'The maid couldn't help you in any way?'
'No. She came in about half-past ten – she has a key to the back door. She went straight into her own room which leads off the kitchen and went to bed. The house was dark and she assumed that Mrs Upward had gone to bed and that the others had not yet returned.'
Spence added:
'She's deaf and pretty crotchety as well. Takes very little notice of what goes on – and I imagine does as little work as she can with as much grumbling as possible.'
'Not really an old faithful?'
'Oh! no – she's only been with the Upwards a couple of years.'
A constable put his head round the door.
'There's a young lady to see you, sir,' he said. 'Says there's something perhaps you ought to know. About last night.'
'About last night? Send her in.'
Deirdre Henderson came in. She looked pale and strained and, as usual, rather awkward.
'I thought perhaps I'd better come,' she said. 'If I'm interrupting you or anything,' she added apologetically.
'Not at all, Miss Henderson.'
Spence rose and pushed forward a chair. She sat down on it squarely in an ungainly schoolgirlish sort of way.
'Something about last night?' said Spence encouragingly. 'About Mrs Upward, you mean?'
'Yes, it's true, isn't it, that she was murdered? I mean the post said so and the baker. Mother said of course it couldn't be true -' She stopped.
'I'm afraid your mother isn't quite right there. It's true enough. Now, you wanted to make a – to tell us something?'
Deirdre nodded.
'Yes,' she said. 'You see, I was there.'
A difference crept into Spence's manner. It was, perhaps, even more gentle, but an official hardness underlay it.
'You were there,' he said. 'At Laburnums. At what time?'
'I don't know exactly,' said Deirdre. 'Between half-past eight and nine, I suppose. Probably nearly nine. After dinner, anyway. You see, she telephoned to me.'
'Mrs Upward telephoned to you?'
'Yes. She said Robin and Mrs Oliver were going to the theatre in Cullenquay and that she would be all alone and would I come along and have coffee with her.'
'And you went?'
'Yes.'
'And you – had coffee with her?'
Deirdre shook her head.
'No, I got there – and I knocked. But there wasn't any answer. So I opened the door and went into the hall. It was quite dark and I'd seen from outside that there was no light in the sitting-room. So I was puzzled. I called 'Mr Upward' once or twice but there was no answer. So I thought there must be some mistake.'
'What mistake did you think there could have been?'
'I thought perhaps she'd gone to the theatre with them after all.'
'Without letting you know?'
'That did seem queer.'
'You couldn't think of any other explanation?'
'Well, I thought perhaps Frieda might have bungled the original message. She does get things wrong sometimes. She's a foreigner. She was excited herself last night because she was leaving.'
'What did you do, Miss Henderson?'
'I just went away.'
'Back home?'
'Yes – that is, I went for a little walk first. It was quite fine.'
Spence was silent for a moment or two, looking at her. He was looking, Poirot noticed, at her mouth.
Presently he roused himself and said briskly:
'Well, thank you, Miss Henderson. You were quite right to come and tell us this. We're much obliged to you.'
He got up and shook hands with her.
'I thought I ought to,' said Deirdre. 'Mother didn't want me to.'
'Didn't she now?'
'But I thought I'd better.'
'Quite right.'
He showed her out and came back.
He sat down, drummed on the table and looked at Poirot.
'No lipstick,' he said. 'Or is that only this morning?'
'No, it is not only this morning. She never uses it.'
'That's odd, nowadays, isn't it?'
'She is rather an odd kind of girl – undeveloped.'
'And no scent, either, as far as I could smell. That Mrs Oliver says there was a distinct smell of scent – expensive scent, she says – in the house last night. Robin Upward confirms that. It wasn't any scent his mother uses.'
'This girl would not use scent, I think,' said Poirot.
'I shouldn't think so either,' said Spence. 'Looks rather like the hockey captain from an old-fashioned girls' school – but she must be every bit of thirty, I should say.'
'Quite that.'
'Arrested development, would you say?'
Poirot considered. Then he said it was not quite so simple as that.
'It doesn't fit,' aid Spence frowning. 'No lipstick, no scent. And since she's got a perfectly good mother, and Lily Gamboll's mother was done in in a drunken brawl in Cardiff when Lily Gamboll was nine years old, I don't see how she can be Lily Gamboll. But – Mrs Upward telephoned her to come there last night – you can't get away from that.' He rubbed his nose. 'It isn't straightforward going.'
'What about the medical evidence?'
'Not much help there. All the police surgeon will say definitely is that she was probably dead by half-past nine.'
'So she may have been dead when Deirdre Henderson came to Laburnums?'
'Probably was if the girl is saying the truth. Either she is speaking the truth – or else she's a deep one. Mother didn't want her to come to us, she said. Anything there?'
Poirot considered.
'Not particularly. It is what Mother would say. She is the type, you comprehend, that avoids unpleasantness.'
Spence sighed.
'So we've got Deirdre Henderson – on the spot. Or else someone who came there before Deirdre Henderson. A woman. A woman who uses lipstick and expensive scent.'
Poirot murmured: 'You will inquire -'
Spence broke in.
'I'm inquiring! Just tactfully for the moment. We don't want to alarm anyone. What was Eve Carpenter doing last night? What was Shelagh Rendell doing last night? Ten to one they were just sitting at home. Carpenter, I know, had a political meeting.'
'Eve,' said Poirot thoughtfully. 'The fashions in names change, do they not? Hardly ever, nowadays, do you hear of an Eva. It has gone out. But Eve, it is popular.'
