through and looked up inquiringly.
"Yes, M. Poirot?" Her pencil hoqeredready
over her shorthand pad.
"What is your opinion of that letter, Miss
Lemon?"
With a slight frown Miss Lemt)n l0ut down the
pencil and read through the letter agair.
The contents of a letter meant nothing to Miss
Lemon except from the point of vieV of composing
an adequate reply. Very occasio0ally her em
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Agatha Christie
ployer appealed to her human, as opposed to
her official, capacities. It slightly annoyed Miss
Lemon when he did so--she was very nearly the
perfect machine, completely and gloriously unin-terested
in all human affairs. Her real passion in
life was the perfection of a filing system beside
which all other filing systems should sink into
oblivion. She dreamed of such a system at night.
Nevertheless, Miss Lemon was perfectly capable
of intelligence on purely human matters, as Her-cule
Poirot well knew.
"Well?" he demanded.
"Old lady," said Miss Lemon. "Got the wind
up pretty badly."
"Ah! The wind rises in her, you think9.''
Miss Lemon, who considered that Poirot had
· been long enough in Great Britain to understand
its slang terms, did not reply. She took a brief look
at the double envelope.
"Very hush-hush," she said. "And tells you
nothing at all."
"Yes," said Hercule Poirot. "I observed that."
Miss Lemon's hand hung once more hopefully
over the shorthand pad. This time Hercule Poirot
responded.
"Tell her I will do myself the honor to call upon
her at any time she suggests, unless she prefers to
consult me here. Do not type the letter--write it by
hand."
"Yes, M. Poirot."
Poirot produced more correspondence. "These
are bills."
Miss Lemon's efficient hands sorted them
quickly. "I'll pay all but these two."
HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?
"Why those two? There is no error in them."
"They are firms you've only just begun to deal
with. It looks bad to pay too promptly when
you've just opened an account--looks as though
you were working up to get some credit later on."
"Ah!" murmured Poirot. "I bow to your su-perior
knowledge of the British tradesman."
"There's nothing much I don't know about
them," said Miss Lemon grimly.
The letter to Miss Amelia Barrowby was duly
written and sent, but no reply Was forthcoming.
Perhaps, thought Hercule Poirot, the old lady had
unraveled her mystery herself. Yet he felt.a shade
of surprise that in that case she should not have
written a courteous word to say that his services
were no longer required.
It was five days later when Miss Lemon, after
receiving her morning's instructions, said, "That
Miss Barrowby we wrote to--no wonder there's
been no answer. She's dead."
Hercule Poirot said very softly, "Ah--dead."
It sounded not so much like a question as an
answer.
Opening her handbag, Miss Lemon produced a
newspaper cutting. "I saw it in the tube and tore it
out."
Just registering in his mind approval of the fact
that, though Miss Lemon used the word "tore,"
she had neatly cut the entry out with scissors,
Poirot read the announcement taken from the
Births, Deaths and Marriages in the Morning
Post: "On March 26th--suddenly--at Rosebank,
Charman's Green, Amelia Jane Barrowby, in her
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Agatha Christie
seventy-third year. No flowers, by request."
Poirot read it over. He murmured under his
breath, "Suddenly." Then he said briskly, "If
you will be so obliging as to take a letter, Miss
Lemon?"
The pencil hovered. Miss Lemon, her mind
dwelling on the intricacies of the filing system,
took down in rapid and correct shorthand:
Dear Miss Barrowby: I have received no
reply from you, but as I shall be in the neigh-borhood
of Charman's Green on Friday, I
will call upon you on that day and discuss
more fully the matter you mentioned to me in
your letter.
Yours, etc.
"Type this letter, please; and if it is posted at
once, it should get to Charman's Green tonight."
On the following morning a letter in a black-edged
envelope arrived by the second post:
Dear Sir: In reply to your letter my aunt,
Miss Barrowby, passed away on the twenty-sixth,
so the matter you speak of is no longer
of importance.
Yours truly,
MARY DELAFONTAINE.
Poirot smiled to himself. "No longer of im-portance
.... Ah--that is what we shall see. En
avant--to Charman's Green."
Rosebank was a house that seemed likely to live
up to its name, which is more than can be said for
HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?
59
most houses of its class and character.
Hercule Poirot paused as he walked up the path
to the front door and looked approvingly at the
neatly planned beds on either side of him. Rose
trees that promised a good harvest later in the
year, and at present daffodils, early tulips, blue
hyacinths--the last bed was partly edged with
shells.
Poirot murmured to himself, "How does it go,
the English rhyme the children sing?
Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With cockle-shells, and silver bells,
And pretty maids all in a row.
"Not a row, perhaps," he considered, "but
here is at least one pretty maid to make the little
rhyme come right."
The front door had opened and a neat little
maid in cap and apron was looking somewhat
dubiously at the spectacle of a heavily mustached
foreign gentleman talking aloud to himself in the
front garden. She was, as Poirot had noted, a very
pretty little maid, with round blue eyes and rosy
cheeks.
Poirot raised his hat with courtesy and addressed
her: "Pardon, but does a.Miss Amelia
Barrowby live here?"
The little maid gasped and her eyes grew
rounder. "Oh, sir, didn't you know? She's dead.
Ever so sudden it was. Tuesday night."
She hesitated, divided between two strong instincts:
the first, distrust of a foreigner; the sec
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Agatha Christie
and, the pleasurable enjoyment of her class in
dwelling on the subject of illness and death.
"You amaze me," said Hercule Poirot, not very
truthfully. "I had an appointment with the lady
for today. However, I can perhaps see the other
lady who lives here."
The little maid seemed slightly doubtful. "The
mistress? Well, you could see her, perhaps, but I
don't k
now whether she'll be seeing anyone or
not."
"She will see me," said Poirot, and handed her
a card.
The authority of his tone had its effect. The
rosy-cheeked maid fell back and ushered PoirOt
into a sitting room on the right of the hall. Then,
card in hand, she departed to summon her
mistress.
Hercule Poirot looked round him. The room
was a perfectly conventional drawing room--oatmeal-colored
paper with a frieze round the top, indeterminate
cretonnes, rose-colored cushions and
curtains, a good many china knick-knacks and ornaments.
There was nothing in the room that
stood out, that announced a definite personality.
Suddenly Poirot, who was very sensitive, felt
eyes watching him. He wheeled round. A girl was
standing in the entrance of the French window--a
small, sallow girl, with very black hair and suspicious
eyes.
She came in, and as Poirot made a little bow she
burst out abruptly, "Why have you come?"
Poirot did not reply. He merely raised his eyebrows.
"You are not a lawyer--no?" Her English was
HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?
61
good, but not for a minute would anyone have
taken her to be English.
"Why should I be a lawyer, mademoiselle?"
The girl stared at him sullenly. "I thought you
might be. I thought you had come perhaps to say
that she did not know what she was doing. I have
heard of such things--the not due influence; that
is what they call it, no? But that is not right. She
wanted me to have the money, and I shall have it.
If it is needful I shall have a lawyer of my own.
The money is mine. She wrote it down so, and so it
shall be." She looked ugly, her chin thrust out,
her eyes gleaming.
The door opened and a tall woman entered and
said, "Katrina."
The girl shrank, flushed, muttered something
and went out through the window.
Poirot turned to face the newcomer who had
so effectually dealt with the situation by uttering
a single word. There had been authority in her
voice, and contempt and a shade of well-bred
irony. He realized at once that this was the owner
of the house, Mary Delafontaine.
"M. Poirot? I wrote to you. You cannot have
received my letter."
"Alas, I have been away from London."
"Oh, I see; that explains it. I must introduce
myself. My name is Delafontaine. This is my hus-band.
Miss Barrowby was my aunt."
Mr. Delafontaine had entered so quietly that his
arrival had passed unnoticed. He was a tall man
with grizzled hair and an indeterminate manner.
He had a nervous way of fingering his chin. He
looked often toward his wife, and it was plain that
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Agatha Christie
he expected her to take the lead in any conversa-tion.
"I much regret that I intrude in the midst of
your bereavement," said Hercule Poirot.
"I quite realize that it is not your fault," said
Mrs. Delafontaine. "My aunt died on Tuesday
evening. It was quite unexpected."
"Most unexpected," said Mr. Delafontaine.
"Great blow." His eyes watched the window
where the foreign girl had disappeared.
"I apologize," said Hercule Poirot. "And I
withdraw." He moved a step toward the door.
"Half a sec," said Mr. Delafontaine. "You--er--had
an appointment with Aunt Amelia, you
say?'"
·
'Parfaiternent." .
"Perhaps you will tell us about it," said his
wife. "If there is anything we can do--"
"It was of a private nature," said Poirot. "I am
a detective," he added simply.
Mr. Delafontaine knocked over a little china
figure he was handling. His wife looked puzzled.
"A detective? And you had an appointment
with auntie? But how extraordinary!" She stared
at him. "Can't you tell us a little more, M.
Poirot? It--it seems quite fantastic."
Poirot was silent for a moment. He chose his
words with care.
"It is difficult for me, madame, to know what
to do."
"Look here," said Mr. Delafontaine. "She
didn't mention Russians, did she?"
"Russians?"
HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?
63
"Yes, you know--Bolshies, Reds, all that sort
of thing."
"Don't be absurd, Henry," said his wife.
Mr. Delafontaine collapsed. "Sorry--sorry--I
just wondered."
Mary Delafontaine looked frankly at Poirot.
Her eyes were very blue--the color of forget-menots.
"If you can tell us anything, M. Poirot, I
should be glad if you would do so. I can assure
you that I have a--a reason for asking."
Mr. Delafontaine looked alarmed. "Be careful,
old girl--you know there may be nothing in it."
Again his wife quelled him with a glance.
"Well, M. Poirot?"
Slowly, gravely, Hercule Poirot shook his head.
He shook it with visible regret, but he shook it.
"At present, madame," he said, "I fear I must
say nothing."
He bowed, picked up his hat and moved to the
door. Mary Delafontaine came with him into the
hall. On the doorstep he paused and looked at her.
"You are fond of your garden, I think, madame?"
"I? Yes, I spend a lot of time gardening."
"Je vous fait mes compliments."
He bowed once more and strode down to the
gate. As he passed out of it and turned to the right
he glanced back and registered two impressions
--a sallow face watching him from a first-floor
window, and a man of erect and soldierly carriage
pacing up and down on the opposite side of the
street.
Hercule Poirot nodded to himself. "Definitive
64
Agatha Chrt
rnent," he said. "There is a mouse in this hole!
What move must the cat make now?"
His decision took him to the nearest post office.
Here he put through a couple of telephone calls.
The result seemed to be satisfactory. He bent his
steps to Charman's Green police station, where he
inquired for Inspector Sims.
Inspector Sims was a big, burly man with a
hearty manner. "M. Poirot?" he inquired. "I
thought so. I've just this minute had a telephone
call through from the chief constable about you.
He said you'd be dropping in. Come into my of-fice."
The door shut, the inspector waved Poirot to
one chair, settled himself in another, and turned a
gaze of acute inquiry upon his visitor.
"You're very quick onto the mark, M. Poirot.
Come to see us about this Rosebank case almost
before we know it is a case. What put you onto
it?"
Poirot drew out the letter he had received and
handed it to the inspector. The latter read it with
some interest.
"Interest
ing," he said. "The trouble is, it might
mean so many things. Pity she couldn't have been
a little more explicit. It would have helped us
now."
"Or there might have been no need for help."
"You mean?"
"She might have been alive."
"You go as far as that, do you? H'm--I'm not
sure you're wrong."
"I pray of you, inspector, recount to me the
facts. I know nothing at all."
HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?
65
"That's easily done. Old lady was taken bad
after dinner on Tuesday night. Very alarming.
Convulsions--spasms--what not. They sent for
the doctor. By the time he arrived she was dead.
Idea was she'd died of a fit. Well, he didn't much
like the look of things. He hemmed and hawed
and put it with a bit of soft sawder, but he made it
clear that he couldn't give a death certificate. And
as far as the family go, that's where the matter
stands. They're awaiting the result of the post-mortem.
We've got a bit farther. The doctor gave
us the tip right away--he and the police surgeon
did the autopsy together--and the result is in no
doubt whatever. The old lady died of a large dose
of strychnine."
"Aha!"
The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories Page 6