Hercule Poirot took a hired car back to Broadhinny.
He was tired because he had been thinking. Thinking was always exhausting. And his thinking had not been entirely satisfactory. It was as though a pattern, perfectly visible, was woven into a piece of material and yet, although he was holding the piece of material, he could not see what the pattern was.
But it was all there. That was the point. It was all there. Only it was one of those patterns, self-coloured and subtle, that are not easy to perceive.
A little way out of Kilchester his car encountered the Summerhayes' station wagon coming in the opposite direction. Johnnie was driving and he had a passenger. Poirot hardly noticed them. He was still absorbed in thought.
When he got back to Long Meadows, he went into the drawing-room. He removed a colander full of spinach from the most comfortable chair in the room and sat down. From overhead came the faint drumming of a typewriter. It was Robin Upward, struggling with a play. Three versions he had already torn up, so he told Poirot. Somehow, he couldn't concentrate.
Robin might feel his mother's death quite sincerely, but he remained Robin Upward, chiefly interested in himself.
'Madre,' he said solemnly, 'would have wished me to go on with my work.'
Hercule Poirot had heard many people say much the same thing. It was one of the most convenient assumptions, this knowledge of what the dead would wish. The bereaved had never any doubt about their dear ones' wishes and those wishes usually squared with their own inclinations.
In this case it was probably true. Mrs Upward had had great faith in Robin's work and had been extremely proud of him.
Poirot leaned back and closed his eyes.
He thought of Mrs Upward. He considered what Mrs Upward had really been like. He remembered a phrase that he had once heard used by a police officer.
'We'll take him apart and see what makes him tick.'
What had made Mrs Upward tick?
There was a crash, and Maureen Summerhayes came in. Her hair was flapping madly.
'I can't think what's happened to Johnnie,' she said. 'He just went down to the post office with those special orders. He ought to have been back hours ago. I want him to fix the henhouse door.'
A true gentleman, Poirot feared, would have gallantly offered to fix the henhouse door himself. Poirot did not. He wanted to go on thinking about two murders and about the character of Mrs Upward.
'And I can't find that Ministry of Agriculture form,' continued Maureen. 'I've looked everywhere.'
'The spinach is on the sofa,' Poirot offered helpfully.
Maureen was not worried about spinach.
'The form came last week,' she mused. 'And I must have put it somewhere. Perhaps it was when I was darning that pullover of Johnnie's.'
She swept over to the bureau and started pulling out the drawers. Most of the contents she swept on to the floor ruthlessly. It was agony to Hercule Poirot to watch her.
Suddenly she uttered a cry of triumph.
'Got it!'
Delightedly she rushed from the room.
Hercule Poirot sighed and resumed meditation.
To arrange, with order and precision -
He frowned. The untidy heap of objects on the floor by the bureau distracted his mind. What a way to look for things!
Order and method. That was the thing. Order and method…
Though he had turned sideways in his chair, he could still see the confusion on the floor. Sewing things, a pile of socks, letters, knitting wool, magazines, sealing wax, photographs, a pullover -
It was insupportable!
Poirot rose, went across to the bureau and with quick deft movements began to return the objects to the open drawers.
The pullover, the socks, the knitting wool. Then, in the next drawer, the sealing wax, the photographs, the letters -
The telephone rang.
The sharpness of the bell made him jump.
He went across to the telephone and lifted the receiver.
''Allo, 'allo, 'allo,' he said.
The voice that spoke to him was the voice of Superintendent Spence.
'Ah it's you, M. Poirot. Just the man I want.'
Spence's voice was almost unrecognisable. A very worried man had given place to a confident one.
'Filling me up with a lot of fandangle about the wrong photograph,' he said with reproachful indulgence. 'We've got some new evidence. Girl at the post office in Broadhinny. Major Summerhayes just brought her in. It seems she was standing practically opposite the cottage that night and she saw a woman go in. Sometime after eight-thirty and before nine o'clock. And it wasn't Deirdre Henderson. It was a woman with fair hair. That puts us right back where we were – it's definitely between the two of them – Eve Carpenter and Shelagh Rendell. The only question is – which?'
Poirot opened his mouth but did not speak. Carefully, deliberately, he replaced the receiver on the stand.
He stood there staring unseeingly in front of him.
The telephone rang again.
''Allo! 'Allo! 'Allo!'
'Can I speak to M. Poirot, please?'
'Hercule Poirot speaking.'
'Thought so. Maude Williams here. Post office in a quarter of an hour?'
'I will be there.'
He replaced the receiver.
He looked down at his feet. Should he change his shoes? His feet ached a little. Ah well – no matter.
Resolutely Poirot clapped on his hat and left the house.
On his way down the hill he was hailed by one of Superintendent Spence's men just emerging from Laburnums.
'Morning, M. Poirot.'
Poirot responded politely. He noticed that Sergeant Fletcher was looking excited.
'The Super sent me over to have a thorough check up,' he explained. 'You know – any little thing we might have missed. Never know, do you? We'd been over the desk, of course, but the Super got the idea there might be a secret drawer – must have been reading spy stuff. Well, there wasn't a secret drawer. But after that I got on to the books. Sometimes people slip a letter into a book they're reading. You know?'
Poirot said that he knew. 'And you found something?' he asked politely.
'Not a letter or anything of that sort, no. But I found something interesting – at least I think it's interesting. Look here.'
He upwrapped from a piece of newspaper an old and rather decrepit book.
'In one of the bookshelves it was. Old book, published years ago. But look here.' He opened it and showed the flyleaf. Pencilled across it were the words: Evelyn Hope.
'Interesting, don't you think? That's the name, in ease you don't remember -'
'The name that Eva Kane took when she left England. I do remember,' said Poirot.
'Looks as though when Mrs McGinty spotted one of those photos here in Broadhinny, it was our Mrs Upward. Makes it kind of complicated, doesn't it?'
'It does,' said Poirot with feeling. 'I can assure you that when you go back to Superintendent Spence with this piece of information he will pull out his hair by the roots – yes, assuredly by the roots.'
