Mrs. McGinty's Dead Read online

  ‘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 “Mrs 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 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,’ said 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 speaking 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 used 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 realize 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 Secretary’s 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 ve
ry 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.

  Containing himself, Poirot said:

  ‘Miss Williams interests herself in this affair. She is convinced you are innocent.’

  ‘I don’t see what she can know about it.’

  ‘She knows you.’

  James Bentley blinked. He said, grudgingly:

  ‘I suppose she does, in a way, but not well.’

  ‘You worked together in the office, did you not? You had, sometimes, meals together?’

  ‘Well—yes—once or twice. The Blue Cat Café, it’s very convenient—just across the street.’

  ‘Did you never go for walks with her?’

  ‘As a matter of fact we did, once. We walked up on the downs.’

  Hercule Poirot exploded.

  ‘Ma foi, is it a crime that I seek to drag from you? To keep the company with a pretty girl, is it not natural? Is it not enjoyable? Can you not be pleased with yourself about it?’

  ‘I don’t see why,’ said James Bentley.

  ‘At your age it is natural and right to enjoy the company of girls.’

  ‘I don’t know many girls.’

  ‘Ça se voit! But you should be ashamed of that, not smug! You knew Miss Williams. You had worked with her and talked with her and sometimes had meals with her, and once went for a walk on the downs. And when I mention her, you do not even remember her name!’

  James Bentley flushed.

  ‘Well, you see—I’ve never had much to do with girls. And she isn’t quite what you’d call a lady, is she? Oh very nice—and all that—but I can’t help feeling that Mother would have thought her common.’

  ‘It is what you think that matters.’

  Again James Bentley flushed.

  ‘Her hair,’ he said. ‘And the kind of clothes she wears—Mother, of course, was old-fashioned—’

  He broke off.

  ‘But you found Miss Williams—what shall I say—sympathetic?’

  ‘She was always very kind,’ said James Bentley slowly. ‘But she didn’t—really—understand. Her mother died when she was only a child, you see.’

  ‘And then you lost your job,’ said Poirot. ‘You couldn’t get another. Miss Williams met you once at Broadhinny, I understand?’

  James Bentley looked distressed.

  ‘Yes—yes. She was coming over there on business and she sent me a post-card. Asked me to meet her. I can’t think why. It isn’t as if I knew her at all well.’

  ‘But you did meet her?’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t want to be rude.’

  ‘And you took her to the pictures or a meal?’

  James Bentley looked scandalized.

  ‘Oh no. Nothing of that kind. We—er—just talked whilst she was waiting for her bus.’

  ‘Ah, how amusing that must have been for the poor girl!’

  James Bentley said sharply:

  ‘I hadn’t got any money. You must remember that. I hadn’t any money at all.’

  ‘Of course. It was a few days before Mrs McGinty was killed, wasn’t it?’

  James Bentley nodded. He said unexpectedly:

  ‘Yes, it was on the Monday. She was killed on Wednesday.’

  ‘I’m going to ask you something else, Mr Bentley. Mrs McGinty took the Sunday Comet?’

  ‘Yes, she did.’

  ‘Did you ever see her Sunday Comet?’

  ‘She used to offer it sometimes, but I didn’t often accept. Mother didn’t care for that kind of paper.’

  ‘So you didn’t see that week’s Sunday Comet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And Mrs McGinty didn’t speak about it, or about anything in it?’

  ‘Oh yes, she did,’ said James Bentley unexpectedly. ‘She was full of it!’

  ‘Ah la la. So she was full of it. And what did she say? Be careful. This is important.’

  ‘I don’t remember very well now. It was all about some old murder case. Craig, I think it was—no, perhaps it wasn’t Craig. Anyway, she said somebody connected with the case was living in Broadhinny now. Full of it, she was. I couldn’t see why it mattered to her.’

  ‘Did she say who it was—in Broadhinny?’

  James Bentley said vaguely:

  ‘I think it was that woman whose son writes plays.’

  ‘She mentioned her by name?’

  ‘No—I—really it’s so long ago—’

  ‘I implore you—try to think. You want to be free again, do you not?’

  ‘Free?’ Bentley sounded surprised.

  ‘Yes, free.’

  ‘I—yes—I suppose I do—’

  ‘Then think! What did Mrs McGinty say?’

  ‘Well—something like—“so pleased with herself as she is and so proud. Not so much to be proud of if all’s known.” And then, “You’d never think it was the same woman to look at the photograph.” But of course it had been taken years ago.’

  ‘But what made you sure that it was Mrs Upward of whom she was speaking?’

  ‘I really don’t know…I just formed the impression. She had been speaking of Mrs Upward—and then I lost interest and didn’t listen, and afterwards—well, now I come to think of it, I don’t really know who she was speaking about. She talked a lot you know.’

  Poirot sighed.

  He said: ‘I do not think myself that it was Mrs Upward of whom she spoke. I think it was somebody else. It is preposterous to reflect that if you are hanged it will be because you do not pay proper attention to the people with whom you converse…Did Mrs McGinty speak much to you of the houses where she worked, or the ladies of those houses?’

  ‘Yes, in a way—but it’s no good asking me. You don’t seem to realize, M. Poirot, that I had my own life to think of at the time. I was in very serious anxiety.’

  ‘Not in so much serious anxiety as you are now! Did Mrs McGinty speak of Mrs Carpenter—Mrs Selkirk she was then—or of Mrs Rendell?’

  ‘Carpenter has that new house at the top of the hill and a big car, hasn’t he? He was engaged to Mrs Selkirk—Mrs McGinty was always very down on Mrs Selkirk. I don’t know why. “Jumped up,” that’s what she used to call her. I don’t know what she meant by it.’

  ‘And the Rendells?’

 
‘He’s the doctor, isn’t he? I don’t remember her saying anything particular about them.’

  ‘And the Wetherbys?’

  ‘I do remember what she said about them. “No patience with her fusses and her fancies,” that’s what she said. And about him, “Never a word, good or bad, out of him.”’ He paused. ‘She said—it was an unhappy house.’

  Hercule Poirot looked up. For a second James Bentley’s voice had held something that Poirot had not heard in it before. He was not repeating obediently what he could recall. His mind, for a very brief space, had moved out of its apathy. James Bentley was thinking of Hunter’s Close, of the life that went on there, of whether or not it was an unhappy house. James Bentley was thinking objectively.

  Poirot said softly:

  ‘You knew them? The mother? The father? The daughter?’

  ‘Not really. It was the dog. A Sealyham. It got caught in a trap. She couldn’t get it undone. I helped her.’

  There was again something new in Bentley’s tone. ‘I helped her,’ he had said, and in those words was a faint echo of pride.

  Poirot remembered what Mrs Oliver had told him of her conversation with Deirdre Henderson.

  He said gently:

  ‘You talked together?’

  ‘Yes. She—her mother suffered a lot, she told me. She was very fond of her mother.’

  ‘And you told her about yours?’

  ‘Yes,’ said James Bentley simply.

  Poirot said nothing. He waited.

  ‘Life is very cruel,’ said James Bentley. ‘Very unfair. Some people never seem to get any happiness.’

  ‘It is possible,’ said Hercule Poirot.

  ‘I don’t think she had had much. Miss Wetherby.’

  ‘Henderson.’

  ‘Oh yes. She told me she had a stepfather.’

  ‘Deirdre Henderson,’ said Poirot. ‘Deirdre of the Sorrows. A pretty name—but not a pretty girl, I understand?’

  James Bentley flushed.

  ‘I thought,’ he said, ‘she was rather good-looking…’

  Chapter 19

  ‘Now just you listen to me,’ said Mrs Sweetiman.

  Edna sniffed. She had been listening to Mrs Sweetiman for some time. It had been a hopeless conversation, going round in circles. Mrs Sweetiman had said the same thing several times, varying the phraseology a little, but even that not much. Edna had sniffed and occasionally blubbered and had reiterated her own two contributions to the discussion: first, that she couldn’t ever! Second, that Dad would skin her alive, he would.