Mrs McGinty's Dead hp-28

by Agatha Christie

  He held out the faded photograph of a simpering girl with roses.

  "Yes," said Poirot. "It is Eva Kane. And on the back of it are written two words in pencil. Shall I tell you what they are? 'My mother'…"

  His eyes, grave and accusing, rested on Maureen Summerhayes. She pushed back the hair from her face and stared at him with wide bewildered eyes.

  "I don't understand. I never -"

  "No, Mrs Summerhayes, you do not understand. There can be only two reasons for keeping this photograph after the second murder. The first of them is an innocent sentimentality. You had no feeling of guilt and so you could keep the photograph. You told us yourself, at Mrs Carpenter's house one day, that you were an adopted child. I doubt whether you have ever known what your real mother's name was. But somebody else knew. Somebody who has all the pride of family – a pride that makes him cling to his ancestral home, a pride in his ancestors and his lineage. That man would rather die than have the world – and his children – know that Maureen Summerhayes is the daughter of the murderer Craig and of Eva Kane. That man, I have said, would rather die. But that would not help, would it? So instead let us say that we have here a man who is prepared to kill."

  Johnnie Summerhayes got up from his seat. His voice, when he spoke, was quiet, almost friendly.

  "Rather a lot of nonsense you're talkin', aren't you? Enjoying yourself spouting out a lot of theories? Theories that's all they are! Saying things about my wife -"

  His anger broke suddenly in a furious tide.

  "You damned filthy swine -"

  The swiftness of his rush across the floor took the room unawares. Poirot skipped back nimbly and Superintendent Spence was suddenly between Poirot and Summerhayes.

  "Now, now, Major Summerhayes, take it easy – take it easy -"

  Summerhayes recovered himself, shrugged, said:

  "Sorry. Ridiculous really! After all – anyone can stick a photograph in a drawer."

  "Precisely," said Poirot. "And the interesting thing about this photograph is that it has no fingerprints on it." He paused, then nodded his head gently.

  "But it should have had," he said. "If Mrs Summerhayes kept it, she would have kept it innocently, and so her fingerprints should have been on it."

  Maureen exclaimed:

  "I think you're mad. I've never seen that photograph in my life – except at Mrs Upward's that day."

  "It is fortunate for you," said Poirot, "that I know that you are speaking the truth. The photograph was put into that drawer only a few minutes before I found it there. Twice that morning the contents of that drawer were tumbled on to the ground, twice I replaced them; the first time the photograph was not in the drawer, the second time it was. It had been placed there during that interval – and I know by whom."

  A new note crept into his voice. He was no longer a ridiculous little man with an absurd moustache and dyed hair, he was a hunter very close to his quarry.

  "The crimes were committed by a man – they were commited for the simplest of all reasons – for money. In Mrs Upward's house there was a book found and on the flyleaf of that book is written Evelyn Hope. Hope was the name Eva Kane took when she left England. If her real name was Evelyn then in all probability she gave the name of Evelyn to her child when it was born. But Evelyn is a man's name as well as a woman's. Why had we assumed that Eva Kane's child was a girl? Roughly because the Sunday Companion said so! But actually the Sunday Companion had not said so in so many words, it had assumed it because of a to romantic interview with Eva Kane. But Eva Kane left England before her child was born – so nobody could say what the sex of the child would be.

  "That is where I let myself be misled. By the romantic inaccuracy of the Press.

  "Evelyn Hope, Eva Kane's son, comes to England. He is talented and he attracts the attention of a very rich woman who knows nothing about his origin – only the romantic story he chooses to tell her. (A very pretty little story it was – all about a tragic young ballerina dying of tuberculosis in Paris!)

  "She is a lonely woman who has recently lost her own son. The talented young playwright takes her name by deed poll.

  "But your real name is Evelyn Hope, isn't it, Mr Upward?"

  Robin Upward cried out shrilly:

  "Of course it isn't! I don't know what you're talking about."

  "You really cannot hope to deny it. There are people who know you under that name. The name Evelyn Hope, written in the book, is in your handwriting – the same handwriting as the words 'my mother' on the back of this photograph. Mrs McGinty saw the photograph and the writing on it when she was tidying your things away. She spoke to you about it after reading the Sunday Companion. Mrs McGinty assumed that it was a photograph of Mrs Upward when young, since she had no idea Mrs Upward was not your real mother. But you knew that if once she mentioned the matter so that it came to Mrs Upward's ears, it would be the end. Mrs Upward had quite fanatical views on the subject of heredity. She would not tolerate for a moment an adopted son who was the son of a famous murderer. Nor would she forgive your lies on the subject.

  "So Mrs McGinty had at all costs to be silenced. You promised her a little present, perhaps, for being discreet. You called on her the next evening on your way to broadcast – and you killed her! Like this…"

  With a sudden movement, Poirot seized the sugar hammer from the shelf and whirled it round and down as though to bring it crashing down on Robin's head.

  So menacing was the gesture that several of the circle cried out.

  Robin Upward screamed. A high terrified scream.

  He yelled: "Don't… don't… It was an accident. I swear it was an accident. I didn't mean to kill her. I lost my head. I swear I did."

  "You washed off the blood and put the sugar hammer back in this room where you had found it. But there are new scientific methods of determining blood stains – and of bringing up latent fingerprints."

  "I tell you I never meant to kill her… It was all a mistake… And anyway it isn't my fault… I'm not responsible. It's in my blood. I can t help it. You can't hang me for something that isn't my fault…"

  Under his breath Spence muttered: "Can't we? You see if we don't!"

  Aloud he spoke in a grave official voice:

  "I must warn you, Mr Upward, that anything you say…"

  Chapter 26

  "I really don't see, M. Poirot, how ever you came to suspect Robin Upward."

  Poirot looked complacently at the faces turned towards him.

  He always enjoyed explanations.

  "I ought to have suspected him much sooner. The clue, such a simple clue, was the sentence uttered by Mrs Summerhayes at the cocktail party that day. She said to Robin Upward: 'I don't like being adopted, do you?' Those were the revealing two words. Do you? They meant – they could only mean – that Mrs Upward was not Robin's own mother.

  "Mrs Upward was morbidly anxious herself that no one should know that Robin was not her own son. She had probably heard too many ribald comments on brilliant young men who live with and upon elderly women. And very few people did know – only the small theatrical coterie where she had first come across Robin. She had few intimate friends in this country, having lived abroad so long, and she chose in any case to come and settle down here far away from her own Yorkshire. Even when she met friends of the old days, she did not enlighten them when they assumed that this Robin was the same Robin they had known as a little boy.

  "But from the very first something had struck me as not quite natural in the household at Laburnums. Robin's attitude to Mrs Upward was not that of either a spoiled child, or of a devoted son. It was the attitude of a protégé to a patron. The rather fanciful title of Madre had a theatrical touch. And Mrs Upward, though she was clearly very fond of Robin, nevertheless unconsciously treated him as a prized possession that she had bought and paid for.

  "So there is Robin Upward, comfortably established, with 'Madre's' purse to back his ventures, and then into his assured world comes Mrs McGinty who has
recognised the photograph that he keeps in a drawer – the photograph with 'my mother' written on the back of it. His mother, whom he has told Mrs Upward was a talented young ballet dancer who died of tuberculosis! Mrs McGinty, of course, thinks that the photograph is of Mrs Upward when young, since she assumes as a matter of course that Mrs Upward is Robin's own mother. I do not think that actual blackmail ever entered Mrs McGinty's mind, but she did hope, perhaps, for a 'nice little present,' as a reward for holding her tongue about a piece of bygone gossip which would not have been pleasant for a 'proud' woman like Mrs Upward.

  "But Robin Upward was taking no chances. He purloins the sugar hammer, laughingly referred to as a perfect weapon for murder by Mrs Summerhayes, and on the following evening, he stops at Mrs McGinty's cottage on his way to broadcast. She takes him into the parlour, quite unsuspicious, and he kills her. He knows where she keeps her savings – everyone in Broadhinny seems to know – and he fakes a burglary, hiding the money outside the house. Bentley is suspected and arrested. Everything is now safe for clever Robin Upward.

  "But then, suddenly, I produce four photographs, and Mrs Upward recognises the one of Eva Kane as being identical with a photograph of Robin's ballerina mother! She needs a little time to think things out. Murder is involved. Can it be possible that Robin -? No, she refuses to believe it.

  "What action she would have taken in the end we do not know. But Robin was taking no chances. He plans the whole mise en scène. The visit to the Rep on Janet's night out, the telephone calls, the coffee cup carefully smeared with lipstick taken from Eve Carpenter's bag, he even buys a bottle of her distinctive perfume. The whole thing was a theatrical scene setting with prepared props. Whilst Mrs Oliver waited in the car, Robin ran back twice into the house. The murder was a matter of seconds. After that there was only the swift distribution of the 'props.' And with Mrs Upward dead, he inherited a large fortune by the terms of her will, and no suspicion could attach to him since it would seem quite certain that a woman had committed the crime. With three women visiting the cottage that night, one of them was almost sure to be suspected. And that, indeed, was so.

  "But Robin, like all criminals, was careless and over confident. Not only was there a book in the cottage with his original name scribbled in it, but he also kept, for purposes of his own, the fatal photograph. It would have been much safer for him if he had destroyed it, but he clung to the belief that he could use it to incriminate someone else at the right moment.

  "He probably thought then of Mrs Summerhayes. That may be the reason he moved out of the cottage and into Long Meadows. After all, the sugar hammer was hers, and Mrs Summerhayes was, he knew, an adopted child and might find it hard to prove she was not Eva Kane's daughter.

  "However, when Deirdre Henderson admitted having been on the scene of the crime, he conceived the idea of planting the photograph amongst her possessions. He tried to do so, using a ladder that the gardener had left against the window. But Mrs Wetherby was nervous and had insisted on all the windows being kept locked, so Robin did not succeed in his purpose. He came straight back here and put the photograph in a drawer which, unfortunately for him, I had searched only a short time before.

  "I knew, therefore, that the photograph had been planted, and I knew by whom – by the only other person in the house – that person who was typing industriously over my head.

  "Since the name Evelyn Hope had been written on the flyleaf of the book from the cottage, Evelyn Hope must be either Mrs Upward – or Robin Upward…

  "The name Evelyn had led me astray – I had connected it with Mrs Carpenter since her name was Eve. But Evelyn was a man's name as well as a woman's.

  "I remembered the conversation Mrs Oliver had told me about at the Little Rep in Cullenquay. The young actor who had been talking to her was the person I wanted to confirm my theory – the theory that Robin was not Mrs Upward's own son. For by the way he had talked, it seemed clear that he knew the real facts. And his story of Mrs Upward's swift retribution on a young man who had deceived her as to his origins was suggestive.

  "The truth is that I ought to have seen the whole thing very much sooner. I was handicapped by a serious error. I believed that I had been deliberately pushed with the intention of sending me on to a railway line – and that the person who had done so was the murderer of Mrs McGinty. Now Robin Upward was practically the only person in Broadhinny who could not have been at Kilchester station at that time."

  There was a sudden chuckle from Johnnie Summerhayes.

  "Probably some old market woman with a basket. They do shove."

  Poirot said:

  "Actually, Robin Upward was far too conceited to fear me at all. It is a characteristic of murderers. Fortunately, perhaps. For in this case there was very little evidence."

  Mrs Oliver stirred.

  "Do you mean to say," she demanded incredulously, "that Robin murdered his mother whilst I sat outside in the car, and that I hadn't the least idea of it? There wouldn't have been time!"

  "Oh yes, there would. People's ideas of time are usually ludicrously wrong. Just notice some time how swiftly a stage can be reset. In this case it was mostly a matter of props."

  "Good theatre," murmured Mrs Oliver mechanically.

  "Yes, it was pre-eminently a theatrical murder. All very much contrived."

  "And I sat there in the car – and hadn't the least idea!"

  "I am afraid," murmured Poirot, "that your woman's intuition was taking a day off…"

  Chapter 27

  "I'm not going back to Breather Scuttle," said Maude Williams. "They're a lousy firm anyway."

  "And they have served their purpose."

  "What do you mean by that, M. Poirot?"

  "Why did you come to this part of the world?"

  "I suppose being Mr Knowall, you think you know?"

  "I have a little idea."

  "And what is this famous idea?"

  Poirot was looking meditatively at Maude's hair.

  "I have been very discreet," he said. "It has been assumed that the woman who went into Mrs Upward's house, the fair-haired woman that Edna saw, was Mrs Carpenter, and that she has denied being there simply out of fright. Since it was Robin Upward who killed Mrs Upward, her presence has no more significance than that of Miss Henderson. But all the same I do not think she was there. I think, Miss Williams, that the woman Edna saw was you."

  "Why me?"

  Her voice was hard.

  Poirot countered with another question.

  "Why were you so interested in Broadhinny? Why, when you went over there, did you ask Robin Upward for an autograph – you are not the autograph-hunting type. What did you know about the Upwards? Why did you come to this part of the world in the first place? How did you know that Eva Kane died in Australia and the name she took when she left England?"

  "Good at guessing, aren't you? Well, I've nothing to hide, not really."

  She opened her handbag. From a worn notecase she pulled out a small newspaper cutting frayed with age. It showed the face that Poirot by now knew so well, the simpering of Eva Kane.

  Written across it were the words, She killed my mother…

  Poirot handed it back to her.

  "Yes, I thought so. Your real name is Craig?"

  Maude nodded.

  "I was brought up by some cousins – very decent they were. But I was old enough when it all happened not to forget. I used to think about it a good deal. About her. She was a nasty bit of goods all right – children know! My father was just – weak. And besotted by her. But he took the rap. For something, I've always believed, that she did. Oh yes, I know he's an accessory after the fact – but it's not quite the same thing, is it? I always meant to find out what had become of her. When I was grown up, I got detectives on to it. They traced her to Australia and finally reported that she was dead. She'd left a son – Evelyn Hope he called himself.

  "Well, that seemed to close the account. But then I got pally with a young actor chap. He mention
ed someone called Evelyn Hope who'd come from Australia, but who now called himself Robin Upward and who wrote plays. I was interested. One night Robin Upward was pointed out to me – and he was with his mother. So I thought that, after all, Eva Kane wasn't dead. Instead, she was queening it about with a packet of money.

  "I got myself a job down here. I was curious – and a bit more than curious. All right, I'll admit it, I thought I'd like to get even with her in some way… When you brought up all this business about James Bentley, I jumped to the conclusion that it was Mrs Upward who'd killed Mrs McGinty. Eva Kane up to her tricks again. I happened to hear from Michael West that Robin Upward and Mrs Oliver were coming over to this show at the Cullenquay Rep. I decided to go to Broadhinny and beard the woman. I meant – I don't quite know what I meant. I'm telling you everything – I took a little pistol I had in the war with me. To frighten her? Or more? Honestly, I don't know…

  "Well, I got there. There was no sound in the house. The door was unlocked. I went in. You know how I found her. Sitting there dead, her face all purple and swollen. All the things I'd been thinking seemed silly and melodramatic. I knew that I'd never, really, want to kill anyone when it came to it. But I did realise that it might be awkward to explain what I'd been doing in the house. It was a cold night and I'd got gloves on, so I knew I hadn't left any fingerprints, and I didn't think for a moment anyone had seen me. That's all." She paused and added abruptly: "What are you going to do about it?"

  "Nothing," said Hercule Poirot. "I wish you good luck in life, that is all."

  Epilogue

  Hercule Poirot and Superintendent Spence were celebrating at the La Vielle Grand'mère.

  As coffee was served Spence leaned back in his chair and gave a deep sigh of repletion.

  "Not at all bad grub here," he said approvingly. "A bit frenchified, perhaps, but after all where can you get a decent steak and chips nowadays?"