Whether any of this irrelevant matter would be of use, he had no idea. He was looking through a haystack to find a needle. But, incidentally, he was learning something about Bessie Burch.
Bessie did not really know very much about her aunt. It had been a family tie, honoured as such, but without intimacy. Now and again, once a month or so, she and Joe had gone over on a Sunday to have midday dinner with auntie, and more rarely, auntie had come over to see them. They had exchanged presents at Christmas. They’d known that auntie had a little something put by, and that they’d get it when she died.
‘But that’s not to say we were needing it,’ Mrs Burch explained with rising colour. ‘We’ve got something put by ourselves. And we buried her beautiful. A real nice funeral it was. Flowers and everything.’
Auntie had been fond of knitting. She didn’t like dogs, they messed up a place, but she used to have a cat—a ginger. It strayed away and she hadn’t had one since, but the woman at the post office had been going to give her a kitten. Kept her house very neat and didn’t like litter. Kept brass a treat and washed down the kitchen floor every day. She made quite a nice thing of going out to work. One shilling and tenpence an hour—two shillings from Holmeleigh, that was Mr Carpenter’s of the Works’ house. Rolling in money, the Carpenters were. Tried to get auntie to come more days in the week, but auntie wouldn’t disappoint her other ladies because she’d gone to them before she went to Mr Carpenter’s, and it wouldn’t have been right.
Poirot mentioned Mrs Summerhayes at Long Meadows.
Oh yes, auntie went to her—two days a week. They’d come back from India where they’d had a lot of native servants and Mrs Summerhayes didn’t know a thing about a house. They tried to market-garden, but they didn’t know anything about that, either. When the children came home for the holidays, the house was just pandemonium. But Mrs Summerhayes was a nice lady and auntie liked her.
So the portrait grew. Mrs McGinty knitted, and scrubbed floors and polished brass, she liked cats and didn’t like dogs. She liked children, but not very much. She kept herself to herself.
She attended church on Sunday, but didn’t take part in any church activities. Sometimes, but rarely, she went to the pictures. She didn’t hold with goings on—and had given up working for an artist and his wife when she discovered they weren’t properly married. She didn’t read books, but she enjoyed the Sunday paper and she liked old magazines when her ladies gave them to her. Although she didn’t go much to the pictures, she was interested in hearing about film stars and their doings. She wasn’t interested in politics, but voted Conservative like her husband had always done. Never spent much on clothes, but got quite a lot given her from her ladies, and was of a saving disposition.
Mrs McGinty was, in fact, very much the Mrs McGinty that Poirot had imagined she would be. And Bessie Burch, her niece, was the Bessie Burch of Superintendent Spence’s notes.
Before Poirot took his leave, Joe Burch came home for the lunch hour. A small, shrewd man, less easy to be sure about than his wife. There was a faint nervousness in his manner. He showed less signs of suspicion and hostility than his wife. Indeed he seemed anxious to appear cooperative. And that, Poirot reflected, was very faintly out of character. For why should Joe Burch be anxious to placate an importunate foreign stranger? The reason could only be that the stranger had brought with him a letter from Superintendent Spence of the County Police.
So Joe Burch was anxious to stand in well with the police? Was it that he couldn’t afford, as his wife could, to be critical of the police?
A man, perhaps, with an uneasy conscience. Why was that conscience uneasy? There could be so many reasons—none of them connected with Mrs McGinty’s death. Or was it that, somehow or other, the cinema alibi had been cleverly faked, and that it was Joe Burch who had knocked on the door of the cottage, had been admitted by auntie and who had struck down the unsuspecting old woman? He would pull out the drawers and ransack the rooms to give the appearance of robbery, he might hide the money outside, cunningly, to incriminate James Bentley, the money that was in the Savings Bank was what he was after. Two hundred pounds coming to his wife which, for some reason unknown, he badly needed. The weapon, Poirot remembered, had never been found. Why had that not also been found on the scene of the crime? Any moron knew enough to wear gloves or rub off fingerprints. Why then had the weapon, which must have been a heavy one with a sharp edge, been removed? Was it because it could easily be identified as belonging to the Burch ménage? Was that same weapon, washed and polished, here in the house now? Something in the nature of a meat chopper, the police surgeon had said—but not, it seemed, actually a meat chopper. Something, perhaps a little unusual…a little out of the ordinary, easily identified. The police had hunted for it, but not found it. They had searched woods, dragged ponds. There was nothing missing from Mrs McGinty’s kitchen, and nobody could say that James Bentley had had anything of that kind in his possession. They had never traced any purchase of a meat chopper or any such implement to him. A small, but negative point in his favour. Ignored in the weight of other evidence. But still a point…
Poirot cast a swift glance round the rather overcrowded little sitting-room in which he was sitting.
Was the weapon here, somewhere, in this house? Was that why Joe Burch was uneasy and conciliatory?
Poirot did not know. He did not really think so. But he was not absolutely sure…
Chapter 6
I
In the offices of Messrs Breather & Scuttle, Poirot was shown, after some demur, into the room of Mr Scuttle himself.
Mr Scuttle was a brisk, bustling man, with a hearty manner.
‘Good morning. Good morning.’ He rubbed his hands. ‘Now, what can we do for you?’
His professional eye shot over Poirot, trying to place him, making, as it were, a series of marginal notes.
Foreign. Good quality clothes. Probably rich. Restaurant proprietor? Hotel manager? Films?
‘I hope not to trespass on your time unduly. I wanted to talk to you about your former employee, James Bentley.’
Mr Scuttle’s expressive eyebrows shot up an inch and dropped.
‘James Bentley. James Bentley?’ He shot out a question. ‘Press?’
‘No.’
‘And you wouldn’t be police?’
‘No. At least—not of this country.’
‘Not of this country.’ Mr Scuttle filed this away rapidly as though for future reference. ‘What’s it all about?’
Poirot, never hindered by a pedantic regard for truth, launched out into speech.
‘I am opening a further inquiry into James Bentley’s case—at the request of certain relatives of his.’
‘Didn’t know he had any. Anyway, he’s been found guilty, you know, and condemned to death.’
‘But not yet executed.’
‘While there’s life, there’s hope, eh?’ Mr Scuttle shook his head. ‘Should doubt it, though. Evidence was strong. Who are these relations of his?’
‘I can only tell you this, they are both rich and powerful. Immensely rich.’
‘You surprise me.’ Mr Scuttle was unable to help thawing slightly. The words ‘immensely rich’ had an attractive and hypnotic quality. ‘Yes, you really do surprise me.’
‘Bentley’s mother, the late Mrs Bentley,’ explained Poirot, ‘cut herself and her son off completely from her family.’
‘One of these family feuds, eh? Well, well. And young Bentley without a farthing to bless himself with. Pity these relations didn’t come to the rescue before.’
‘They have only just become aware of the facts,’ explained Poirot. ‘They have engaged me to come with all speed to this country and do everything possible.’
Mr Scuttle leaned back, relaxing his business manner.
‘Don’t know what you can do. I suppose there’s insanity? A bit late in the day—but if you got hold of the big medicos. Of course I’m not up in these things myself.’
Poirot leaned fo
rward.
‘Monsieur, James Bentley worked here. You can tell me about him.’
‘Precious little to tell—precious little. He was one of our junior clerks. Nothing against him. Seemed a perfectly decent young fellow, quite conscientious and all that. But no idea of salesmanship. He just couldn’t put a project over. That’s no good in this job. If a client comes to us with a house he wants to sell, we’re there to sell it for him. And if a client wants a house, we find him one. If it’s a house in a lonely place with no amenities, we stress its antiquity, call it a period piece—and don’t mention the plumbing! And if the house looks straight into the gasworks, we talk about amenities and facilities and don’t mention the view. Hustle your client into it—that’s what you’re here to do. All sorts of little tricks there are. “We advise you, madam, to make an immediate offer. There’s a Member of Parliament who’s very keen on it—very keen indeed. Going out to see it again this afternoon.” They fall for that every time—a Member of Parliament is always a good touch. Can’t think why! No member ever lives away from his constituency. It’s just the good solid sound of it.’ He laughed suddenly, displayed gleaming dentures. ‘Psychology—that’s what it is—just psychology.’
Poirot leapt at the word.
‘Psychology. How right you are. I see that you are a judge of men.’
‘Not too bad. Not too bad,’ said Mr Scuttle modestly.
‘So I ask you again what was your impression of James Bentley? Between ourselves—strictly between ourselves—you think he killed the old woman?’
Scuttle stared.
‘Of course.’
‘And you think, too, that it was a likely thing for him to do—psychologically speaking?’
‘Well—if you put it like that—no, not really. Shouldn’t have thought he had the guts. Tell you what, if you ask me, he was barmy. Put it that way, and it works. Always a bit soft in the head, and what with being out of a job and worrying and all that, he just went right over the edge.’
‘You had no special reason for discharging him?’
Scuttle shook his head.
‘Bad time of year. Staff hadn’t enough to do. We sacked the one who was least competent. That was Bentley. Always would be, I expect. Gave him a good reference and all that. He didn’t get another job, though. No pep. Made a bad impression on people.’
It always came back to that, Poirot thought, as he left the office. James Bentley made a bad impression on people. He took comfort in considering various murderers he had known whom most people had found full of charm.
II
‘Excuse me, do you mind if I sit down here and talk to you for a moment?’
Poirot, ensconced at a small table in the Blue Cat, looked up from the menu he was studying with a start. It was rather dark in the Blue Cat, which specialized in an old-world effect of oak and leaded panes, but the young woman who had just sat down opposite to him stood out brightly from her dark background.
She had determinedly golden hair, and was wearing an electric blue jumper suit. Moreover, Hercule Poirot was conscious of having noticed her somewhere only a short time previously.
She went on:
‘I couldn’t help, you see, hearing something of what you were saying to Mr Scuttle.’
Poirot nodded. He had realized that the partitions in the offices of Breather & Scuttle were made for convenience rather than privacy. That had not worried him, since it was chiefly publicity that he desired.
‘You were typing,’ he said, ‘to the right of the back window.’
She nodded. Her teeth shone white in an acquiescing smile. A very healthy young woman, with a full buxom figure that Poirot approved. About thirty-three or four, he judged, and by nature dark-haired, but not one to be dictated to by nature.
‘About Mr Bentley,’ she said.
‘What about Mr Bentley?’
‘Is he going to appeal? Does it mean that there’s new evidence? Oh, I’m so glad. I couldn’t—I just couldn’t believe he did it.’
Poirot’s eyebrows rose.
‘So you never thought he did it,’ he said slowly.
‘Well, not at first. I thought it must be a mistake. But then the evidence—’ She stopped.
‘Yes, the evidence,’ said Poirot.
‘There just didn’t seem anyone else who could have done it. I thought perhaps he’d gone a little mad.’
‘Did he ever seem to you a little—what shall I say—queer?’
‘Oh no. Not queer in that way. He was just shy and awkward as anyone might be. The truth was, he didn’t make the best of himself. He hadn’t confidence in himself.’
Poirot looked at her. She certainly had confidence in herself. Possibly she had enough confidence for two.
‘You liked him?’ he asked.
She flushed.
‘Yes, I did. Amy—that’s the other girl in the office—used to laugh at him and call him a drip, but I liked him very much. He was gentle and polite—and he knew a lot really. Things out of books, I mean.’
‘Ah yes, things out of books.’
‘He missed his mother. She’d been ill for years, you know. At least, not really ill, but not strong, and he’d done everything for her.’
Poirot nodded. He knew those mothers.
‘And of course she’d looked after him, too. I mean taken care of his health and his chest in winter and what he ate and all that.’
Again he nodded. He asked:
‘You and he were friends?’
‘I don’t know—not exactly. We used to talk sometimes. But after he left here, he—I—I didn’t see much of him. I wrote to him once in a friendly way, but he didn’t answer.’
Poirot said gently:
‘But you like him?’
She said rather defiantly:
‘Yes, I do…’
‘That is excellent,’ said Poirot.
His mind switched back to the day of his interview with the condemned prisoner…He saw James Bentley clearly. The mouse-coloured hair, the thin awkward body, the hands with their big knuckles and wrists, the Adam’s apple in the lean neck. He saw the furtive, embarrassed—almost sly glance. Not straightforward, not a man whose word could be trusted—a secretive, sly deceitful fellow with an ungracious, muttering way of talking…That was the impression James Bentley would give to most superficial observers. It was the impression he had given in the dock. The sort of fellow who would tell lies, and steal money, and hit an old woman over the head…
But on Superintendent Spence, who knew men, he had not made that impression. Nor on Hercule Poirot…And now here was this girl.
‘What is your name, mademoiselle?’ he asked.
‘Maude Williams. Is there anything I could do—to help?’
‘I think there is. There are people who believe, Miss Williams, that James Bentley is innocent. They are working to prove that fact. I am the person charged with that investigation, and I may tell you that I have already made considerable progress—yes, considerable progress.’
He uttered that lie without a blush. To his mind it was a very necessary lie. Someone, somewhere, had got to be made uneasy. Maude Williams would talk, and talk was like a stone in a pond, it made a ripple that went on spreading outwards.
He said: ‘You tell me that you and James Bentley talked together. He told you about his mother and his home life. Did he ever mention anyone with whom he, or perhaps his mother, was on bad terms?’
Maude Williams reflected.
‘No—not what you’d call bad terms. His mother didn’t like young women much, I gather.’
‘Mothers of devoted sons never like young women. No, I mean more than that. Some family feud, some enmity. Someone with a grudge?’
She shook her head.
‘He never mentioned anything of that kind.’
‘Did he ever speak of his landlady, Mrs McGinty?’
She shivered slightly.
‘Not by name. He said once that she gave him kippers much too often—and once he said h
is landlady was upset because she had lost her cat.’
‘Did he ever—you must be honest, please—mention that he knew where she kept her money?’
Some of the colour went out of the girl’s face, but she threw up her chin defiantly.
‘Actually, he did. We were talking about people being distrustful of banks—and he said his old landlady kept her spare money under a floorboard. He said: “I could help myself any day to it when she’s out.” Not quite as a joke, he didn’t joke, more as though he were really worried by her carelessness.’
‘Ah,’ said Poirot. ‘That is good. From my point of view, I mean. When James Bentley thinks of stealing, it presents itself to him as an action that is done behind someone’s back. He might have said, you see, “Some day someone will knock her on the head for it.”’
‘But either way, he wouldn’t be meaning it.’
‘Oh no. But talk, however light, however idle, gives away, inevitably, the sort of person you are. The wise criminal would never open his mouth, but criminals are seldom wise and usually vain and they talk a good deal—and so most criminals are caught.’
Maude Williams said abruptly:
‘But someone must have killed the old woman.’
‘Naturally.’
‘Who did? Do you know? Have you any idea?’
‘Yes,’ said Hercule Poirot mendaciously. ‘I think I have a very good idea. But we are only at the beginning of the road.’
The girl glanced at her watch.
‘I must get back. We’re only supposed to take half an hour. One-horse place, Kilchester—I’ve always had jobs in London before. You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do—really do, I mean?’
Poirot took out one of his cards. On it he wrote Long Meadows and the telephone number.
‘That is where I am staying.’
His name, he noted with chagrin, made no particular impression on her. The younger generation, he could not but feel, were singularly lacking in knowledge of notable celebrities.
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