'It wasn't – then who was it?'
'I dunno. I didn't see her face. Had her back to me, she had, going up the path and standing there. But it wasn't Miss Henderson.'
'But how do you know it wasn't Miss Henderson if you didn't see her face?'
'Because she had fair hair. Miss Henderson's is dark.'
Johnnie Summerhayes looked disbelieving.
'It was a very dark night. You'd hardly be able to see the colour of anyone's hair.'
'But I did, though. That light was on over the porch. Left like that, it was, because Mr Robin and the detective lady had gone out together to the theatre. And she was standing right under it. A dark coat she had on, and no hat, and her hair was shining fair as could be. I saw it.'
Johnnie gave a slow whistle. His eyes were serious now.
'What time was it?' he asked.
Edna sniffed.
'I don't rightly know.'
'You know about what time,' said Mrs Sweetiman.
'It wasn't nine o'clock. I'd have heard the church. And it was after half-past eight.'
'Between half-past eight and nine. How long did she stop?'
'I dunno, sir. But I didn't wait no longer. And I didn't hear nothing. No groans or cries or nothing like that.'
Edna sounded slightly aggrieved.
But there would have been no groans and no cries. Johnnie Summerhayes knew that. He said gravely:
'Well, there's only one thing to be done. The police have got to hear about this.'
Edna burst into long sniffling sobs.
'Dad'll skin me alive,' she whimpered. 'He will, for sure.'
She cast an imploring look at Mrs Sweetiman and bolted into the back room. Mrs Sweetiman took over with competence.
'It's like this, sir,' she said in answer to Summerhayes' inquiring glance. 'Edna's been behaving very foolish like. Very strict her Dad is, maybe a bit over strict, but it's hard to say what's best nowadays. There's a nice young fellow over to Cullavon and he and Edna have been going together nice and steady, and her Dad was quite pleased about it, but Reg he's on the slow side, and you know what girls are. Edna's taken up lately with Charlie Masters.'
'Masters? One of Farmer Cole's men, isn't he?'
'That's right, sir. Farm labourer. And a married man with two children. Always after the girls, he is, and a bad fellow in every way. Edna hasn't got any sense, and her Dad, he put a stop to it. Quite right. So, you see, Edna was going into Cullavon that night to go to the pictures with Reg – at least that's what she told her Dad. But really she went out to meet this Masters. Waited for him, she did, at the turn of the lane where it seems they used to meet. Well, he didn't come. Maybe his wife kept him at home, or maybe he's after another girl, but there it is. Edna waited but at last she gave up. But it's awkward for her, as you can see, explaining what she was doing there, when she ought to have taken the bus into Cullavon.'
Johnnie Summerhayes nodded. Suppressing an irrelevant feeling of wonder that the unprepossessing Edna could have sufficient sex appeal to attract the attention of two men, he dealt with the practical aspect of the situation.
'She doesn't want to go to Bert Hayling about it,' he said with quick comprehension.
'That's right, sir.'
Summerhayes reflected rapidly.
'I'm afraid the police have got to know,' he said gently.
'That's what I told her, sir,' said Mrs Sweetiman.
'But they will probably be quite tactful about – er – the circumstances. Possibly she mayn't have to give evidence. And what she tells them, they'll keep to themselves. I could ring up Spence and ask him to come over here – no, better still, I'll take young Edna into Kilchester with me in my car. If she goes to the police station there, nobody here need know anything about it. I'll just ring them up first and warn them we're coming.'
And so, after a brief telephone call, the sniffing Edna, buttoned firmly into her coat and encouraged by a pat on the back from Mrs Sweetiman, stepped into the station wagon and was driven rapidly away in the direction of Kilchester.
Chapter 20
Hercule Poirot was in Superintendent Spence's office in Kilchester. He was leaning back in a chair, his eyes closed and the tips of his fingers just touching each other in front of him.
The Superintendent received some reports, gave instructions to a sergeant, and finally looked across at the other man.
'Getting a brainwave, M. Poirot?' he demanded.
'I reflect,' said Poirot. 'I review.'
'I forgot to ask you. Did you get anything useful from James Bentley when you saw him?'
Poirot shook his head. He frowned.
It was indeed of James Bentley he had been thinking.
It was annoying, thought Poirot with exasperation, that on a case such as this where he had offered his services without reward, solely out of friendship and respect for an upright police officer, that the victim of circumstances should so lack any romantic appeal. A lovely young girl, now, bewildered and innocent, or a fine upstanding young man, also bewildered, but whose 'head is bloody but unbowed' thought Poirot, who had been reading a good deal of English poetry in an anthology lately. Instead, he had James Bentley, a pathological case if there ever was one, a self-centred creature who had never thought much of anyone but himself. A man ungrateful for the efforts that were being made to save him – almost, one might say, uninterested in them.
Really, thought Poirot, one might as well let him be hanged since he does not seem to care…
No, he would not go quite as far as that.
Superintendent Spence's voice broke into these reflections.
'Our interview,' said Poirot, 'was, if I might say so, singularly unproductive. Anything useful that Bentley might have remembered he did not remember – what he did remember is so vague and uncertain that one cannot build upon it. But at any rate it seems fairly certain that Mrs McGinty was excited by the article in the Sunday Companion and spoke about it to Bentley with special reference to 'someone connected with the case,' living in Broadhinny.'
'With which case?' asked Superintendent Spence sharply.
'Our friend could not be sure,' said Poirot. 'He said, rather doubtfully, the Craig case – but the Craig case being the only one he had ever heard of, it would, presumably, be the only one he could remember. But the 'someone' was a woman. He even quoted Mrs McGinty's words. Somebody who had 'not so much to be proud of if all's known.''
'Proud?'
'Mais oui,' Poirot nodded his appreciation. 'A suggestive word, is it not?'
'No clue as to who the proud lady was?'
'Bentley suggested Mrs Upward – but as far as I can see for no real reason!'
Spence shook his head.
'Probably because she was a proud masterful sort of woman – outstandingly so, I should say. But it couldn't have been Mrs Upward, because Mrs Upward's dead, and dead for the same reason as Mrs McGinty died – because she recognised a photograph.'
Poirot said sadly: 'I warned her.'
Spence murmured irritably:
'Lily Gamboll! So far as age goes, there are only two possibilities, Mrs Rendell and Mrs Carpenter. I don't
