improbable that it was her pen which had dropped such treacly sentiment in the Sunday Companion. Nevertheless it was so.
'Cough it up, cough it up,' said Miss Horsefall impatiently to Poirot. 'We got to be going.'
'It is about your article in the Sunday Companion. Last November. The series about Tragic Women.'
'Oh, that series. Pretty lousy, weren't they?'
Poirot did not express an opinion on that point. He said:
'I refer in particular to the article on Women Associated with Crime that appeared on November 19th. It concerned Eva Kane, Vera Blake, Janice Courtland and Lily Gamboll.'
Miss Horsefall grinned.
'Where are these tragic women now? I remember.'
'I suppose you sometimes get letters after the appearance of these articles?'
'You bet I do! Some people seem to have nothing better to do than write letters. Somebody 'once saw the murderer Craig walking down the street.' Somebody would like to tell me 'the story of her life, far more tragic than anything I could ever imagine.''
'Did you get a letter after the appearance of that article from a Mrs McGinty of Broadhinny?'
'My dear man, how on earth should I know? I get buckets of letters. How should I remember one particular name?'
'I thought you might remember,' said Poirot, 'because a few days later Mrs McGinty was murdered.'
'Now you're talking.' Miss Horsefall forgot to be impatient to get to Sheffield, and sat down astride a chair. 'McGinty – McGinty… I do remember the name. Conked on the head by her lodger. Not a very exciting crime from the point of view of the public. No sex appeal about it. You say the woman wrote to me?'
'She wrote to the Sunday Companion, I think.'
'Same thing. It would come on to me. And with the murder – and her name being in the news – surely I should remember -' She stopped. 'Look here – it wasn't from Broadhinny. It was from Broadway.'
'So you do remember?'
'Well, I'm not sure… But the name… Comic name, isn't it? McGinty! Yes – atrocious writing and quite illiterate. If I'd only realised… But I'm sure it came from Broadway.'
Poirot said: 'You say yourself the writing was bad. Broadway and Broadhinny – they could look alike.'
'Yes – might be so. After all, one wouldn't be likely to know these queer rural names. McGinty – yes. I do remember definitely. Perhaps the murder fixed the name for me.'
'Can you remember what she said in her letter?'
'Something about a photograph. She knew where there was a photograph like in the paper – and would we pay her anything for it and how much?'
'And you answered?'
'My dear man, we don't want anything of that kind. We sent back the standard reply. Polite thanks but nothing doing. But as we sent it to Broadway – I don't suppose she'd ever get it.'
'She knew where there was a photograph…'
Into Poirot's mind there came back a remembrance. Maureen Summerhayes' careless voice saying, 'Of course she snooped round a bit.'
Mrs McGinty had snooped. She was honest, but she liked to know about things. And people kept things – foolish, meaningless things from the past. Kept them for sentimental reasons, or just overlooked them and didn't remember they were there.
Mrs McGinty had seen an old photograph and later she had recognised it reproduced in the Sunday Companion. And she had wondered if there was any money in it…
He rose briskly. 'Thank you, Miss Horsefall. You will pardon me, but those notes on the cases that you wrote, were they accurate? I notice, for instance, that the year of the Craig trial is given wrongly – it was actually a year later than you say. And in the Courtland case, the husband's name was Herbert, I seem to remember, not Hubert. Lily Gamboll's aunt lived in Buckinghamshire, not Berkshire.'
Miss Horsefall waved a cigarette.
'My dear man. No point in accuracy. Whole thing was a romantic farrago from beginning to end. I just mugged up the facts a bit and then let fly with a lot of hou ha.'
'What I am trying to say is that even the characters of your heroines are not, perhaps, quite as represented.'
Pamela let out a neighing sound like a horse.
'Course they weren't. What do you think? I've no doubt that Eva Kane was a thorough little bitch, and not an injured innocent at all. And as for the Courtland woman, why did she suffer in silence for eight years with a sadistic pervert? Because he was rolling in money, and the romantic friend hadn't any.'
'And the tragic child, Lily Gamboll?'
'I wouldn't care to have her gambolling about me with a meat chopper.'
Poirot ticked off on his fingers.
'They left the country – they went to the New World – abroad – 'to the Dominions' – 'to start a New Life.' And there is nothing to show, is there, that they did not, subsequently, come back to this country?'
'Not a thing,' agreed Miss Horsefall. 'And now – I really must fly -'
Later that night Poirot rang up Spence.
'I've been wondering about you, Poirot. Have you got anything? Anything at all?'
'I have made my inquiries,' said Poirot grimly.
'Yes?'
'And the result of them is this: The people who live in Broadhinny are all very nice people.'
'What do you mean by that, M. Poirot?'
'Oh, my friend, consider. 'Very nice people.' That has been, before now, a motive for murder.'
Chapter 9
I
'All very nice people,' murmured Poirot as he turned in at the gate of Crossways, near the station.
A brass plate in the doorpost announced that Dr Rendell, M.D., lived there.
Dr Rendell was a large cheerful man of forty. He greeted his guest with definite empressement.
'Our quiet little village is honoured,' he said, 'by the presence of the great Hercule Poirot.'
'Ah,' said Poirot. He was gratified. 'You have, then, heard of me?'
'Of course we have heard of you. Who hasn't?'
The answer to that would have been damaging to Poirot's self-esteem. He merely said politely: 'I am fortunate to find you at home.'
It was not particularly fortunate. It was, on the contrary, astute timing. But Dr Rendell replied heartily:
'Yes. Just caught me. Surgery in a quarter of an hour. Now what can I do for you? I'm devoured with curiosity to know what you're doing down here. A rest cure? Or have we crime in our midst?'
'In the past tense – not the present.'
'Past? I don't remember -'
'Mrs McGinty.'
'Of course. Of course. I was forgetting. But don't say you're concerned with that – at this late date?'
'If I may mention this to you in confidence, I am employed by the defence. Fresh evidence on which to lodge an appeal.'
Dr Rendell said sharply: 'But what fresh evidence can there be?'
'That, alas, I am not at liberty to state -'
