'Yes – yes. She was coming over there on business and she sent me a post-card. Asked me to meet her. I can't think why. It isn't as if I knew her at all well.'
'But you did meet her?'
'Yes. I didn't want to be rude.'
'And you took her to the pictures or a meal?'
James Bentley looked scandalised.
'Oh no. Nothing of that kind. We – er – just talked whilst she was waiting for her bus.'
'Ah, how amusing that must have been for the poor girl!'
James Bentley said sharply:
'I hadn't got any money. You must remember that. I hadn't any money at all.'
'Of course. It was a few days before Mrs McGinty was killed, wasn't it?'
James Bentley nodded. He said unexpectedly:
'Yes, it was on the Monday. She was killed on Wednesday.'
'I'm going to ask you something else, Mr Bentley. Mrs McGinty took the Sunday Companion.'
'Yes, she did.'
'Did you ever see her Sunday Companion?'
'She used to offer it sometimes, but I didn't often accept. Mother didn't care for that kind of paper.'
'So you didn't see that week s Sunday Companion?'
'No.'
'And Mrs McGinty didn't speak about it, or about anything in it?'
'Oh yes, she did,' said James Bentley unexpectedly. 'She was full of it!'
'Ah la la. So she was full of it. And what did she say? Be careful. This is important.'
'I don't remember very well now. It was all about some old murder case. Craig, I think it was – no, perhaps it wasn't Craig. Anyway, she said somebody connected with the case was living in Broadhinny now. Full of it, she was. I couldn't see why it mattered to her.'
'Did she say who it was – in Broadhinny?'
James Bentley said vaguely:
'I think it was that woman whose son writes plays.'
'She mentioned her by name?'
'No – I – really it's so long ago -'
'I implore you – try to think. You want to be free again, do you not?'
'Free?' Bentley sounded surprised.
'Yes, free.'
'I – yes – I suppose I do -'
'Then think! What did Mrs McGinty say?'
'Well – something like – 'so pleased with herself as she is and so proud. Not so much to be proud of if all's known.' And then, 'You'd never think it was the same woman to look at the photograph.' But of course it had been taken years ago.'
'But what made you sure that it was Mrs Upward of whom she was speaking?'
'I really don't know… I just formed the impression. She had been speaking of Mrs Upward – and then I lost interest and didn't listen, and afterwards – well, now I come to think of it, I don't really know who she was speaking about. She talked a lot, you know.'
Poirot sighed.
He said: 'I do not think myself that it was Mrs Upward of whom she spoke. I think it was somebody else. It is preposterous to reflect that if you are hanged it will be because you do not pay proper attention to the people with whom you converse… Did Mrs McGinty speak much to you of the houses where she worked, or the ladies of those houses?'
'Yes, in a way – but it's no good asking me. You don't seem to realise, M. Poirot, that I had my own life to think of at that time. I was in very serious anxiety.'
'Not in so much serious anxiety as you are now! Did Mrs McGinty speak of Mrs Carpenter – Mrs Selkirk she was then – or of Mrs Rendell?'
'Carpenter has that new house at the top of the hill and a big car, hasn't he? He was engaged to Mrs Selkirk – Mrs McGinty was always very down on Mrs Selkirk. I don't know why. 'Jumped up,' that's what she used to call her. I don't know what she meant by it.'
'And the Rendells?'
'He's the doctor, isn't he? I don't remember her saying anything particular about them.'
'And the Wetherbys?'
'I do remember what she said about them.' James Bentley looked pleased with himself. ''No patience with her fusses and her fancies,' that's what she said. And about him, 'Never a word, good or bad, out of him.'' He paused. 'She said – it was an unhappy house.'
Hercule Poirot looked up. For a second James Bentley's voice had held something that Poirot had not heard in it before. He was not repeating obediently what he could recall. His mind, for a very brief space, had moved out of its apathy. James Bentley was thinking of Hunter's Close, of the life that went on there, of whether or not it was an unhappy house. James Bentley was thinking objectively.
Poirot said softly:
'You knew them? The mother? The father? The daughter?'
'Not really. It was the dog. A Sealyham. It got caught in a trap. She couldn't get it undone. I helped her.'
There was again something new in Bentley's tone. 'I helped her,' he had said, and in those words was a faint echo of pride.
Poirot remembered what Mrs Oliver had told him of her conversation with Deirdre Henderson.
He said gently:
'You talked together?'
'Yes. She – her mother suffered a lot, she told me. She was very fond of her mother.'
'And you told her about yours?'
'Yes,' said James Bentley simply.
Poirot said nothing. He waited.
'Life is very cruel,' said James Bentley. 'Very unfair. Some people never seem to get any happiness.'
'It is possible,' said Hercule Poirot.
'I don't think she had had much. Miss Wetherby.'
' Henderson.'
'Oh yes. She told me she had a stepfather.'
'Deirdre Henderson,' said Poirot. 'Deirdre of the Sorrows. A pretty name – but not a pretty girl, I understand?'
James Bentley flushed.
'I thought,' he said, 'she was rather good-looking…'
Chapter 19
'Now just you listen to me,' said Mrs Sweetiman.
Edna sniffed. She had been listening to Mrs Sweetiman for some time. It had been a hopeless conversation, going round in circles. Mrs Sweetiman had said the same things several times, varying the phraseology a little, but even that not much. Edna had sniffed and occasionally blubbered and had reiterated her own two contributions to the discussion: first, that she couldn't ever! Second, that Dad would skin her alive, he would.
'That's as may be,' said Mrs Sweetiman, 'but murder's murder, and what you saw you saw, and you can't get away from it.'
