‘Madre—sweetest—’
‘That’s enough—you go and enjoy yourselves. I know who I’ll ask to keep me company.’
‘Who?’
‘That’s my secret,’ said Mrs Upward, her good humour restored. ‘Now stop fussing, Robin.’
‘I’ll ring up Shelagh Rendell—’
‘I’ll do my own ringing up, thank you. It’s all settled. Make the coffee before you go, and leave it by me in the percolator ready to switch on. Oh, and you might as well put out an extra cup—in case I have a visitor.’
Chapter 16
Sitting at lunch in the Blue Cat, Poirot finished outlining his instructions to Maude Williams.
‘So you understand what it is you have to look for?’
Maude Williams nodded.
‘You have arranged matters with your office?’
She laughed.
‘My auntie’s dangerously ill! I sent myself a telegram.’
‘Good. I have one more thing to say. Somewhere, in that village, we have a murderer at large. That is not a very safe thing to have.’
‘Warning me?’
‘Yes.’
‘I can take care of myself,’ said Maude Williams.
‘That,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘might be classed under the heading of Famous Last Words.’
She laughed again, a frank amused laugh. One or two heads at near tables turned around to look at her.
Poirot found himself appraising her carefully. A strong, confident young woman, full of vitality, keyed up and eager to attempt a dangerous task. Why? He thought again of James Bentley, his gentle defeated voice, his lifeless apathy. Nature was indeed curious and interesting.
Maude said:
‘You’re asking me to do it, aren’t you? Why suddenly try to put me off?’
‘Because if one offers a mission, one must be exact about what it involves.’
‘I don’t think I’m in any danger,’ said Maude confidently.
‘I do not think so at the moment. You are unknown in Broadhinny?’
Maude considered.
‘Ye-es. Yes, I should say so.’
‘You have been there?’
‘Once or twice—for the firm, of course—only once recently—that was about five months ago.’
‘Who did you see? Where did you go?’
‘I went to see an old lady—Mrs Carstairs—or Carlisle—I can’t remember her name for sure. She was buying a small property near here, and I went over to see her with some papers and some queries and a surveyor’s report which we’d got for her. She was staying at that Guest House sort of place where you are.’
‘Long Meadows?’
‘That was it. Uncomfortable-looking house with a lot of dogs.’
Poirot nodded.
‘Did you see Mrs Summerhayes, or Major Summerhayes?’
‘I saw Mrs Summerhayes, I suppose it was. She took me up to the bedroom. The old pussy was in bed.’
‘Would Mrs Summerhayes remember you?’
‘Don’t suppose so. Even if she did, it wouldn’t matter, would it? After all, one changes one’s job quite often these days. But I don’t suppose she even looked at me. Her sort don’t.’
There was a faint bitterness in Maude Williams’ voice.
‘Did you see anyone else in Broadhinny?’
Maude said rather awkwardly:
‘Well, I saw Mr Bentley.’
‘Ah, you saw Mr Bentley. By accident.’
Maude wriggled a little in her chair.
‘No, as a matter of fact, I’d sent him a p.c. Telling him I was coming that day. Asked him if he’d meet me as a matter of fact. Not that there was anywhere to go. Dead little hole. No café or cinema or anything. ’S a matter of fact we just talked in the bus stop. While I was waiting for my bus back.’
‘That was before the death of Mrs McGinty?’
‘Oh yes. But not much before, though. Because it was only a few days later that it was in all the newspapers.’
‘Did Mr Bentley speak to you at all of his landlady?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘And you spoke to no one else in Broadhinny?’
‘Well—only Mr Robin Upward. I’ve heard him talk on the wireless. I saw him coming out of his cottage and I recognized him from his pictures and I did ask him for his autograph.’
‘And he gave it to you?’
‘Oh yes, he was ever so nice about it. I hadn’t my book with me, but I’d got an odd sheet of notepaper, and he whipped out his fountain pen and wrote it at once.’
‘Do you know any of the other people in Broadhinny by sight?’
‘Well, I know the Carpenters, of course. They’re in Kilchester a lot. Lovely car they’ve got, and she wears lovely clothes. She opened a Bazaar about a month ago. They say he’s going to be our next M.P.’
Poirot nodded. Then he took from his pocket the envelope that he always carried about with him. He spread the four photographs on the table.
‘Do you recognize any of—what’s the matter?’
‘It was Mr Scuttle. Just going out of the door. I hope he didn’t see you with me. It might seem a bit odd. People are talking about you, you know. Saying you’ve been sent over from Paris—from the Sooretay or some name like that.’
‘I am Belgian, not French, but no matter.’
‘What’s this about these photographs?’ She bent over, studying them closely. ‘Rather on the old-fashioned side, aren’t they?’
‘The oldest is thirty years ago.’
‘Awfully silly, old-fashioned clothes look. Makes the women look such fools.’
‘Have you seen any of them before?’
‘D’you mean do I recognize any of the women, or do you mean have I seen the pictures?’
‘Either.’
‘I’ve an idea I’ve seen that one.’ Her finger rested against Janice Courtland in her cloche hat. ‘In some paper or other, but I can’t remember when. That kid looks a bit familiar, too. But I can’t remember when I saw them; some time ago.’
‘All those photographs appeared in the Sunday Comet on the Sunday before Mrs McGinty died.’
Maude looked at him sharply.
‘And they’ve got something to do with it? That’s why you want me to—’
She did not finish the sentence.
‘Yes,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘That is why.’
He took something else from his pocket and showed it to her. It was the cutting from the Sunday Comet.
‘You had better read that,’ he said.
She read it carefully. Her bright golden head bent over the flimsy bit of newsprint.
Then she looked up.
‘So that’s who they are? And reading this has given you ideas?’
‘You could not express it more justly.’
‘But all the same I don’t see—’ She was silent a moment, thinking. Poirot did not speak. However pleased he might be with his own ideas, he was always ready to hear other people’s ideas too.
‘You think one or other of these people is in Broadhinny?’
‘It might be, might it not?’
‘Of course. Anyone may be anywhere…’ She went on, placing her finger on Eva Kane’s pretty simpering face: ‘She’d be quite old now—about Mrs Upward’s age.’
‘About that.’
‘What I was thinking was—the sort of woman she was—there must be several people who’d have it in for her.’
‘That is a point of view,’ said Poirot slowly. ‘Yes, it is a point of view.’ He added: ‘You remember the Craig case?’
‘Who doesn’t?’ said Maude Williams. ‘Why, he’s in Madame Tussaud’s! I was only a kid at the time, but the newspapers are always bringing him up and comparing the case with other cases. I don’t suppose it will ever be forgotten, do you?’
Poirot raised his head sharply.
He wondered what brought that sudden note of bitterness into her voice.
Chapter 17
Feeling completely bewild
ered, Mrs Oliver was endeavouring to cower in the corner of a very minute theatrical dressing-room. Not being the figure to cower, she only succeeded in bulging. Bright young men, removing grease paint with towels, surrounded her and at intervals pressed warm beer upon her.
Mrs Upward, her good humour completely restored, had speeded their departure with good wishes, Robin had been assiduous in making all arrangements for her comfort before departure, running back a couple of times after they were in the car to see that all was as it should be.
On the last occasion he came back grinning.
‘Madre was just ringing off on the telephone, and the wicked old thing still won’t tell me who she was ringing up. But I bet I know.’
‘I know, too,’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘Well, who do you say?’
‘Hercule Poirot.’
‘Yes, that’s my guess, too. She’s going to pump him, Madre does like having her little secrets, doesn’t she? Now darling, about the play tonight. It’s very important that you tell me honestly just what you think of Cecil—and whether he’s your idea of Eric…’
Needless to say, Cecil Leech had not been at all Mrs Oliver’s idea of Eric. Nobody, indeed, could have been more unlike. The play itself she had enjoyed, but the ordeal of ‘going round afterwards’ was fraught with its usual terrors.
Robin, of course, was in his element. He had Cecil (at least Mrs Oliver supposed it was Cecil) pinned against the wall and was talking nineteen to the dozen. Mrs Oliver had been terrified of Cecil and much preferred somebody called Michael who was talking to her kindly at the moment. Michael, at least, did not expect her to reciprocate, in fact Michael seemed to prefer a monologue. Somebody called Peter made occasional incursions on the conversation, but on the whole it resolved itself into a stream of faintly amusing malice by Michael.
‘—too sweet of Robin,’ he was saying. ‘We’ve been urging him to come and see the show. But of course he’s completely under that terrible woman’s thumb, isn’t he? Dancing attendance. And really Robin is brilliant, don’t you think so? Quite quite brilliant. He shouldn’t be sacrificed on a Matriarchal altar. Women can be awful, can’t they? You know what she did to poor Alex Roscoff? All over him for nearly a year and then discovered that he wasn’t a Russian émigré at all. Of course he had been telling her some very tall stories, but quite amusing, and we all knew it wasn’t true, but after all why should one care?—and then when she found out he was just a little East End tailor’s son, she dropped him, my dear. I mean, I do hate a snob, don’t you? Really Alex was thankful to get away from her. He said she could be quite frightening sometimes—a little queer in the head, he thought. Her rages! Robin dear, we’re talking about your wonderful Madre. Such a shame she couldn’t come tonight. But it’s marvellous to have Mrs Oliver. All those delicious murders.’
An elderly man with a deep bass voice grasped Mrs Oliver’s hand and held it in a hot, sticky grasp.
‘How can I ever thank you?’ he said in tones of deep melancholy. ‘You’ve saved my life—saved my life many a time.’
Then they all came out into the fresh night air and went across to the Pony’s Head, where there were more drinks and more stage conversation.
By the time Mrs Oliver and Robin were driving homeward, Mrs Oliver was quite exhausted. She leaned back and closed her eyes. Robin, on the other hand, talked without stopping.
‘—and you do think that might be an idea, don’t you?’ he finally ended.
‘What?’
Mrs Oliver jerked open her eyes.
She had been lost in a nostalgic dream of home. Walls covered with exotic birds and foliage. A deal table, her typewriter, black coffee, apples everywhere…What bliss, what glorious and solitary bliss! What a mistake for an author to emerge from her secret fastness. Authors were shy, unsociable creatures, atoning for their lack of social aptitude by inventing their own companions and conversations.
‘I’m afraid you’re tired,’ said Robin.
‘Not really. The truth is I’m not very good with people.’
‘I adore people, don’t you?’ said Robin happily.
‘No,’ said Mrs Oliver firmly.
‘But you must. Look at all the people in your books.’
‘That’s different. I think trees are much nicer than people, more restful.’
‘I need people,’ said Robin, stating an obvious fact. ‘They stimulate me.’
He drew up at the gate of Laburnums.
‘You go in,’ he said. ‘I’ll put the car away.’
Mrs Oliver extracted herself with the usual difficulty and walked up the path.
‘The door’s not locked,’ Robin called.
It wasn’t. Mrs Oliver pushed it open and entered. There were no lights on, and that struck her as rather ungracious on the hostess’s part. Or was it perhaps economy? Rich people were so often economical. There was a smell of scent in the hall, something rather exotic and expensive. For a moment Mrs Oliver wondered if she were in the right house, then she found the light switch and pressed it down.
The light sprang up in the low oak-beamed square hall. The door into the sitting-room was ajar and she caught sight of a foot and leg. Mrs Upward, after all, had not gone to bed. She must have fallen asleep in her chair, and since no lights were on, she must have been asleep a long time.
Mrs Oliver went to the door and switched on the lights in the sitting-room.
‘We’re back—’ she began and then stopped.
Her hand went up to her throat. She felt a tight knot there, a desire to scream that she could not put into operation.
Her voice came out in a whisper:
‘Robin—Robin…’
It was some time before she heard him coming up the path, whistling, and then she turned quickly and ran to meet him in the hall.
‘Don’t go in there—don’t go in. Your mother—she—she’s dead—I think—she’s been killed…’
Chapter 18
I
‘Quite a neat bit of work,’ said Superintendent Spence.
His red countryman’s face was angry. He looked across to where Hercule Poirot sat gravely listening.
‘Neat and ugly,’ he said. ‘She was strangled,’ he went on. ‘Silk scarf—one of her own silk scarves, one she’d been wearing that day—just passed around the neck and the ends crossed—and pulled. Neat, quick, efficient. The thugs did it that way in India. The victim doesn’t struggle or cry out—pressure on the carotid artery.’
‘Special knowledge?’
‘Could be—need not. If you were thinking of doing it, you could read up the subject. There’s no practical difficulty. ’Specially with the victim quite unsuspicious—and she was unsuspicious.’
Poirot nodded.
‘Someone she knew.’
‘Yes. They had coffee together—a cup opposite her and one opposite the—guest. Prints had been wiped off the guest’s cup very carefully but lipstick is more difficult—there were still faint traces of lipstick.’
‘A woman, then?’
‘You expected a woman, didn’t you?’
‘Oh yes. Yes, that was indicated.’
Spence went on:
‘Mrs Upward recognized one of those photographs—the photograph of Lily Gamboll. So it ties up with the McGinty murder.’
‘Yes,’ said Poirot. ‘It ties up with the McGinty murder.’
He remembered Mrs Upward’s slightly amused expression as she had said:
‘Mrs McGinty’s dead. How did she die?
Sticking her neck out, just like I.’
Spence was going on:
‘She took an opportunity that seemed good to her—her son and Mrs Oliver were going off to the theatre. She rang up the person concerned and asked that person to come and see her. Is that how you figure it out? She was playing detective.’
‘Something like that. Curiosity. She kept her knowledge to herself, but she wanted to find out more. She didn’t in the least realize what she was doing might be dangerous.�
�� Poirot sighed. ‘So many people think of murder as a game. It is not a game. I told her so. But she would not listen.’
‘No, we know that. Well, that fits in fairly well. When young Robin started off with Mrs Oliver and ran back into the house his mother had just finished telephoning to someone. She wouldn’t say who to. Played it mysterious. Robin and Mrs Oliver thought it might be you.’
‘I wish it had been,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘You have no idea to whom it was that she telephoned?’
‘None whatever. It’s all automatic round here, you know.’
‘The maid couldn’t help you in any way?’
‘No. She came in about half-past ten—she has a key to the back door. She went straight into her own room which leads off the kitchen and went to bed. The house was dark and she assumed that Mrs Upward had gone to bed and that the others had not yet returned.’
Spence added:
‘She’s deaf and pretty crotchety as well. Takes very little notice of what goes on—and I imagine does as little work as she can with as much grumbling as possible.’
‘Not really an old faithful?’
‘Oh no! She’s only been with the Upwards a couple of years.’
A constable put his head round the door.
‘There’s a young lady to see you, sir,’ he said. ‘Says there’s something perhaps you ought to know. About last night.’
‘About last night? Send her in.’
Deirdre Henderson came in. She looked pale and strained and, as usual, rather awkward.
‘I thought perhaps I’d better come,’ she said. ‘If I’m not interrupting you or anything,’ she added apologetically.
‘Not at all, Miss Henderson.’
Spence rose and pushed forward a chair. She sat down on it squarely in an ungainly schoolgirlish sort of way.
‘Something about last night?’ said Spence encouragingly. ‘About Mrs Upward, you mean?’
‘Yes, it’s true, isn’t it, that she was murdered? I mean the post said so and the baker. Mother said of course it couldn’t be true—’ She stopped.
Mrs McGinty's Dead Page 17