Callory, of course it will be marvelous, but he's tied
up in films at the moment. And Jean Bellews for Ingrid}
}MRS. McGINTY'S DEAD 149}
}would be just right—and she }wants }to play it which is so nice. Eric—as I say I've had a brainwave for Eric. We'll go over to the Little Rep tonight, shall we? And you'll tell me what you think of Cecil for the part."}
}Mrs Oliver agreed hopefully to this project and Robin went off to telephone.}
}"There," he said returning. "That's all fixed."}
}4}
The fine morning had not lived up to its promise. Clouds had gathered and the day was oppressive with a threat of rain. As Poirot walked through the dense shrubberies to the front door of Hunter's Close, he decided that he would not like to live in this hollow valley at the foot of the hill. The house itself was closed in by trees and its walks suffocated in ivy. It needed, he thought, the woodman's axe.}
}(The }axe. }The sugar cutter?)}
}He rang the bell and after getting no response, rang it again.}
}It was Deirdre Henderson who opened the door to him. She seemed surprised.}
}"Oh," she said, "it's you."}
}"May I come in and speak to you?"}
}"I—well, yes, I suppose so."}
}She led him into the small dark sitting room where he had waited before. On the mantelpiece he recognised the big brother of the small coffee pot on Maureen's shelf. Its vast hooked nose seemed to dominate the small Western room with a hint of Eastern ferocity.}
}"I'm afraid," said Deirdre in an apologetic tone, "that we're rather upset to-day. Our help, the German girl— she's going. She's only been here a month'. Actually it seems she just took this post to get over to this country because there was someone she wanted to marry. And}
}150 MRS. McGINTY'S DEAD}
now they've fixed it up, and she's going straight off tonight."
}Poirot clicked his tongue.}
"Most inconsiderate."
}"It is, isn't it? My stepfather says it isn't legal. But even if it isn't legal, if she just goes off and gets married, I don't see what one can do about it. We shouldn't even have known she }was }going if I hadn't found her packing her clothes. She would just have walked out of the house without a word."}
}"It is, alas, not an age of consideration."}
"No," said Deirdre dully, "I suppose it's not.'
}She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand.}
}"I'm tired," she said. "I'm very tired."}
}"Yes," said Poirot gently. "I think you may be very tired."}
}"What was it you wanted, M, Poirot?"}
}"I wanted to ask you about a sugar hammer,'}
}"A sugar hammer?"}
}Her face was blank, uncomprehending.}
}"An instrument of brass, with a bird on it, and inlaid with blue and red and green stones." Poirot enunciated the description carefully.}
"Oh yes, I know."
}Her voice showed no interest or animation.}
"I understand it came from this house?"
}"Yes. My mother bought it in} }the bazaar at Baghdad. It's one of the things we took to the Vicarage sale."}
"The Bring and Buy sale, that is right?"
"Yes. We have a lot of} }them here. It's difficult to get people to give money, but there's usually something you can rake up and send."
"So it was here, in this house, until Christmas, and then you sent it to the Bring and Buy sale? Is that right?"
Deirdre frowned.
MRS. McGINTY'S DEAD 151
}"Not the Christmas Bring and Buy. It was the one before. The Harvest Festival one."}
}"The Harvest Festival—that would be—when? October? September?"}
}"The end of September."}
}It was very quiet in the little room. Poirot looked at the girl and she looked back at him. Her face was mild, expressionless, uninterested. Behind the blank wall of her apathy, he tried to guess what was going on. Nothing, perhaps. Perhaps she was, as she had said, just tired.. ..}
}He said, quietly, urgently:}
}"You are quite sure it was the Harvest Festival Sale? Not the Christmas one?"}
}"Quite sure."}
}Her eyes were steady, unblinking.}
}Hercule Poirot waited. He continued to wait...}
}But what he was waiting for did not come.}
}He said formally:}
}"I must not keep you any longer, Mademoiselle."}
}She went with him to the front door.}
}Presently he was walking down the drive again.}
}Two divergent statements—statements that could not possibly be reconciled.}
}Who was right? Maureen Summerhayes or Deirdre Henderson?}
}If the sugar cutter had been used as he believed it had been used, the point was vital. The Harvest Festival had been the end of September. Between then and Christmas, on November 22nd, Mrs McGinty had been killed. Whose property had the sugar cutter been at that time?}
}He went to the post office. Mrs Sweetiman was always helpful and she did her best. She'd been to both sales, she said. She always went. You picked up many a nice bit there. She helped, too, to arrange things be-}
}152 MRS.-McGINTY'S DEAD}
}forehand. Though most people brought things with them and didn't send them beforehand.}
}A brass hammer, rather like an axe, with coloured stones and a little bird? No, she couldn't rightly remember. There was such a lot of things, and so much confusion and some things snatched up at once. Well, perhaps she did remember something like that—priced at five shillings it had been and with a copper coffee pot, but the pot had got a hole in the bottom—you couldn't use it, only for ornament. But she couldn't remember when it was—some time ago. Might have been Christmas, might have been before. She hadn't been noticing....}
}She accepted Poirot's parcel. Registered? Yes.}
}She copied down the address, he noticed just a sharp flicker of interest in her keen black eyes as she handed him the receipt.}
}Hercule Poirot walked slowly up the hill, wondering to himself.}
}Of the two, Maureen Summerhayes, scatterbrained, cheerful, inaccurate, was the more likely to be wrong. Harvest or Christmas, it would be all one to her.}
}Deirdre Henderson, slow, awkward, was far more likely to be accurate in her identification of times and dates.}
}. Yet there remained that irking question.}
}Why, after his questions, hadn't she asked him }why he wanted to know? }Surely a natural, an almost inevitable, question?}
}But Deirdre Henderson hadn't asked it.}
}CHAPTER 15} }"Someone rang you UP," called Maureen from the kitchen as Poirot entered the house.}
}"Rang me up? Who was that?"}
}He was slightly surprised.}
}"Don't know. But I jotted the number down on my ration book."}
}"Thank you, Madame."}
}He went into the dining room and over to the desk. Amongst the litter of papers he found the ration book lying near the telephone and the words—Kilchester 350.}
}Raising the receiver of the telephone, he dialed the number.}
}Immediately a woman's voice said:}
}"Breather & Scuttle."}
}Poirot make a quick guess.}
}"Can I speak to Miss Maude Williams?"}
}There was a moment's interval and then a contralto voice said:}
}"Miss Williams speaking."}
}"This is Hercule Poirot. I think you rang me."}
}"Yes—yes, I did. It's about the property you were asking me about the other day."}
}"The property?" For a moment Poirot was puzzled. Then he realised that Maude's conversation was being overheard. Probably she had telephoned him before when she was alone in the office,}
}153}
}154 MRS. McGinty's DEAD}
}"I understand you, I think? It is the affair of James Bentley and Mrs McGinty's murder."}
}''That's
right. Can we do anything in the matter for you?"}
}"You want to help. You are not private where you are?"}
}"That's right."}
}"I understand. Listen carefully. You really want to help James Bentley?" .
"Yes."}
}"Would you resign your present post?"}
}There was hesitation.}
}"Yes."}
}"Would you be willing to take a domestic post? Possibly with not very congenial people."
"Yes."}
}"Could you get away at once? By to-morrow, for instance."}
}"Oh yes, M. Poirot. I think that could be managed."
"You understand what I want you to do. You would be a domestic help—to live in. You can cook?"
A faint amusement tinged the voice.
"Very well."}
}"Bon Dieu, }what a rarity! Now listen, I am coming into Kilchester at once. I will meet you in the same cafe where I met you before at lunch time."
"Yes, certainly."
Poirot rang off.}
}"An admirable young woman," he reflected. "Quickwitted, knows her own mind—perhaps, even, she can cook. ..." }
}With some difficulty he disinterred the local telephone directory from under a treatise on pigkeeping and looked up the Wetherbys' number.}
}The voice that answered him was that of Mrs Wetherby.}
}MRS. MCGINTY'S DEAD 155}
}" 'Allo. 'Allo? It is M. Poirot—you remember, Ma-dame—"}
}"I don't think I—"}
"M. Hercule Poirot."
}"Oh yes—of course—do forgive me. Rather a domestic upset to-day—"}
}"It is for that reason exactly I rang you up. I am desolated to learn of your difficulties."}
}"So ungrateful—these foreign girls. Her fare paid over here, and everything. I do so hate ingratitude."}
"Yes, yes. I do indeed sympathise. It is monstrous— that is why I hasten to tell you that I have, perhaps, a solution. By the merest chance I know of a young woman wanting a domestic post. Not, I fear, fully trained."
}"Oh, there's no such thing as training nowadays. Will she cook—so many of them won't cook."}
}"Yes—yes—she cooks. Shall I then send her to you —at least on trial. Her name is Maude Williams;"}
}"Oh please do, M. Poirot. It's most kind of yeu. Anything would be better than nothing. My husband is so particular and gets so annoyed with dear Deirdre when the household doesn't go smoothly. One can't expect men to understand how difficult everything is nowadays --I---"}
}There was an interruption. Mrs Wetherby spoke to someone entering the room and though she had placed her hand over the receiver. Poirot could hear her slightly muffled words.}
}"It's that little detective man—-knows of someone to come in to replace Frieda— No, not foreign—English, thank goodness. Very kind of him, really, he seems quite concerned about me— Oh darling, don't make objections. What does it }matter?}—You know the absurd way Roger goes on. Well, I think it's very kind— and I don't suppose she's too awful."}
}156 MRS. McGinty's DEAD}
}The asides over, Mrs Wetherby spoke with the utmost graciousness.}
}"Thank you very much, M. Poirot. We are most grateful."}
}Poirot replaced the receiver and glanced at his watch.
He went to the kitchen.}
}"Madame, I shall not be in to lunch. I have to go to Kilchester."}
}"Thank goodness," said Maureen. "I didn't get to}
}that pudding in time. It had boiled dry. I think it's}
}really all right—just a little scorched perhaps. In case}
}it tasted rather nasty I thought I would open a bottle}
}of those raspberries I put up last summer. They seem}
}to have a bit of mould on top but they say nowadays}
}that that doesn't matter. It's really good for you—}
}practically penicillin."}
}Poirot left the house, glad that scorched pudding and near-penicillin were not to-be his portion to-day. Better —far better—eat macaroni and custard and plums at the Blue Cat than the improvisations of Maureen Summerhayes.}
}2}
At Laburnums a little friction had risen.
"Of course, Robin, you never seem to remember anything when you are working on a play,"
Robin was contrite.}
}"Madre, I am most terribly sorry. I'd forgotten all about its being Janet's night out."}
}"It doesn't matter at all," said Mrs Upward coldly.
"Of course it matters. I'll ring up the Rep and tell them we'll go tomorrow night instead."}
}"You'll do nothing of the sort. You've arranged to go tonight and you'll go."
"But really—"}
MRS. }McGINTY'S DEAD }157
}"That's settled."}
}"Shall I ask Janet to go out another night?"
"Certainly }not. }She hates to have her plans disarranged."
"I'm sure she wouldn't really mind. Not if I put it to}
}her—"}
}"You'll do nothing of the sort, Robin. Please don't go upsetting Janet. And don't go on about it. I don't care to feel I'm a tiresome old woman spoiling other people's} }pleasure."}
"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 }S}itting 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?'}
}158 MRS. McGINTY'S }DEAD
}
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 round 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}
}MRS. McGINTY'S DEAD 159
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-lookin
g house with a} }lot of dogs."
Poirot nodded.
"Did you see Mrs Summerhayes, or Major Summerhayes?"}