Mrs. McGinty's Dead

  }MRS. MCGINTY'S DEAD 29

  suspected of having had a hand in it. He thinks he'll

  keep himself out of it as long as possible, and so the

  silly juggins goes and puts himself into it—up to his

  neck."}

  }Spence paused.}

  }"It }could }have been that way."}

  "It could," said Poirot thoughtfully.

  "Or again, it may have been just the best story his counsel could think up for him. But I don't know. The waitress in the cafe in Kilchester where he usually had lunch said that he always chose a table where he could look into a wall or a corner and not see people. He was that kind of a chap—just a bit screwy. But not screwy enough to be a killer. He'd no persecution complex or anything of that kind."

  Spence looked hopefully at Poirot,—but Poirot did not respond— He was frowning.

  }The two men sat silent for a while.}

  }CHAPTER 3 } AT LAST Poirot roused himself with a sigh.}

  }"Eh bien," }he said. "We have exhausted the motive of money. Let us pass to other theories. Had Mrs Mc-Ginty an enemy? Was she afraid of anyone?"

  "No evidence of it."

  "What did her neighbours have to say?"

  "Not very much. They wouldn't to the police, per­haps, but I don't think they were holding anything back.

  }30 MRS. McGinty's DEAD

  She kept herself to herself, they said. But that's re­garded as natural enough. Our villages, you know, M. Poirot, aren't friendly. Evacuees found that during the war. Mrs McGinty passed the time of day with the neighbours but they weren't intimate."

  "How long had she lived there?"

  "Matter of eighteen or twenty years, I think."

  "And the forty years before that?"

  "There's no mystery about her. Farmer's daughter

  from North Devon. She and her husband lived near

  Ilfracombe, for a time, and then moved to Kilchester.

  Had a cottage the other side of it—but found it damp,

  so they moved to Broadhinny. Husband seems to have

  been a quiet decent man, delicate—didn't go to the pub

  much. All very respectable and aboveboard. No mys­teries anywhere, nothing to hide."

  "And yet she was killed?"

  "And yet she was killed."}

  }"The niece didn't know of anyone who had a grudge against her aunt?"

  "She says not."}

  }Poirot rubbed his nose in an exasperated fashion. "You comprehend, my dear friend, it would be so much easier if Mrs McGinty was }not }Mrs McGinty, so to speak. If she could be what is called a Mystery Woman—a woman with a past."}

  }"Well, she wasn't," said Spence stolidly. "She was just Mrs McGinty, a more or less uneducated woman, who let rooms and went out charring. Thousands of them all over England."}

  }"But they do not all get murdered." "No, I grant you that."}

  }"So why should Mrs McGinty get murdered? The obvious answer we do not accept. What remains? A shadowy and improbable niece. An even more shadowy and improbable stranger. Facts? Let us stick to facts.}

  }MRS. McGINTY'S DEAD }31

  }What are the facts? An elderly charwoman is murdered.

  A shy and uncouth young man is arrested and convicted

  of the murder. Why was James Bentley arrested?''}

  }Spence stared.}

  }"The evidence against him. I've told you—"}

  }"Yes. Evidence. But tell me, my Spence, was it real evidence or was it contrived?"}

  }"Contrived?" }

  }"Yes. Granted the premise that James Bentley is innocent, two possibilities remain. The evidence was man­ufactured, deliberately, to throw suspicion against him. Or else he was just the unfortunate victim of circumstances." ;}

  }Spence considered,}

  }"Yes. I see what you're driving at."}

  }"There is nothing to show that the former was the case. But again there is nothing to show that it was not so. The money was taken and hidden outside the house in a place easily found. To have actually hidden it in his room would have been a little too much for the police to swallow. The murder was committed at a time when Bentley was taking a lonely walk, as he often did. Did the bloodstain come on his sleeve as he said it did at his trial, or was .that, too, contrived? Did someone brush against him in the darkness and smear telltale evidence on his sleeve?"}

  }"I think that's going a bit far, M. Poirot."}

  }"Perhaps, perhaps. But we have to go far. I think that in this case we have got to go so far that the imagination cannot as yet see the path clearly . . . For, you see, }mon cher }Spence, if Mrs McGinty is just an ordinary char­woman—it is the }murderer }who must be extraordinary. Yes—that follows clearly. It is in the murderer and not the murdered that the interest of this case lies. That is not the case in most crimes. Usually it is in the person­ality of the murdered person that the crux of the situa-}

  32

  }MRS. McGINTY'S DEAD}

  tion lies. It is the silent dead in whom I am usually interested. Their hates, their loves, their actions. And when you really know the murdered victim, then the victim speaks, and those dead lips utter a name—the name you want to know."

  Spence looked rather uncomfortable.

  "These foreigners!" he seemed, to be saying to him­self.

  "But here—" continued Poirot, "it is the opposite. Here we guess at a veiled personality—a figure still hidden in darkness. How did Mrs McGinty die? Why did she die? The answer is not to be found in studying the life of Mrs McGinty. The answer is to be found in the personality of the murderer. You agree with me there?"

  "I suppose so," said Superintendent Spence cautious-ly.

  "Someone who wanted—what? To strike down Mrs McGinty? }Or to strike down James Bentley?"}

  The Superintendent gave a doubtful "Hm!"

  "Yes—yes, that is one of the first points to be de­cided. Who is the real victim? Who was intended to be the victim?"

  Spence said incredulously:

  "You really think someone would bump off a per­fectly inoffensive old woman in order to get someone else hanged for murder?"

  "One cannot make an omelette, they say, without breaking eggs. Mrs McGinty, then, may be the egg, and James Bentley is the omelette. So let me hear, now, what you know of James Bentley."

  "Nothing much. Father was a doctor—died when Bentley was nine years old. He went to one of the smaller public schools, unfit for the Army, had a weak chest, was in one of the Ministries during the war and lived with a possessive mother."

  MRS. McGINTY'S DEAD 33

  "Well," said Poirot, "there are certain possibilities

  there. . . . More than there are in the life history of

  Mrs McGinty."

  }"Do you seriously believe what you are suggesting?"}

  }"No, I do not believe anything as yet. But I say that} }there are two distinct lines of research, and that we have} }to decide, very soon, which is the right one to follow."}

  }"How are you going to set about things, M. Poirot?}

  Is there anything I cando?"

  }"First, I should like an interview with James Bentley."

  "That can be managed. Ill get on to his solicitors."

  "After that, and subject, of course, to the result, if any—(I am not hopeful)—of that interview I shall go to Broadhinny. There, aided by your notes, I shall, as quickly as possible, go over that same ground where you have passed before me."}

  }"In case I've missed anything," said Spence with a}

  }wry smile.}

  }"In case, I would prefer to say, that some circum­stance should strike me in a different light to the one in which it struck you. Human reactions vary and so does human experience. The resemblance of a rich financier to a soap boiler whom I had known in Liege once brought about a most satisfactory result. But no need to go into that. What I should like to do is to eliminate one or other of the trails I indicated just now. And to eliminate the Mrs McGinty trail—trail No 1—will obvi­
ously be quicker and easier than to attack trail No 2. Where, now, can I stay in Broadhinny? Is there an inn of moderate comfort?"}

  }"There's the Three Ducks—but it doesn't put people up. There's the Lamb in Cullavon three miles away—or there is a kind of a Guest House in Broadhinny itself. It's not really a Guest House, just a rather decrepit country house where the young couple who own it take}

  }34}

  }MRS. McGinty's DEAD}

  }in paying guests. I don't think," said Spence dubiously, "that it's very comfortable."}

  }Hercule Poirot closed his eyes in agony.}

  }"If I suffer, I suffer," he said. "It has to be."}

  }"I don't know what you'll go there as," continued Spence doubtfully as he eyed Poirot. "You might be some kind of an Opera singer. Voice broken down. Got to rest. That might do."}

  }"I shall go," said Hercule Poirot, speaking with ac­cents of Royal blood, "as Myself."}

  }Spence received this pronouncement with pursed lips.}

  }"D'you think that's advisable?"}

  }"I think it is }essential! }But yes, essential. Consider, }cher ami, }it is }time }we are up against. What do we know? Nothing. So the hope, the best hope, is to go pretending that I know a great deal. I am Hercule Poirot, I am the great, the unique Hercule Poirot. And I, Hercule Poirot, am not satisfied about the verdict in the McGinty case. I, Hercule Poirot, have a very shrewd suspicion of }what really happened. }There is a circum­stance that I, alone, estimate at its true value. You see?"}

  }"And then?"}

  }"And then, having made my effect, I observe the re­actions. For there should be reactions. Very definitely, there should be reactions."}

  }Superintendent Spence looked uneasily at the little man.}

  }"Look here, M. Poirot," he said. "Don't go sticking out your neck. I don't want anything to happen to you."}

  }"But if it does, you would be proved right beyond the shadow of doubt, is it not so?"}

  }"I don't want it proved the hard way," said Superin­tendent Spence.}

  }CHAPTER 4} } }With great distaste, Hercule Poirot looked round the room in which he stood. It was a room of gracious pro­portions but there its attraction ended. Poirot made an eloquent grimace as he drew a suspicious finger along the top of a bookcase. As he had suspected—dust! He sat down gingerly on a sofa and its broken springs sagged depressingly under him. The two faded arm­chairs were, as he knew, little better. A large fierce-looking dog whom Poirot suspected of having mange growled from his position on a moderately comfortable fourth chair.}

  }The room was large, and had a faded Morris wall­paper. Steel engravings of unpleasant subjects hung crookedly on the walls with one or two good oil paintings. The chair covers were both faded and dirty, the carpet had holes in it and had never been of a pleasant design. A good deal of miscellaneous bric-a-brac was scattered haphazard here and there. Tables rocked dangerously owing to absence of castors. One window was open, and no power on earth could, ap­parently, shut it again. The door, temporarily shut, was not likely to remain so. The latch did not hold and with every gust of wind it burst open and whirling gusts of cold wind eddied round the room.}

  }"I suffer," said Hercule Poirot to himself in acute self-pity. "Yes, I suffer."}

  35

  }36 MRS. McGINTY'S DEAD}

  }The door burst open and the wind and Mrs Summearhayes came in together. She looked round the room, shouted "What?" to someone in the distance and went out again.}

  }Mrs Summerhayes had red hair and an attractively freckled face and was usually in a distracted state of putting things down, or else looking for them.}

  }Hercule Poirot sprang to his feet and shut the door.}

  }A moment or two later it opened again and Mrs. Summerhayes reappeared. This time she was carrying a large enamel basin and a knife.}

  }A man's voice from some way away called out:}

  }"Maureen, that cat's been sick again. What shall I do?"}

  }Mrs Summerhayes called: "I'm coming, darling. Hold everything."}

  }She dropped the basin and the knife and went out again. Poirot got up again and shut the door. He said:}

  }"Decidedly, I suffer."}

  }A car drove up, the large dog leaped from the chair and raised its voice in a crescendo of barking. He jumped on a small table by the window and the table collapsed with a crash.}

  }"Enfin," }said Hercule Poirot. }"C'est insupportable!"}

  }The door burst open, the wind surged round the room, the dog rushed out, still barking. Maureen's voice came upraised loud and clear.}

  }"Johnnie, why the hell did you leave the back door open! Those bloody hens are in the larder."}

  }"And for this," said Hercule Poirot with feeling, "I pay seven guineas a week!"}

  }The door banged to with a crash. Through the win­dow came the loud squawking of irate hens.}

  }Then the door opened again and Maureen Summer­hayes came in and fell upon the basin with a cry of joy.}

  }"Couldn't think where I'd left it. Would you mind}

  }MRS. McGinty's} DEAD 37}

  }frightfully, Mr Er—hum—I mean, would it bother you if I sliced the beans in here? The smell in the kitchen is too frightful."}

  "Madame, I should be enchanted."

  }It was not, perhaps, the exact phrase, but it was near enough. It was the first time in twenty-four hours that Poirot had seen any chance of a conversation of more than six seconds' duration.}

  }Mrs Summerhayes flung herself down in a chair and began slicing beans with frenzied energy and consider­able awkwardness.}

  }"I do hope," she said, "that you're not too frightfully uncomfortable? If there's anything you want altered, do say so."}

  }Poirot had already come to the opinion that the only thing in Long Meadows he could even tolerate was his hostess.}

  }"You are too kind, Madame," he replied politely. "I only wish it were within my powers to provide you with suitable domestics."}

  }"Domestics!" Mrs Summerhayes gave a squeal. "What a hope! Can't even get hold of a }daily. }Our really good one was murdered. Just my luck."}

  "That would be Mrs McGinty.," said Poirot quickly.

  "Mrs McGinty it was. God, how I miss that woman! Of course it was all a big thrill at the time. First murder we've ever had right in the family so to speak, but as I told Johnnie, it was a downright bit of bad luck for us. Without McGinty I just can't cope,"

  "You were attached to her?"

  "My dear man, she was }reliable. }She }came. }Monday afternoons and Thursday mornings—just like a clock. Now I have that Burp woman from up by the station. Five children and a husband. Naturally she's never here. Either the husband's taken queer, or the old mother, or the children have some foul disease or other. With old

  }38}

  MRS. McGinty's DEAD

  }McGinty at least it was only she herself who came over queer and I must say, she hardly ever did."}

  }"And you found her always reliable and honest? You had trust in her?"}

  }"Oh, she'd never pinch anything—not even food. Of course she snooped a bit. Had a look at one's letters and all that. But one expects that sort of thing. I mean they must live such awfully drab lives, mustn't they?"}

  }''Had Mrs McGinty had a drab life?"}

  }"Ghastly, I expect," said Mrs Summerhayes vaguely. "Always on your knees scrubbing. And then piles of other people's washing up waiting for you on the sink when you arrive in the morning. If I had to face that every day, I'd be positively relieved to be murdered. I really would."}

  }The face of Major Summerhayes appeared at the window. Mrs Summerhayes sprang up, upsetting the beans, and rushed across to the window which she opened to the fullest extent.}

  }"That damned dog's eaten the hens' food again, Maureen."}

  }"Oh damn, now }he'll} be sick!'}

  }"Look here," John Summerhayes displayed a colan­der full of greenery, "is this enough spinach?"}

  }"Of course not."}

  }"Seems a colossal amount to me."}