'Well, there were cards at Xmas.'
'And perhaps she had friends in other parts of England to whom she wrote?'
'I don't know about that. There was her sister-in-law, but she died two years ago and there was a Mrs Birdlip – but she's dead too.'
'So, if she wrote to someone, it would be most likely in answer to a letter she had received?'
Again Bessie Burch looked doubtful.
'I don't know who'd be writing to her, I'm sure. Of course,' her face brightened, 'there's always the Government.'
Poirot agreed that in these days, communications from what Bessie loosely referred to as 'the Government' were the rule, rather than the exception.
'And a lot of fandangle it usually is,' said Mrs Burch. 'Forms to fill in, and a lot of impertinent questions as shouldn't be asked of any decent body.'
'So Mrs McGinty might have got some Government communication that she had to answer?'
'If she had, she'd have brought it along to Joe, so as he could help her with it. Those sort of things fussed her and she always brought them to Joe.'
'Can you remember if there were any letters among her personal possessions?'
'I couldn't rightly say. I don't remember anything. But then the police took over at first. It wasn't for quite a while they let me pack her things and take them away.'
'What happened to those things?'
'That chest over there is hers – good solid mahogany, and there's a wardrobe upstairs, and some good kitchen stuff. The rest we sold because we'd no room for them.'
'I meant her own personal things.' He added: 'Such things as brushes and combs, photographs, toilet things, clothes…'
'Oh, them. Well, tell you the truth, I packed them in a suitcase and it's still upstairs. Didn't rightly know what to do with them. Thought I'd take the clothes to the jumble sale at Xmas, but I forgot. Didn't seem nice to take them to one of those nasty second-hand clothes people.'
'I wonder – might I see the contents of that suitcase?'
'Welcome, I'm sure. Though I don't think you'll find anything to help you. The police went through it all, you know.'
'Oh I know. But, all the same -'
Mrs Burch led him briskly into a minute back bedroom, used, Poirot judged, mainly for home dressmaking. She pulled out a suitcase from under the bed and said:
'Well, here you are, and you'll excuse me stopping, but I've got the stew to see to.'
Poirot gratefully excused her, and heard her thumping downstairs again. He drew the suitcase towards him and opened it.
A waft of mothballs came out to greet him.
With a feeling of pity, he lifted out the contents, so eloquent in their revelation of a woman who was dead. A rather worn long black coat. Two woollen jumpers. A coat and skirt. Stockings. No underwear (presumably Bessie Burch had taken those for her own wear). Two pairs of shoes wrapped up in newspaper. A brush and comb, worn but clean. An old dented silver-backed mirror. A photograph in a leather frame of a wedding pair dressed in the style of thirty years ago – a picture of Mrs McGinty and her husband presumably. Two picture postcards of Margate. A china dog. A recipe torn out of a paper for making vegetable marrow jam. Another piece dealing with 'Flying Saucers' on a sensational note. A third clipping dealt with Mother Shipton's prophecies. There was also a Bible and a Prayer Book.
There were no handbags, or gloves. Presumably Bessie Burch had taken these, or given them away. The clothes here, Poirot judged, would have been too small for the buxom Bessie. Mrs McGinty had been a thin, spare woman.
He unwrapped one of the pairs of shoes. They were of quite good quality and not much worn. Decidedly on the small side for Bessie Burch.
He was just about to wrap them up neatly again when his eye was caught by the heading on the piece of newspaper. It was the Sunday Companion and the date was November 19th. Mrs McGinty had been killed on November 22nd.
This then was the paper she had bought on the Sunday preceding her death. It had been lying in her room and Bessie Butch had used it in due course to wrap up her aunt's things.
Sunday, November 19th. And on Monday Mrs McGinty had gone into the post office to buy a bottle of ink…
Could that be because of something she had seen in Sunday's newspaper?
He unwrapped the other pair of shoes. They were wrapped in the News of the World of the same date.
He smoothed out both papers and took them over to a chair where he sat down to read them. And at once he made a discovery. On one page of the Sunday Companion, something had been cut out. It was a rectangular piece out of the middle page. The space was too big for any of the clippings he had found.
He looked through both newspapers, but could find nothing else of interest. He wrapped them round the shoes again and packed the suitcase tidily.
Then he went downstairs.
Mrs Burch was busy in the kitchen.
'Don't suppose you found anything?' she said.
'Alas, no.' He added in a casual voice: 'Do you remember if there was a cutting from a newspaper in your aunt's purse or in her handbag, was there?'
'Can't remember any. Perhaps the police took it.'
But the police had not taken it. That Poirot knew from his study of Spence's notes. The contents of the dead woman's handbag had been listed, no newspaper cutting was among them.
'Eh bien,' said Hercule Poirot to himself. 'The next step is easy. It will be either the wash-out – or else, at last, I advance.'
II
Sitting very still, with the dusty files of newspaper in front of him, Poirot told himself that his recognition of the significance of the bottle of ink had not played him false.
The Sunday Companion was given to romantic dramatizations of past events.
The paper at which Poirot was looking was the Sunday Companion of Sunday, November 19th.
At the top of the middle page were these words in big type:
Women Victims of Bygone Tragedies
Where are these women now?
Below the caption were four very blurred reproductions of photographs clearly taken many years ago.
The subjects of them did not look tragic. They looked, actually, rather ridiculous, since nearly all of them were dressed in the style of a bygone day, and nothing is more ridiculous than the fashions of yesterday – though in another thirty years or so their charm may have reappeared, or at any rate be once more apparent.
Under each photo was a name.
Eva Kane, the 'other woman' in the famous Craig case.
Janice Courtland, the 'tragic wife' whose husband was a fiend in human form.
Little Lily Gamboll, tragic child product of our overcrowded age.
