'I see. Mrs Banks?'
'Smart, aren't you? Yes. She was there that day. Her car was parked in that quarry.'
'She was not seen actually driving the car?'
'No.'
The Inspector added, 'It's bad, you know, that she's never said a word about being down there that day. She's got to explain that satisfactorily.'
'She is quite skillful at explanations,' said Poirot dryly. 'Yes. Clever young lady. Perhaps a thought too clever.'
'It is never wise to be too clever. That is how murderers get caught. Has anything more come up about George Crossfield?'
'Nothing definite. He's a very ordinary type. There are a lot of young men like him going about the country in trains and buses or on bicycles. People find it hard to remember when a week or so has gone by if it was Wednesday or Thursday when they were at a certain place or noticed a certain person.'
He paused and went on: 'We've had one piece of rather curious information – from the Mother Superior of some convent or other. Two of her nuns had been out collecting from door to door. It seems that they went to Mrs Lansquenet's cottage on the day before she was murdered, but couldn't make anyone hear when they knocked and rang. That's natural enough – she was up North at the Abernethie funeral and Gilchrist had been given the day off and had gone on an excursion to Bournemouth. The point is that they say there was someone in the cottage. They say they heard sighs and groans. I've queried whether it wasn't a day later but the Mother Superior is quite definite that that couldn't be so. It's all entered up in some book. Was there someone searching for something in the cottage that day, who seized the opportunity of both the women being away? And did that somebody not find what he or she was looking for and come back the next day? I don't set much store on the sighs and still less on the groans. Even nuns are suggestible and a cottage where murder has occurred positively asks for groans. The point is, was there someone in the cottage who shouldn't have been there? And if so, who was it? All the Abernethie crowd were at the funeral.'
Poirot asked a seemingly irrelevant question:
'These nuns who were collecting in that district, did they return at all at a later date to try again?'
'As a matter of fact they did come again – about a week later. Actually on the day of the inquest, I believe.'
'That fits,' said Hercule Poirot. 'That fits very well.'
Inspector Morton looked at him. 'Why this interest in nuns?'
'They have been forced on my attention whether I will or no. It will not have escaped your attention, Inspector, that the visit of the nuns was the same day that poisoned wedding cake found its way into that cottage.'
'You don't think – Surely that's a ridiculous idea?'
'My ideas are never ridiculous,' said Hercule Poirot severely. 'And now, mon cher, I must leave you to your questions and to the inquiries into the attack on Mrs Abernethie. I myself must go in search of the late Richard Abernethie's niece.'
'Now be careful what you go saying to Mrs Banks.'
'I do not mean Mrs Banks. I mean Richard Abernethie's other niece.'
II
Poirot found Rosamund sitting on a bench overlooking a little stream that cascaded down in a waterfall and then flowed through rhododendron thickets. She was staring into the water.
'I do not, I trust, disturb an Ophelia,' said Poirot as he took his seat beside her. 'You are, perhaps, studying the role?'
'I've never played in Shakespeare,' said Rosamund. 'Except once in Rep. I was Jessica in The Merchant. A lousy part.'
'Yet not without pathos. 'I am never merry when I hear sweet music.' What a load she carried, poor Jessica, the daughter of the hated and despised Jew. What doubts of herself she must have had when she brought with her her father's ducats when she ran away to her lover. Jessica with gold was one thing – Jessica without gold might have been another.'
Rosamund turned her head to look at him.
'I thought you'd gone,' she said with a touch of reproach. She glanced down at her wrist-watch. 'It's past twelve o'clock.'
'I have missed my train,' said Poirot.
'Why?'
'You think I missed it for a reason?'
'I suppose so. You're rather precise, aren't you? If you wanted to catch a train, I should think you'd catch it.'
'Your judgment is admirable. Do you know, Madame, I have been sitting in the little summer-house hoping that you would, perhaps, pay me a visit there?'
Rosamund stared at him.
'Why should I? You more or less said good-bye to us all in the library.'
'Quite so. And there was nothing – you wanted to say to me?'
'No.' Rosamund shook her head. 'I had a lot I wanted to think about. Important things.'
'I see.'
'I don't often do much thinking,' said Rosamund. 'It seems a waste of time. But this is important. I think one ought to plan one's life just as one wants it to be.'
'And that is what you are doing?'
'Well, yes… I was trying to make a decision about something.'
'About your husband?'
'In a way.'
Poirot waited a moment, then he said:
'Inspector Morton has just arrived here.' He anticipated Rosamund's question by going on: 'He is the police officer in charge of the inquiries about Mrs Lansquenet's death. He has come here to get statements from you all about what you were doing on the day she was murdered.'
'I see. Alibis,' said Rosamund cheerfully.
Her beautiful face relaxed into an impish glee.
'That will be hell for Michael,' she said. 'He thinks I don't really know he went off to be with that woman that day.'
'How did you know?'
'It was obvious from the way he said he was going to lunch with Oscar. So frightfully casually, you know, and his nose twitching just a tiny bit like it always does when he tells lies.'
'How devoutly thankful I am I am not married to you, Madame!'
'And then, of course, I made sure by ringing up Oscar,' continued Rosamund. 'Men always tell such silly lies.'
'He is not, I fear, a very faithful husband?' Poirot hazarded.
Rosamund, however, did not reject the statement.
'But you do not mind?'
'Well, it's rather fun in a way,' said Rosamund. 'I mean, having a husband that all the other women want to snatch away from you. I should hate to be married to a man that nobody wanted – like poor Susan. Really Greg is so completely wet!'
Poirot was studying her.
'And suppose someone did succeed – in snatching your husband away from you?'
'They won't,' said Rosamund. 'Not now,' she added.
