she said. She didn't seem to mind when she was there.'
And the result, Poirot thought, had been a piece of poisoned wedding cake. Not so very surprising that Miss Gilchrist was frightened after that. And even when she had removed herself to the peaceful country round Stansfield Grange, the fear had lingered. More than lingered. Grown. Why grown? Surely attending on an exacting hypochondriac like Timothy must be so exhausting that nervous fears would be likely to be swallowed up in exasperation?
But something in that house had made Miss Gilchrist afraid. What? Did she know herself?
Finding himself alone with Miss Gilchrist for a brief space before dinner, Poirot had sailed into the subject with an exaggerated foreign curiosity.
'Impossible, you comprehend, for me to mention the matter of murder to members of the family. But I am intrigued. Who would not be? A brutal crime – a sensitive artist attacked in a lonely cottage. Terrible for her family. But terrible, also, I imagine, for you. Since Mrs Timothy Abernethie gives me to understand that you were there at the time?'
'Yes, I was. And if you'll excuse me, M. Pontarlier, I don't want to talk about it.'
'I understand – oh yes, I completely understand.'
Having said this, Poirot waited. And, as he had thought, Miss Gilchrist immediately did begin to talk about it.
He heard nothing from her that he had not heard before, but he played his part with perfect sympathy, uttering little cries of comprehension and listening with an absorbed interest which Miss Gilchrist could not but help enjoy.
Not until she had exhausted the subject of what she herself had felt, and what the doctor had said, and how kind Mr Entwhistle had been, did Poirot proceed cautiously to the next point.
'You were wise, I think, not to remain alone down in that cottage.'
'I couldn't have done it, M. Pontarlier. I really couldn't have done it.'
'No. I understand even that you were afraid to remain alone in the house of Mr Timothy Abernethie whilst they came here?'
Miss Gilchrist looked guilty.
'I'm terribly ashamed about that. So foolish really. It was just a kind of panic I had – I really don't know why.'
'But of course one knows why. You had just recovered from a dastardly attempt to poison you -'
Miss Gilchrist here sighed and said she simply couldn't understand it. Why should anyone try to poison her?
'But obviously, my dear lady, because this criminal, this assassin, thought that you knew something that might lead to his apprehension by the police.'
'But what could I know? Some dreadful tramp, or semi-crazed creature.'
'If it was a tramp. It seems to me unlikely -'
'Oh, please, M. Pontarlier -' Miss Gilchrist became suddenly very upset. 'Don't suggest such things. I don't want to believe it.'
'You do not want to believe what?'
'I don't want to believe that it wasn't – I mean – that it was -'
She paused, confused.
'And yet,' said Poirot shrewdly, 'you do believe.'
'Oh, I don't. I don't!'
'But I think you do. That is why you are frightened… You are still frightened, are you not?'
'Oh, no, not since I came here. So many people. And such a nice family atmosphere. Oh, no, everything seems quite all right here.'
'It seems to me – you must excuse my interest – I am an old man, somewhat infirm and a great part of my time is given to idle speculation on matters which interest me – it seems to me that there must have been some definite occurrence at Stansfield Grange which, so to speak, brought your fears to a head. Doctors recognise nowadays how much takes place in our subconscious.'
'Yes, yes – I know they say so.'
'And I think your subconscious fears might have been brought to a point by some small concrete happening, something, perhaps, quite extraneous, serving, shall we say, as a focal point.'
Miss Gilchrist seemed to lap this up eagerly.
'I'm sure you are right,' she said.
'Now what, should you think, was this – er – extraneous circumstance?'
Miss Gilchrist pondered a moment, and then said, unexpectedly:
'I think, you know, M. Pontarlier, it was the nun.'
Before Poirot could take this up, Susan and her husband came in, closely followed by Helen.
'A nun,' thought Poirot… 'Now where, in all this, have I heard something about a nun?'
He resolved to lead the conversation on to nuns sometime in the course of the evening.
Chapter 19
The family had all been polite to M. Pontarlier, the representative of UNARCO. And how right he had been to have chosen to designate himself by initials. Everyone had accepted UNARCO as a matter of course – had even pretended to know all about it! How averse human beings were ever to admit ignorance! An exception had been Rosamund, who had asked him wonderingly: 'But what is it? I never heard of it?' Fortunately no one else had been there at the time. Poirot had explained the organisation in such a way that anyone but Rosamund would have felt abashed at having displayed ignorance of such a well-known, world-wide institution. Rosamund, however, had only said vaguely, 'Oh! refugees all over again. I'm so tired of refugees.' Thus voicing the unspoken reaction of many, who were usually too conventional to express themselves so frankly.
M. Pontarlier was, therefore, now accepted – as a nuisance but also as a nonentity. He had become, as it were, a piece of foreign decor. The general opinion was that Helen should have avoided having him here this particular weekend, but as he was here they must make the best of it. Fortunately this queer little foreigner did not seem to know much English. Quite often he did not understand what you said to him, and when everyone was speaking more or less at once he seemed completely at sea. He appeared to be interested only in refugees and post-war conditions, and his vocabulary only included those subjects. Ordinary chit-chat appeared to bewilder him. More or less forgotten by all, Hercule Poirot leant back in his chair, sipped his coffee and observed, as a cat may observe, the twitterings, and comings and goings of a flock of birds. The cat is not ready yet to make its spring.
After twenty-four hours of prowling round the house and examining its contents, the heirs of Richard Abernethie were ready to state their preferences, and, if need be, to fight for them.
The subject of conversation was, first, a certain Spode dinner dessert service off which they had just been eating dessert.
'I don't suppose I have long to live,' said Timothy in a faint melancholy voice. 'And Maude and I have no children. It is hardly worth while our burdening ourselves with useless possessions. But for sentiment's sake I should like to have the old dessert service. I remember it in the dear old days. It's out of fashion, of course, and I understand dessert services have very little value nowadays – but there it is. I shall be quite content with that – and perhaps the Boule Cabinet in the White Boudoir.'
'You're too late, Uncle,' George spoke with debonair insouciance. 'I asked Helen to mark off the Spode service to me this morning.'
Timothy became purple in the face.
'Mark it off – mark it off? What do you mean? Nothing's been settled yet. And what do you want with a dessert service. You're not married.'
'As a matter of fact I collect Spode. And this is really a splendid specimen. But it's quite all right about the Boule Cabinet, Uncle. I wouldn't have that as a gift.'
