Mrs McGinty's Dead hp-28

by Agatha Christie

  "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 recognise any of them?"

  "Recognize?"

  "You do not, shall I say, remember having any of those photographs before? But yes – Mrs Upward? You recognise something, do you not?"

  Mrs Upward hesitated.

  "Yes – I think -"

  "Which one?"

  Her forefinger went out and rested on the spectacled childlike 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 look on her face. She had been so deep 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 recognised one of those photographs just now."

  "I wouldn't say recognised. All old photographs look exactly alike."

  "Listen, madame. Mrs McGinty also, or so I believe, recognised 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 a rude as that."

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

  "My dear M. Poirot. Not the police. No 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.

  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 recognised 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 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 it 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 the 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 well aware of her eager sideways glance fixed on him.

  "As you say, madame," he replied noncommittally, "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 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:

  "Hullo, are you playing with the sugar cutter?"

  "Is that what it is? A sugar cutter?"

  "Yes. A sugar cutter – or a sugar hammer – I don't know what exactly is the right term. It's rather fun, isn't it? So childish with the little bird on top."

  Poirot turned the implement carefully in his hands. Made of much ornamented brass, it was shaped like an adze, heavy, with a sharp cutting edge. It was studded here and there with coloured stones, pale blue and red. On top of it was a frivolous little bird with turquoise eye.

  "Lovely thing for killing anyone, wouldn't it be?" said Maureen conversationally.

  She took it from him and aimed a murderous blow on a point in space.

  "Frightfully easy," she said. "What's that bit in the Idylls of the King? '"Mark's way," he said, and clove him to the brain.' I should think you could cleave anyone to the brain with this all right, don't you?"

  Poirot looked at her. Her freckled face was serene and cheerful.

  She said:

  "I've told Johnnie what's coming to him if I get fed up with him. I call it the wife's best friend!"

  She laughed, put the sugar hammer down and turned towards the door.

  "What did I come in here for?" she mused. "I can't remember… Bother! I'd better go and see if that pudding needs more water in the saucepan."

  Poirot's voice stopped her before she got to the door.

  "You brought this back with you from India, perhaps?"

  "Oh no," said Maureen. "I got it at the B. and B. at Christmas."

  "B. and B.?" Poirot was puzzled.

  "Bring and Buy," explained Maureen glibly. "At the Vicarage. You bring things you don't want, and you buy something. Something not too frightful if you can find it. Of course there's practically never anything you really want. I got this and that coffee pot. I like the coffee pot's nose and I liked the little bird on the hammer."

  The coffee pot was a small one of beaten copper. It had a big curving spout that struck a familiar note to Poirot.

  "I think they come from Baghdad," said Maureen. "At least I think that's what the Wetherbys said. Or it may have been Persia."

  "It was from the Wetherbys' house, then, that these came?"

  "Yea. They've got a most frightful lot of junk. I must go. That pudding."

  She went out. The door banged. Poirot picked up the sugar cutter again and took it to the window.

  On the cutting edge were faint, very faint, discolourations.

  Poirot nodded his head.

  He hesitated for a moment, then he carried the sugar hammer out of the room and up to his bedroom. There he packed it carefully in a box, did the whole thing up neatly in paper and string, and going downstairs again, left the house.

  He did not think that anyone would notice the disappearance of the sugar cutter. It was not a tidy household.

  III

  At Laburnums, collaboration was pursuing its difficult course.

  "But I really don't feel it's right making him a vegetarian, darling," Robin was objecting. "Too faddy. And definitely not glamorous."

  "I can't help it," said Mrs Oliver obstinately. "He's always been a vegetarian. He takes round a little machine for grating raw carrots and turnips."

  "But, Ariadne, precious, why?"

  "How do I know?" said Mrs Oliver crossly. "How do I know why I ever thought of the revolting man? I must have been mad! Why a Finn when I know nothing about Finland? Why a vegetarian? Why all the idiotic mannerisms he's got? These things just happen. You try something – and people seem to like it – and then you go on – and before you know where you are, you've got someone like that maddening Sven Hjerson tied to you for life. And people even write and say how fond you must be of him. Fond of him? If I met that bony, gangling, vegetable-eating Finn in real life, I'd do a better murder than any I've ever invented."

  Robin Upward gazed at her with reverence.

  "You know, Ariadne, that might be rather a marvelous idea. A real Sven Hjerson – and you murder him. You might make a Swan Song book of it – to be published after your death."

  "No fear! "said Mrs Oliver. "What about the money? Any money to be made out of murders I want now."

  "Yes. Yes. There I couldn't agree with you more."

  The harassed playwright strode up and down.

  "This Ingrid creature is getting rather tiresome," he said. "And after the cellar scene which is really going to be marvelous, I don't quite see how we're going to prevent the next scene from being rather an anticlimax."

  Mrs Oliver was silent. Scenes, she felt, were Robin Upward's headache.

  Robin shot a dissatisfied glance at her.

  That morning, in one of her frequent changes of mood, Mrs Oliver had disliked her windswept coiffure. With a brush dipped in water she had plastered her grey locks close to her skull. With her high forehead, her massive glasses, and her stern air, she was reminding Robin more and more of a school teacher who had awed his early youth. He found it more and more difficult to address her as darling, and even flinched at "Ariadne."

  He said fretfully:

  "You know, I don't feel a bit in the mood today. All that gin yesterday, perhaps. Let's scrap work and go into the question of casting. If we can get Denis Callory, of course it will be too marvelous, but he's tied up in films at the moment. And Jean Bellews for Ingrid would be just right – and she wants to play it which is so nice. Eric – as I say, I've had a brainwave for Eric. We'll go over to the Little Rep tonight, shall we? And you'l
l tell me what you think of Cecil for the part."

  Mrs Oliver agreed hopefully to this project and Robin went off to telephone.

  "There," he said returning. "That's all fixed."

  IV

  The fine morning had not lived up to its promise. Clouds had gathered and the day was oppressive with a threat of rain. As Poirot walked through the dense shrubberies to the front door of Hunter's Close, he decided that he would not like to live in this hollow valley at the foot of the hill. The house itself was closed in by trees and its walls suffocated in ivy. It needed, he thought, the woodman's axe.

  (The axe. The sugar cutter?)

  He rang the bell and after getting no response, rang it again.

  It was Deirdre Henderson who opened the door to him. She seemed surprised.

  "Oh," she said, "it's you."

  "May I come in and speak to you?"

  "I – well, yes, I suppose so."

  She led him into the small dark sitting-room where he had waited before. On the mantelpiece he recognised the big brother of the small coffee pot on Maureen's shelf. Its vast hooked nose seemed to dominate the small Western room with a hint of Eastern ferocity.

  "I'm afraid," said Deirdre in an apologetic tone, "that we're rather upset today. Our help, the German girl – she's going. She's only been here a month. Actually it seems she just took this post to get over to this country because there was someone she wanted to marry. And now they've fixed it up, and she's going straight off tonight."

  Poirot clicked his tongue.

  "Most inconsiderate."

  "It is, isn't it? My stepfather says it isn't legal. But even if it isn't legal, if she just goes off and gets married, I don't see what one can do about it. We shouldn't even have known she was going if I hadn't found her packing her clothes. She would just have walked out of the house without a word."

  "It is, alas, not an age of consideration."

  "No," said Deirdre dully. "I suppose it's not."

  She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand.

  "I'm tired," she said. "I'm very tired."

  "Yes," said Poirot gently. "I think you may be very tired."

  "What was it you wanted, M. Poirot?"

  "I wanted to ask you about a sugar hammer."