'Yes. Didn't she, Madre?'
'When you say work here, she came one day a week.'
'And odd afternoons sometimes.'
'What was she like?' asked Mrs Oliver.
'Terribly respectable,' said Robin. 'And maddeningly tidy. She had a ghastly way of tidying up everything and putting things into drawers so that you simply couldn't guess where they were.'
Mrs Upward said with a certain grim humour:
'If somebody didn't tidy things away at least one day a week, you soon wouldn't be able to move in this small house.'
'I know, Madre, I know. But unless things are left where I put them, I simply can't work at all. My notes get all disarranged.'
'It's annoying to be as helpless as I am,' said Mrs Upward. 'We have a faithful old maid, but it's all she can manage just to do a little simple cooking.'
'What is it?' asked Mrs Oliver. 'Arthritis?'
'Some form of it. I shall have to have a permanent nurse-companion soon, I'm afraid. Such a bore. I like being independent.'
'Now, darling,' said Robin. 'Don't work yourself up.'
He patted her arm.
She smiled at him with sudden tenderness.
'Robin's as good as a daughter to me,' she said. 'He does everything – and thinks of everything. No one could be more considerate.'
They smiled at each other.
Hercule Poirot rose.
'Alas,' he said. 'I must go. I have another call to make and then a train to catch. Madame, I thank you for your hospitality. Mr Upward, I wish all success to the play.'
'And all success to you with your murder,' said Mrs Oliver.
'Is this really serious, M. Poirot?' asked Robin Upward. 'Or is it a terrific hoax?'
'Of course it isn't a hoax,' said Mrs Oliver. 'It's deadly serious. He won't tell me who the murderer is, but he knows, don't you?'
'No, no, madame,' Poirot's protest was just sufficiently unconvincing. 'I told you that as yet, no, I do not know.'
'That's what you said, but I think you do know really. But you're so frightfully secretive, aren't you?'
Mrs Upward said sharply:
'Is this really true? It's not a joke?'
'It is not a joke, madame,' said Poirot.
He bowed and departed.
As he went down the path he heard Robin Upward's clear tenor voice:
'But Ariadne, darling,' he said, 'it's all very well, but with that moustache and everything, how can one take him seriously? Do you really mean he's good?'
Poirot smiled to himself. Good indeed!
About to cross the narrow lane, he jumped back just in time.
The Summerhayes' station wagon, lurching and bumping, came racing past him. Summerhayes was driving.
'Sorry,' he called. 'Got to catch train.' And faintly from the distance: ' Covent Garden…'
Poirot also intended to take a train – the local train to Kilchester, where he had arranged a conference with Superintendent Spence.
He had time, before catching it, for just one last call.
He went to the top of the hill and through gates and up a well-kept drive to a modern house of frosted concrete with a square roof and a good deal of window. This was the home of Mr and Mrs Carpenter. Guy Carpenter was a partner in the big Carpenter Engineering Works – a very rich man who had recently taken to politics. He and his wife had only been married a short time.
The Carpenters' front door was not opened by foreign help, or an aged faithful. An imperturbable manservant opened the door and was loath to admit Hercule Poirot. In his view Hercule Poirot was the kind of caller who is left outside. He clearly suspected that Hercule Poirot had come to sell something.
'Mr and Mrs Carpenter are not at home.'
'Perhaps, then, I might wait?'
'I couldn't say when they will be in.'
He closed the door.
Poirot did not go down the drive. Instead he walked round the corner of the house and almost collided with a tall young woman in a mink coat.
'Hullo,' she said. 'What the hell do you want?'
Poirot raised his hat with gallantry.
'I was hoping,' he said,' that I could see Mr or Mrs Carpenter. Have I the pleasure of seeing Mrs Carpenter?'
'I'm Mrs Carpenter.'
She spoke ungraciously, but there was a faint suggestion of appeasement behind her manner.
'My name is Hercule Poirot.'
Nothing registered. Not only was the great, the unique name unknown to her, but he thought that she did not even identify him as Maureen Summerhayes' latest guest. Here, then, the local grape vine did not operate. A small but significant fact, perhaps.
'Yes?'
'I demand to see either Mr or Mrs Carpenter, but you, madame, will be the best for my purpose. For what I have to ask is of domestic matters.'
'We've got a Hoover,' said Mrs Carpenter suspiciously.
Poirot laughed.
'No, no, you misunderstand. It is only a few questions that I ask about a domestic matter.'
'Oh, you mean one of these domestic questionnaires. I do think it's absolutely idiotic -' She broke off. 'Perhaps you'd better come inside.'
Poirot smiled faintly. She had just stopped herself from uttering a derogatory comment. With her husband's political activities, caution in criticising Government activities was indicated.
She led the way through the hall and into a good-sized room giving on to a carefully tended garden. It was a very new-looking room, a large brocaded suite of sofa and two wing-chairs, three or four reproductions of Chippendale chairs, a bureau, a writing desk. No expense had been spared, the best firms had been employed, and there was absolutely no sign of individual taste. The bride, Poirot thought, had been what? Indifferent? Careful?
He looked at her appraisingly as she turned. An expensive and good-looking young woman. Platinum blonde hair, carefully applied make-up, but something more – wide corn-flower blue eyes – eyes with a wide frozen stare in them – beautiful drowned eyes.
She said – graciously now, but concealing boredom:
'Do sit down.'
He sat. He said:
'You are most amiable, madame. These questions now, that I wish to ask you. They relate to a Mrs McGinty who died – was killed that is to say – last November.'
'Mrs McGinty? I don't know what you mean?'
She was glaring at him. Her eyes hard and suspicions.
'You remember Mrs McGinty?'
'No, I don't. I don't know anything about her.'
'You remember her murder? Or is murder so common here that you do not even notice it?'
'Oh, the murder? Yes, of course. I'd forgotten what the old woman's name was.'
