Lansquenet's paintings, rapturised over by Miss Gilchrist, dismissed scornfully by Susan. 'Just like picture postcards,' she had said. 'She did them from postcards, too.'
Miss Gilchrist had been quite upset by that and had said sharply that dear Mrs Lansquenet always painted from Nature.
'But I bet she cheated,' said Susan to Poirot when Miss Gilchrist had gone out of the room. 'In fact I know she did, though I won't upset the old pussy by saying so.'
'And how do you know?'
Poirot watched the strong confident line of Susan's chin.
'She will always be sure, this one,' he thought. 'And perhaps sometime, she will be too sure…'
Susan was going on.
'I'll tell you, but don't pass it on to the Gilchrist. One picture is of Polflexan, the cove and the lighthouse and the pier – the usual aspect that all amateur artists sit down and sketch. But the pier was blown up in the war, and since Aunt Cora's sketch was done a couple of years ago, it can't very well be from Nature, can it? But the postcards they sell there still show the pier as it used to be. There was one in her bedroom drawer. So Aunt Cora started her 'rough sketch' down there, I expect, and then finished it surreptitiously later at home from a postcard! It's funny, isn't it, the way people get caught out?'
'Yes, it is, as you say, funny.' He paused, and then thought that the opening was a good one.
'You do not remember me, Madame,' he said, 'but I remember you. This is not the first time that I have seen you.'
She stared at him. Poirot nodded with great gusto.
'Yes, yes, it is so. I was inside an automobile, well wrapped up and from the window I saw you. You were talking to one of the mechanics in the garage. You do not notice me – it is natural I am inside the car – an elderly muffled-up foreigner! But I notice you, for you are young and agreeable to look at and you stand there in the sun. So when I arrive here, I say to myself, 'Tiens! what a coincidence!''
'A garage? Where? When was this?'
'Oh, a little time ago – a week – no, more. For the moment,' said Poirot disingenuously and with a full recollection of the King's Arms garage in his mind, 'I cannot remember where. I travel so much all over this country.'
'Looking for a suitable house to buy for your refugees?'
'Yes. There is so much to take into consideration, you see. Price – neighbourhood – suitability for conversion.'
'I suppose you'll have to pull the house about a lot? Lots of horrible partitions.'
'In the bedrooms, yes, certainly. But most of the ground floor rooms we shall not touch.' He paused before going on. 'Does it sadden you, Madame, that this old family mansion of yours should go this way – to strangers?'
'Of course not.' Susan looked amused. 'I think it's an excellent idea. It's an impossible place for anybody to think of living in as it is. And I've nothing to be sentimental about. It's not my old home. My mother and father lived in London. We just came here for Christmas sometimes. Actually I've always thought it quite hideous – an almost indecent temple to wealth.'
'The altars are different now. There is the building in, and the concealed lighting and the expensive simplicity. But wealth still has its temples, Madame. I understand – I am not, I hope, indiscreet – that you yourself are planning such an edifice? Everything de luxe – and no expense spared.'
Susan laughed.
'Hardly a temple – it's just a place of business.'
'Perhaps the name does not matter… But it will cost much money – that is true, is it not?'
'Everything's wickedly expensive nowadays. But the initial outlay will be worth while, I think.'
'Tell me something about these plans of yours. It amazes me to find a beautiful young woman so practical, so competent. In my young days – a long time ago, I admit – beautiful women thought only of their pleasures, of cosmetics, of la toilette.'
'Women still think a great deal about their faces – that's where I come in.'
'Tell me.'
And she had told him. Told him with a wealth of detail and with a great deal of unconscious self-revelation. He appreciated her business acumen, her boldness of planning and her grasp of detail. A good bold planner, sweeping all side issues away. Perhaps a little ruthless as all those who plan boldly must be…
Watching her, he had said:
'Yes, you will succeed. You will go ahead. How fortunate that you are not restricted, as so many are, by poverty. One cannot go far without the capital outlay. To have had these creative ideas and to have been frustrated by lack of means – that would have been unbearable.'
'I couldn't have borne it! But I'd have raised money somehow or other – got someone to back me.'
'Ah! of course. Your uncle, whose house this was, was rich. Even if he had not died, he would, as you express it, have 'staked' you.'
'Oh no, he wouldn't. Uncle Richard was a bit of a stick-in-the-mud where women were concerned. If I'd been a man -' A quick flash of anger swept across her face. 'He made me very angry.'
'I see – yes, I see…'
'The old shouldn't stand in the way of the young. I – oh, I beg your pardon.'
Hercule Poirot laughed easily and twirled his moustache.
'I am old, yes. But I do not impede youth. There is no one who needs to wait for my death.'
'What a horrid idea.'
'But you are a realist, Madame. Let us admit without more ado that the world is full of the young – or even the middle-aged – who wait, patiently or impatiently, for the death of someone whose decease will give them if not affluence – then opportunity.'
' Opportunity!' Susan said, taking a deep breath. 'That's what one needs.'
Poirot who had been looking beyond her, said gaily:
'And here is your husband come to join our little discussion We talk, Mr Banks, of opportunity. Opportunity the golden – opportunity, who must be grasped with both hands. How far in conscience can one go? Let us hear your views?'
But he was not destined to hear the views of Gregory Banks on opportunity or on anything else. In fact he had found it next to impossible to talk to Gregory Banks at all. Banks had a curious fluid quality. Whether by his own wish, or by that of his wife, he seemed to have no liking for tete-a-tetes or quiet discussions. No, 'conversation' with Gregory had failed.
Poirot had talked with Maude Abernethie – also about paint (the smell of) and how fortunate it had been that Timothy had been able to come to Enderby, and how kind it had been of Helen to extend an invitation to Miss Gilchrist also.
'For really she is most useful. Timothy so often feels like a snack – and one cannot ask too much of other people's servants but there is a gas ring in a little room off the pantry, so that Miss Gilchrist can warm up Ovaltine or Benger's there without disturbing anybody. And she's so willing about fetching things, she's quite willing to run up and down stairs a dozen times a day. Oh yes, I feel that it was really quite providential that she should have lost her nerve about staying alone in the house as she did, though I admit it vexed me at the time.'
'Lost her nerve?' Poirot was interested.
He listened whilst Maude gave him an account of Miss Gilchrist's sudden collapse.
'She was frightened, you say? And yet could not exactly say why? That is interesting. Very interesting.'
'I put it down myself to delayed shock.'
'Perhaps.'
'Once, during the war, when a bomb dropped about a mile away from us, I remember Timothy -'
Poirot abstracted his mind from Timothy.
'Had anything particular happened that day?' he asked.
'On what day?' Maude looked blank.
'The day that Miss Gilchrist was upset.'
'Oh, that – no, I don't think so. It seems to have been coming on ever since she left Lychett St Mary, or so
