She plunged down the stairs and Poirot followed her.
There was nothing here for him.
He went next door.
II
'Yes, sir, it was me found her.'
Mrs Elliot was dramatic. A neat house, this, neat and prim. The only drama in it was Mrs Elliot, a tall gaunt dark-haired woman, recounting her one moment of glorious living.
'Larkin, the baker, he came and knocked at the door. 'It's Mrs McGinty,' he said, 'we can't make her hear. Seems she might have been taken bad.' And indeed I thought she might. She wasn't a young woman, not by any means. And palpitations she'd had, to my certain knowledge. I thought she might have had a stroke. So I hurried over, seeing as there were only the two men, and naturally they wouldn't like to go into the bedroom.'
Poirot accepted this piece of propriety with an assenting murmur.
'Hurried up the stairs, I did. He was on the landing, pale as death he was. Not that I ever thought at the time – Well, of course, then I didn't know what had happened. I knocked on the door loud and there wasn't any answer, so I turned the handle and I went in. The whole place messed about – and the board in the floor up. 'It's robbery,' I said. 'But where's the poor soul herself?' And then we thought to look in the sitting-room. And there she was… Down on the floor with her poor head stove in. Murder! I saw at once what it was – murder! Couldn't be anything else! Robbery and murder! Here in Broadhinny. I screamed and I screamed! Quite a job they had with me. Came over all faint, I did. They had to go and get me brandy from the Three Ducks. And even then I was all of a shiver for hours and hours. 'Don't you take on so, mother,' that's what the sergeant said to me when he came. 'Don't you take on so. You go home and make yourself a nice cup of tea.' And so I did. And when Elliot came home, 'Why, whatever's happened?' he says, staring at me. Still all of a tremble I was. Always was sensitive from a child.'
Poirot dexterously interrupted this thrilling personal narrative.
'Yes, yes, one can see that. And when was the last time you had seen poor Mrs McGinty?'
'Must have been the day before, when she'd stepped out into the back garden to pick a bit of mint. I was just feeding the chickens.'
'Did she say anything to you?'
'Just good afternoon and were they laying any better.'
'And that's the last time you saw her? You didn't see her on the day she died?'
'No. I saw him though.' Mrs Elliot lowered her voice. 'About eleven o'clock in the morning. Just walking along the road. Shuffling his feet the way he always did.'
Poirot waited, but it seemed that there was nothing to add.
He asked:
'Were you surprised when the police arrested him?'
'Well, I was and I wasn't. Mind you, I'd always thought he was a bit daft. And no doubt about it, these daft ones do turn nasty, sometimes. My uncle had a feeble-minded boy, and he could go very nasty sometimes – as he grew up, that was. Didn't know his strength. Yes, that Bentley was daft all right, and I shouldn't be surprised if they don't hang him when it comes to it, but sends him to the asylum instead. Why, look at the place he hid the money. No one would hide money in a place like that unless he wanted it to be found. Just silly and simple like, that's what he was.'
'Unless he wanted it found,' murmured Poirot. 'You did not, by any chance, miss a chopper – or an axe?'
'No, sir, I did not. The police asked me that. Asked all of us in the cottages here. It's a mystery still what he killed her with.'
III
Hercule Poirot walked towards the post office.
The murderer had wanted the money found, but he had not wanted the weapon to be found. For the money would point to James Bentley and the weapon would point to – whom?
He shook his head. He had visited the other two cottages. They had been less exuberant than Mrs Kiddle and less dramatic than Mrs Elliot. They had said in effect that Mrs McGinty was a very respectable woman who kept herself to herself, that she had a niece over at Cullavon, that nobody but the said niece ever came to see her, that nobody, so far as they knew, disliked her or bore a grudge against her, that was it true that there was a petition being got up for James Bentley and would they be asked to sign it?
'I get nowhere – nowhere,' said Poirot to himself. 'There is nothing – no little gleam. I can well understand the despair of Superintendent Spence. But it should be different for me. Superintendent Spence, he is a very good and painstaking police officer, but me, I am Hercule Poirot. For me, there should be illumination!'
One of his patent leather shoes slopped into a puddle and he winced.
He was the great, the unique Hercule Poirot, but he was also a very old man and his shoes were tight.
He entered the post office.
The right-hand side was given to the business of His Majesty's mails. The left-hand side displayed a rich assortment of varied merchandise, comprising sweets, groceries, toys, hardware, stationery, birthday cards, knitting wool and children's underclothes.
Poirot proceeded to a leisurely purchase of stamps.
The woman who bustled forward to attend to him was middle-aged with sharp, bright eyes.
'Here,' said Poirot to himself, 'is undoubtedly the brains of the village of Broadhinny.'
Her name, not inappropriately, was Mrs Sweetiman.
'And twelve pennies,' said Mrs Sweetiman, deftly extracting them from a large book. 'That's four and ten- pence altogether. Will there be anything more, sir?'
She fixed a bright eager glance on him. Through the door at the back a girl's head showed listening avidly. She had untidy hair and a cold in the head.
'I am by way of being a stranger in these parts,' said Poirot solemnly.
'That's right, sir,' agreed Mrs Sweetiman. 'Come down from London, haven't you?'
'I expect you know my business here as well as I do,' said Poirot with a slight smile.
'Oh no, sir, I've really no idea,' said Mrs Sweetiman in a wholly perfunctory manner.
'Mrs McGinty,' said Poirot.
Mrs Sweetiman shook her head.
'That was a sad business – a shocking business.'
'I expect you knew her well?'
'Oh I did. As well as anyone in Broadhinny, I should say. She'd always pass the time of day with me when she came in here for any little thing. Yes, it was a terrible tragedy. And not settled yet, or so I've heard people say.'
'There is a doubt – in some quarters – as to James Bentley's guilt.'
'Well,' said Mrs Sweetiman, 'it wouldn't be the first time the police got hold of the wrong man – though I wouldn't say they had in this case. Not that I should have thought it of him really. A shy awkward sort of fellow, but not dangerous or so you'd think. But there, you never know, do you?'
Poirot hazarded a request for notepaper.
'Of course, sir. Just come across the other side, will you?'
Mrs Sweetiman bustled round to take her place behind the left-hand counter.
'What's difficult to imagine is, who it could have been if it wasn't Mr Bentley,' she remarked as she stretched up to a top shelf for notepaper and envelopes. 'We do get some nasty tramps along here sometimes, and it's
