Mrs Rendell smiled mechanically. If he were nervous, Mrs Rendell, he thought, was even more so. There was a twitching in one of her eyelids and her hands worked restlessly together.

  ‘I—I hope I’m not interrupting you. Perhaps you’re busy.’

  ‘But no, I am not busy. The day is fine. I enjoy the feeling of spring. It is good to be outdoors. In the house of Mrs Summerhayes there is always, but always, the current of air.’

  ‘The current—’

  ‘What in England you call a draught.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose there is.’

  ‘The windows, they will not shut and the doors they fly open all the time.’

  ‘It’s rather a ramshackle house. And of course, the Summerhayes are so badly off they can’t afford to do much to it. I’d let it go if I were them. I know it’s been in their family for hundreds of years, but nowadays you just can’t cling on to things for sentiment’s sake.’

  ‘No, we are not sentimental nowadays.’

  There was a silence. Out of the corner of his eye, Poirot watched those nervous white hands. He waited for her to take the initiative. When she did speak it was abruptly.

  ‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘that when you are, well, investigating a thing, you’d always have to have a pretext?’

  Poirot considered the question. Though he did not look at her, he was perfectly aware of her eager sideways glance fixed on him.

  ‘As you say, madame,’ he replied non-committally. ‘It is a convenience.’

  ‘To explain your being there, and—and asking things.’

  ‘It might be expedient.’

  ‘Why—why are you really here in Broadhinny, M. Poirot?’

  He turned a mild surprised gaze on her.

  ‘But, my dear lady, I told you—to inquire into the death of Mrs McGinty.’

  Mrs Rendell said sharply:

  ‘I know that’s what you say. But it’s ridiculous.’

  Poirot raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Of course it is. Nobody believes it.’

  ‘And yet I assure you, it is a simple fact.’

  Her pale blue eyes blinked and she looked away.

  ‘You won’t tell me.’

  ‘Tell you—what, madame?’

  She changed the subject abruptly again, it seemed.

  ‘I wanted to ask you—about anonymous letters.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Poirot encouragingly as she stopped.

  ‘They’re really always lies, aren’t they?’

  ‘They are sometimes lies,’ said Poirot cautiously.

  ‘Usually,’ she persisted.

  ‘I don’t know that I would go as far as saying that.’

  Shelagh Rendell said vehemently:

  ‘They’re cowardly, treacherous,
mean things!’

  ‘All that, yes, I would agree.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t ever believe what was said in one, would you?’

  ‘That is a very difficult question,’ said Poirot gravely.

  ‘I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t believe anything of that kind.’

  She added vehemently:

  ‘I know why you’re down here. And it isn’t true, I tell you, it isn’t true.’

  She turned sharply and walked away.

  Hercule Poirot raised his eyebrows in an interested fashion.

  ‘And now what?’ he demanded of himself. ‘Am I being taken up the garden walk? Or is this the bird of a different colour?’

  It was all, he felt, very confusing.

  Mrs Rendell professed to believe that he was down here for a reason other than that of inquiring into Mrs McGinty’s death. She had suggested that that was only a pretext.

  Did she really believe that? Or was she, as he had just said to himself, leading him up the garden walk?

  What had anonymous letters got to do with it?

  Was Mrs Rendell the original of the photograph that Mrs Upward had said she had ‘seen recently’?

  In other words, was Mrs Rendell Lily Gamboll? Lily Gamboll, a rehabilitated member of society, had been last heard of in Eire. Had Dr Rendell met and married his wife there, in ignorance of her history? Lily Gamboll had been trained as a stenographer. Her path and the doctor’s might easily have crossed.

  Poirot shook his head and sighed.

  It was all perfectly possible. But he had to be sure.

  A chilly wind sprang up suddenly and the sun went in.

  Poirot shivered and retraced his steps to the house.

  Yes, he had to be sure. If he could find the actual weapon of the murder—

  And at that moment, with a strange feeling of certainty—he saw it.

  II

  Afterwards he wondered whether, subconsciously, he had seen and noted it much earlier. It had stood there, presumably, ever since he had come to Long Meadows…

  There on the littered top of the bookcase near the window.

  He thought: ‘Why did I never notice that before?’

  He picked it up, weighed it in his hands, examined it, balanced it, raised it to strike—

  Maureen came in through the door with her usual rush, two dogs accompanying her. Her voice, light and friendly, said: