Vera Blake, unsuspecting wife of a killer.
And then came the question in bold type again:
Where are these women now?
Poirot blinked and set himself to read meticulously the somewhat romantic prose which gave the life stories of these dim and blurry heroines.
The name of Eva Kane he remembered, for the Craig Case had been a very celebrated one. Alfred Craig had been Town Clerk of Parminster, a conscientious, rather nondescript little man, correct and pleasant in his behaviour. He had had the misfortune to marry a tiresome and temperamental wife. Mrs Craig ran him into debt, bullied him, nagged him, and suffered from nervous maladies that unkind friends said were entirely imaginary. Eva Kane was the young nursery governess in the house. She was nineteen, pretty, helpless and rather simple. She fell desperately in love with Craig and he with her. Then one day the neighbors heard that Mrs Craig had been 'ordered abroad' for her health. That had been Craig's story. He took her up to London, the first stage of the journey, by car late one evening, and 'saw her off' to the South of France. Then he returned to Parminster and at intervals mentioned how him wife's health was no better by her accounts of it in letters. Eva Kane remained behind to housekeep for him, and tongues soon started wagging. Finally, Craig received news of his wife's death abroad. He went away and returned a week later, with an account of the funeral.
In some ways, Craig was a simple man. He made the mistake of mentioning where his wife had died, a moderately well-known resort on the French Riviera. It only remained for someone who had a relative or friend living there to write to them, discover that there had been no death or funeral of anyone of that name and, after a period of rank gossip, to communicate with the police.
Subsequent events can be briefly summarised.
Mrs Craig had not left for the Riviera. She had been cut in neat pieces and buried in the Craig cellar. And the autopsy of the remains showed poisoning by a vegetable alkaloid.
Craig was arrested and sent for trial. Eva Kane was originally charged as an accessory, but the charge was dropped, since it appeared clear that she had throughout been completely ignorant of what had occurred. Craig in the end made a full confession and was sentenced and executed.
Eva Kane, who was expecting a child, left Parminster and, in the words of the Sunday Companion: Kindly relatives in the New World offered her a home. Changing her name, the pitiful young girl, seduced in her trusting youth by a cold-blooded murderer, left these shores for ever, to begin a new life and to keep for ever locked in her heart and concealed from her daughter the name of her father.
'My daughter shall grow up happy and innocent. Her life shall not be stained by the cruel past. That I have sworn. My tragic memories shall remain mine alone.'
Poor frail trusting Eva Kane. To learn, so young, the villainy and infamy of man. Where is she now? Is there, in some Midwestern town, an elderly woman, quiet and respected by her neighbours, who has, perhaps, sad eyes… And does a young woman, happy and cheerful, with children, perhaps, of her own, come and see 'Momma,' telling her of all the little rubs and grievances of daily life – with no idea of what past sufferings her mother has endured?
'Oh la la!' said Hercule Poirot. And passed on to the next Tragic Victim.
Janice Courtland, the 'tragic wife,' had certainly been unfortunate in her husband. His peculiar practices, referred to in such a guarded way as to rouse instant curiosity, had been suffered by her for eight years. Eight years of martyrdom, the Sunday Companion said firmly. Then Janice made a friend. An idealistic and unworldly young man who, horrified by a scene between husband and wife that he had witnessed by accident, had thereupon assaulted the husband with such vigour that the latter had crashed in his skull on a sharply-edged marble fire surround. The jury had found that provocation had been intense, that the young idealist had had no intention of killing, and a sentence of five years for manslaughter was given.
The suffering Janice, horrified by all the publicity the case had brought her, had gone abroad 'to forget.'
Has she forgotten? asked the Sunday Companion. We hope so. Somewhere, perhaps, is a happy wife and mother to whom those years of nightmare suffering silently endured, seem now only like a dream…
'Well, well,' said Hercule Poirot and passed on to Lily Gamboll, the tragic child product of our overcrowded age.
Lily Gamboll had, it seemed, been removed from her overcrowded home. An aunt had assumed responsibility for Lily's life. Lily had wanted to go to the pictures, Aunt had said 'No.' Lily Gamboll had picked up the meat chopper which was lying conveniently on the table and had aimed a blow at her aunt with it. The aunt, though autocratic, was small and frail. The blow killed her. Lily was a well-developed and muscular child for her twelve years. An approved school had opened its doors and Lily had disappeared from the everyday scene.
By now she is a woman, free again to take her place in our civilization. Her conduct, during her years of confinement and probation, is said to have been exemplary. Does not this show that it is not the child, but the system, that we must blame? Brought up in ignorance, in slum conditions, little Lily was the victim of her environment.
Now, having atoned for her tragic lapse, she lives somewhere, happily, we hope, a good citizen and a good wife and mother. Poor little Lily Gamboll.
Poirot shook his head. A child of twelve who took a swing at her aunt with a meat chopper and hit her hard enough to kill her was not, in his opinion, a nice child. His sympathies were, in this case, with the aunt.
He passed on to Vera Blake.
Vera Blake was clearly one of those women with whom everything goes wrong. She had first taken up with a boyfriend who turned out to be a gangster wanted by the police for killing a bank watchman. She had then married a respectable tradesman who turned out to be a receiver of stolen goods. Her two children had likewise, in due course, attracted the attention of the police. They went with mamma to department stores and did a pretty line in shoplifting. Finally, however, a 'good man' had appeared on the scene. He had offered tragic Vera a home in the Dominions. She and her children should leave this effete country.
From henceforward a New Life awaited them. At last, after long years of repeated blows from Fate, Vera's troubles are over.
'I wonder,' said Poirot sceptically. 'Very possibly she will find she has married a confidence trickster who works the liners!'
He leant back and studied the four photographs. Eva Kane with tousled curly hair over her ears and an enormous hat, held a bunch of roses up to her ear like a telephone receiver. Janice Courtland had a cloche hat pushed down over her ears and a waist round her hips. Lily Gamboll was a plain child with an adenoidal appearance of open mouth, hard breathing and thick spectacles. Vera Blake was so tragically black and white that no features showed.
For some reason Mrs McGinty had torn out this feature, photographs and all. Why? Just to keep because the stories interested her? He thought not. Mrs McGinty had kept very few things during her sixty-odd years of life. Poirot knew that from the police reports of her belongings.
She had torn this out on the Sunday and on the Monday she had bought a bottle of ink and the inference was that she, who never wrote letters, was about to write a letter. If it had been a business letter, she would probably have asked Joe Burch to help her. So it had not been business. It had been – what?
Poirot's eye looked over the four photographs once again.
Where, the Sunday Companion asked, are these women now?
One of them, Poirot thought, might have been in Broadhinny last November.
III
It was not until the following day that Poirot found himself tete a tete with Miss Pamela Horsefall.
Miss Horsefall couldn't give him long, because she had to rush away to Sheffield, she explained.
Miss Horsefall was tall, manly-looking, a hard drinker and smoker, and it would seem, looking at her, highly
