Mrs McGinty's Dead hp-28

by Agatha Christie

  "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 thin 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 marvelous 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 homewards, 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, 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 her 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. Especially with the victim quite unsuspicious – and she was unsuspicious"

  Poirot nodded.

  "Someone she knew."

  "Yes. They'd 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 recognised 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 realise 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 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.

  "I'm afraid your mother isn't quite right there. It's true enough. Now, you wanted to make a – to tell us something?"

  Deirdre nodded.

  "Yes," she said. "You see, I was there."

  A difference crept into Spence's manner. It was, perhaps, even more gentle, but an official hardness underlay it.

  "You were there," he said. "At Laburnums. At what time?"

  "I don't know exactly," said Deirdre. "Between half-past eight and nine, I suppose. Probably nearly nine. After dinner, anyway. You see, she telephoned to me."

  "Mrs Upward telephoned to you?"

  "Yes. She said Robin and Mrs Oliver were going to the theatre in Cullenquay and that she would be all alone and would I come along and have coffee with her."

  "And you went?"

  "Yes."

  "And you – had coffee with her?"

  Deirdre shook her head.

  "No, I got there – and I knocked. But there wasn't any answer. So I opened the door and went into the hall. It was quite dark and I'd seen from outside that there was no light in the sitting-room. So I was puzzled. I called 'Mr Upward' once or twice but there was no answer. So I thought there must be some mistake."

  "What mistake did you think there could have been?"

  "I thought perhaps she'd gone to the theatre with them after all."

  "Without letting you know?"

  "That did seem queer."

  "You couldn't think of any other explanation?"

  "Well, I thought perhaps Frieda might have bungled the original message. She does get things wrong sometimes. She's a foreigner. She was excited herself last night because she was leaving."

  "What did you do, Miss Henderson?"

  "I just went away."

  "Back home?"

  "Yes – that is, I went for a little walk first. It was quite fine."

  Spence was silent for a moment or two, looking at her. He was looking, Poirot noticed, at her mouth.

  Presently he roused himself and said briskly:

  "Well, thank you, Miss Henderson. You were quite right to come and tell us this. We're much obliged to you."

  He got up and shook hands with her.

  "I thought I ought to," said Deirdre. "Mother didn't want me to."

  "Didn't she now?"

  "But I thought I'd better."

  "Quite right."

  He showed her out and came back.

  He sat down, drummed on the table and looked at Poirot.

  "No lipstick," he said. "Or is that only this morning?"

  "No, it is not only this morning. She never uses it."

  "That's odd, nowadays, isn't it?"

  "She is rather an odd kind of girl – undeveloped."

  "And no scent, either, as far as I could smell. That Mrs Oliver says there was a distinct smell of scent – expensive scent, she says – in the house last night. Robin Upward confirms that. It wasn't any scent his mother uses."

  "This girl would not use scent, I think," said Poirot.

  "I shouldn't think so either," said Spence. "Looks rather like the hockey captain from an old-fashioned girls' school – but she must be every bit of thirty, I should say."

  "Quite that."

  "Arrested development, would you say?"

  Poirot considered. Then he said it was not quite so simple as that.

  "It doesn't fit," aid Spence frowning. "No lipstick, no scent. And since she's got a perfectly good mother, and Lily Gamboll's mother was done in in a drunken brawl in Cardiff when Lily Gamboll was nine years old, I don't see how she can be Lily Gamboll. But – Mrs Upward telephoned her to come there last night – you can't get away from that." He rubbed his nose. "It isn't straightforward going."

  "What about the medical evidence?"

  "Not much help there. All the police surgeon will say definitely is that she was probably dead by half-past nine."

  "So she may have been dead when Deirdre Henderson came to Laburnums?"

  "Probably was if the girl is saying the truth. Either she is speaking the truth – or else she's a deep one. Mother didn't want her to come to us, she said. Anything there?"

  Poirot considered.

  "Not particularly. It is what Mother would say. She is the type, you comprehend, that avoids unpleasantness."

  Spence sighed.

  "So we've got Deirdre Henderson – on the spot. Or else someone who came there before Deirdre Henderson. A woman. A woman who uses lipstick and expensive scent."

  Poirot murmured: "You will inquire -"

  Spence broke in.

  "I'm inquiring! Just tactfully for the moment. We don't want to alarm anyone. What was Eve Carpenter doing last night? What was Shelagh Rendell doing last night? Ten to one they were just sitting at home. Carpenter, I know, had a political meeting."

  "Eve," said Poirot thoughtfully. "The fashions in names change, do they not? Hardly ever, nowadays, do you hear of an Eva. It has gone out. But Eve, it is popular."

  "She can afford expensive scent," said Spence, pursuing his own train of thought.

  He sighed.

  "We've got to get at more of her background. It's so convenient to be a war widow. You can turn up anywhere looking pathetic and mourning some brave young airman. Nobody likes to ask you questions."

  He turned to another subject.

  "That sugar hammer or what-not you sent along – I think you've hit the bull's-eye. It's the weapon used in the McGinty murder. Doctor agrees it s exactly suitable for the type of blow. And there has been blood on it. It was washed, of course – but they don't realise nowadays that a microscopic amount of blood will give a reaction with the latest reagents. Yes, it's human blood all right. And that again ties up with the Wetherbys and the Henderson girl. Or doesn't it?"

  "Deirdre Henderson was quite definite that the sugar hammer went to the Harvest Festival Bring and Buy."

  "And Mrs Summerhayes was equally positive it was the Christmas one?"

  "Mrs Summerhayes is never positive about anything," said Poirot gloomily. "She is a charming person, but she has no order or method in her composition. But I will tell you this – I who have lived at Long Meadows – the doors and the windows they are always open. Anyone – anyone at all, could come and take something away and later come and put it back and neither Major Summerhayes nor Mrs Summerhayes would notice. If it is not there one day, she thinks that her husband has taken it to joint a rabbit or to chop wood – and he, he would think she had taken it to chop dogmeat. In that house nobody uses the right implements – they just seize what is at hand and leave it in the wrong place. And nobody remembers anything. If I were to live like that I should be in a continual state of anxiety – but they – they do not seem to mind."

  Spence sighed.

  "Well – there's one good thing about all this – they won't execute James Bentley until this business is all cleared up. We've forwarded a letter to the Home Sec
retary'a office. It gives us what we've been wanting – time."

  "I think," said Poirot, "that I would like to see Bentley again – now that we know a little more."

  II

  There was little change in James Bentley. He was, perhaps, rather thinner, his hands were more restless – otherwise he was the same quiet, hopeless creature.

  Hercule Poirot spoke carefully. There had been some fresh evidence. The police were re-opening the case. There was, therefore, hope…

  But James Bentley was not attracted by hope.

  He said:

  "It will be all no good. What more can they find out?"

  "Your friends," said Hercule Poirot, "are working very hard."

  "My friends?" He shrugged his shoulders. "I have no friends."

  "You should not say that. You have, at the very least, two friends."

  "Two friends? I should like to know who they are."

  His tone expressed no wish for the information, merely a weary disbelief.

  "First, there is Superintendent Spence -"

  "Spence? Spence? The police superintendent who worked up the case against me? That's almost funny."

  "It is not funny. It is fortunate. Spence is a very shrewd and conscientious police officer. He likes to be very sure that he has got the right man."

  "He's sure enough of that."

  "Oddly enough, he is not. That is why, as I said, he is your friend."

  "That kind of a friend!"

  Hercule Poirot waited. Even James Bentley, he thought, must have some human attributes. Even James Bentley could not be completely devoid of ordinary human curiosity.

  And true enough, presently James Bentley said:

  "Well, who's the other?"

  "The other is Maude Williams."

  Bentley did not appear to react.

  "Maude Williams? Who is she?"

  "She worked in the office of Breather Scuttle."

  "Oh – that Miss Williams."

  "Précisément, that Miss Williams."

  "But what's it got to do with her?"

  There were moments when Hercule Poirot found the personality of James Bentley so irritating that he heartily wished that he could believe Bentley guilty of Mrs McGinty's murder. Unfortunately the more Bentley annoyed him, the more he came round to Spence's way of thinking. He found it more and more difficult to envisage Bentley's murdering anybody. James Bentley's attitude to murder would have been, Poirot felt sure, that it wouldn't be much good anyway. If cockiness, as Spence insisted, was a characteristic of murderers, Bentley was certainly no murderer.