"I had been dining here on the evening you first came to me," said Poirot reminiscently.
"Ah, a lot of water under the bridge since then. I've got to hand it to you, M. Poirot. You did the trick all right." A slight smile creased his wooden countenance. "Lucky that young man didn't realise how very little evidence we'd really got. Why, a clever counsel would have made mincemeat of it! But he lost his head completely and gave the show away. Spilt the beans and incriminated himself up to the hilt. Lucky for us!"
"It was not entirely luck," said Poirot reprovingly. "I played him, as you play the big fish! He thinks I take the evidence against Mrs Summerhayes seriously – when it is not so, he suffers the reaction and goes to pieces. And besides, he is a coward. I whirl the sugar hammer and he thinks I mean to hit him. Acute fear alway produces the truth."
"Lucky you didn't suffer from Major Summerhayes' reaction," said Spence with a grin. "Got a temper, he has, and quick on his feet. I only got between you just in time. Has he forgiven you yet?"
"Oh yes, we are the firmest friends. And I have given Mrs Summerhayes a cookery book and have also taught her personally how to make an omelette. Bon Dieu, what I suffered in that house!"
He closed his eyes.
"Complicated business, the whole thing," ruminated Spence, uninterested in Poirot's agonised memories. "Just shows how true the old saying is that everyone's got something to hide. Mrs Carpenter, now, had a narrow squeak of being arrested for murder. If ever a woman acted guilty, she did, and all for what?"
"Eh bien, what?" asked Poirot curiously.
"Just the usual business of a rather unsavoury past. She had been a taxi dancer – and a bright girl with plenty of men friends! She wasn't a war widow when she came and settled down in Broadhinny. Only what they call nowadays an 'unofficial wife.' Well, of course all that wouldn't do for a stuffed shirt like Guy Carpenter, so she'd spun him a very different sort of tale. And she was frantic lest the whole thing would come out once we started poking round into people's origins."
He sipped his coffee, and then gave a low chuckle.
"Then take the Wetherbys. Sinister sort of house. Hate and malice. Awkward frustrated sort of girl. And what's behind that? Nothing sinister. Just money! Plain pounds, shillings and pence."
"As simple as that!"
"The girl has the money – quite a lot of it. Left her by an aunt. So mother keeps tight hold of her in case she should want to marry. And stepfather loathes her because she has the dibs and pays the bills. I gather he himself has been a failure at anything he's tried. A mean cuss – and as for Mrs W., she's pure poison dissolved in sugar."
"I agree with you." Poirot nodded his head in a satisfied fashion. "It is fortunate that the girl has money. It makes her marriage to James Bentley much more easy to arrange."
Superintendent Spence looked surprised.
"Going to marry James Bentley? Deirdre Henderson? Who says so?"
"I say so," said Poirot. "I occupy myself with the affair. I have, now that our little problem is over, too much time on my hands. I shall employ myself in forwarding this marriage. As yet, the two concerned have no idea of such a thing. But they are attracted. Left to themselves, nothing would happen – but they have to reckon with Hercule Poirot. You will see! The affair will march."
Spence grinned.
"Don't mind sticking your fingers in other people's pie, do you?"
"Mon cher, that does not come well from you," said Poirot reproachfully.
"Ah, you've got me there. All the same, James Bentley is a poor stick."
"Certainly he is a poor stick! At the moment he is positively aggrieved because he is not going to be hanged."
"He ought to be down on his knees with gratitude to you," said Spence.
"Say, rather, to you. But apparently he does not think so."
"Queer cuss."
"As you say, and yet at least two women have been prepared to take an interest in him. Nature is very unexpected."
"I thought it was Maude Williams you were going to pair off with him."
"He shall make his choice," aid Poirot. "He shall – how do you say it? – award the apple. But I think that it is Deirdre Henderson that he will choose. Maude Williams has too much energy and vitality. With her he would retire even farther into his shell."
"Can't think why either of them should want him!"
"The ways of Nature are indeed inscrutable."
"All the same, you'll have your work cut out. First bringing him up to the scratch – and then prising the girl loose from poison puss mother – she'll fight you tooth and claw!"
"Success is on the side of the big battalions."
"On the side of the big moustaches, I suppose you mean."
Spence roared. Poirot stroked his moustache complacently and suggested a brandy.
"I don't mind if I do, M. Poirot."
Poirot gave the order.
"Ah," said Spence, "I knew there was something else I had to tell you. You remember the Rendell?"
"Naturally."
"Well, when we were checking up on him, something rather odd came to light. It seems that when his first wife died in Leeds where his practice was at that time, the Police there got some rather nasty anonymous letters about him. Saying, in effect, that he'd poisoned her. Of course people do say that sort of thing. She'd been attended by an outside doctor, reputable man, and he seemed to think her death was quite above board. There was nothing to go upon except the fact that they'd mutually insured their lives in each other's favour, and people do do that. Nothing for us to go upon, as I say, and yet – I wonder? What do you think?"
Poirot remembered Mrs Rendell's frightened air. Her mention of anonymous letters, and her insistence that she did not believe anything they said. He remembered, too, her certainty that his inquiry about Mrs McGinty was only a pretext.
He said," I should imagine that it was not only the Police who got anonymous letters."
"Sent them to her, too?"
"I think so. When I appeared in Broadhinny, she thought I was on her husband's track, and that the McGinty business was a pretext. Yes – and he thought so, too… That explains it! It was Dr Rendell who tried to push me under the train that night!"
"Think he'll have a shot at doing this wife in, too?"
"I think she would be wise not to insure her life in his favour," said Poirot dryly. "But if he believes we have an eye on him he will probably be prudent."
"We'll do what we can. We'll keep an eye on our doctor, and make it clear we're doing so."
Poirot raised his brandy glass.
"To Mrs Oliver," he said.
"What put her into your head suddenly?"
"Woman's intuition," said Poirot.
There was silence for a moment, then Spence said slowly:
"Robin Upward is coming up for trial next week. You know, Poirot, I can't help feeling doubtful -"
Poirot interrupted him with horror.
"Mon Dieu! You are not now doubtful about Robin Upward's guilt, are you? Do not say you want to start over again."
Superintendent Spence grinned reassuringly.
"Good Lord, no. He's a murderer all right!" He added: "Cocky enough for anything!"
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Mrs McGinty's Dead hp-28 Page 20