Poirot said gently, 'I have a little idea we shall find something – yes.'
'Something to prove Elinor's innocence?'
'Ah, I did not say that.'
Peter Lord stopped dead. 'You don't mean you still think she's guilty?'
Poirot said gravely, 'You must wait, my friend, before you get an answer to that question.'
II
Poirot lunched with the doctor in a pleasant square room with a window open on to the garden.
Lord said, 'Did you get what you wanted out of old Slattery?'
'Yes.'
'What did you want with her?'
'Gossip! Talk about old days. Some crimes have their roots in the past. I think this one had.'
Peter Lord said irritably, 'I don't understand a word you are talking about.'
Poirot smiled. He said, 'This fish is deliciously fresh.'
Lord said impatiently, 'I dare say. I caught it myself before breakfast this morning. Look here, Poirot, am I to have any idea what you're driving at? Why keep me in the dark?'
The other shook his head. 'Because as yet there is no light. I am always brought up short by the fact that there was no one who had any reason to kill Mary Gerrard – except Elinor Carlisle.'
Peter Lord said, 'You can't be sure of that. She'd been abroad for some time, remember.'
'Yes, yes, I have made the inquiries.'
'You've been to Germany yourself?'
'Myself, no.' With a slight chuckle he added, 'I have my spies!'
'Can you depend on other people?'
'Certainly. It is not for me to run here and there, doing amateurishly the things that for a small sum someone else can do with professional skill. I can assure you, mon cher, I have several irons on the fire. I have some useful assistants – one of them a former burglar.'
'What do you use him for?'
'The last thing I have used him for was a very thorough search of Mr. Welman's flat.'
'What was he looking for?'
Poirot said, 'One always likes to know exactly what lies have been told one.'
'Did Welman tell you a lie?'
'Definitely.'
'Who else has lied to you?'
'Everybody, I think: Nurse O'Brien romantically; Nurse Hopkins stubbornly; Mrs. Bishop venomously. You yourself -'
'Good God!' Peter Lord interrupted him unceremoniously. 'You don't think I've lied to you, do you?'
'Not yet,' Poirot admitted.
Dr. Lord sank back in his chair. He said, 'You're a disbelieving sort of fellow, Poirot.' Then he said, 'If you've finished, shall we set off for Hunterbury? I've got some patients to see later, and then there's the surgery.'
'I am at your disposal, my friend.'
They set off on foot, entering the grounds by the back gate. Halfway to the house they met a tall, good- looking young fellow wheeling a barrow. He touched his cap respectfully to Dr. Lord.
'Good morning, Horlick. This is Horlick, the gardener, Poirot. He was working here that morning,'
Horlick said, 'Yes, sir, I was. I saw Miss Elinor that morning and talked to her.'
Poirot asked, 'What did she say to you?'
'She told me the house was as good as sold, and that rather took me aback, sir; but Miss Elinor said as how she'd speak for me to Major Somervell, and that maybe he'd keep me on – if he didn't think me too young, perhaps, as head – seeing as how I'd had good training under Mr. Stephens, here.'
Dr. Lord said, 'Did she seem much the same as usual, Horlick?'
'Why, yes, sir, except that she looked a bit excited like – and as though she had something on her mind.'
Hercule Poirot said, 'Did you know Mary Gerrard?'
'Oh, yes, sir. But not very well.'
Poirot said, 'What was she like?'
Horlick looked puzzled. 'Like, sir? Do you mean to look at?'
'Not exactly. I mean, what kind of a girl was she?'
'Oh, well, sir, she was a very superior sort of a girl. Nice spoken and all that. Thought a lot of herself, I should say. You see, old Mrs. Welman had made a lot of fuss over her. Made her father wild, that did. He was like a bear with a sore head about it.'
Poirot said, 'By all that I've heard, he had not the best of tempers, that old one?'
'No, indeed, he hadn't. Always grumbling, and crusty as they make them. Seldom had a civil word for you.'
Poirot said, 'You were here on that morning. Whereabouts were you working?'
'Mostly in the kitchen garden, sir.'
'You cannot see the house from there?'
'No, sir.'
Peter Lord said, 'If anybody had come up to the house – up to the pantry window – you wouldn't have seen them?'
'No, I wouldn't, sir.'
Peter Lord said, 'When did you go to your dinner?'
'One o'clock, sir.'
'And you didn't see anything – any man hanging about – or a car outside -anything like that?'
The man's eyebrows rose in slight surprise. 'Outside the back gate, sir? There was your car there – nobody else's.'
Peter Lord cried, 'My car? It wasn't my car! I was over Withenbury direction that morning. Didn't get back till after two.'
Horlick looked puzzled. 'I made sure it was your car, sir,' he said doubtfully.
Peter Lord said quickly, 'Oh, well, it doesn't matter. Good morning, Horlick.'
He and Poirot moved on. Horlick stared after them for a minute or two, then slowly resumed his progress with the wheelbarrow.
Peter Lord said softly – but with great excitement, 'Something – at last. Whose car was it standing in the lane that morning?'
Poirot said, 'What make is your car, my friend?'
'A Ford ten – sea-green. They're pretty common, of course.'
'And you are sure that it was not yours? You haven't mistaken the day?'
'Absolutely certain. I was over at Withenbury, came back late, snatched a bit of lunch, and then the call came through about Mary Gerrard and I rushed over.'
Poirot said softly, 'Then it would seem, my friend, that we have come upon something tangible at last.'
Peter Lord said, 'Someone was here that morning – someone who was not Elinor Carlisle, nor Mary Gerrard, nor Nurse Hopkins.'
Poirot said, 'This is very interesting. Come, let us make our investigations. Let us see, for instance, supposing a man (or woman) were to wish to approach the house unseen, how they would set about it.'
Halfway along the drive a path branched off through some shrubbery. They took this and at a certain turn in it Peter Lord clutched Poirot's arm, pointing to a window.
He said, 'That's the window of the pantry where Elinor Carlisle was cutting the sandwiches.'
Poirot murmured, 'And from here, anyone could see her cutting them. The window was open, if I remember
