Superintendent Spence looked uneasily at the little man.
'Look here, M. Poirot,' he said. 'Don't go sticking out your neck. I don't want anything to happen to you.'
'But if it does, you would be proved right beyond the shadow of doubt, is it not so?'
'I don't want it proved the hard way,' said Superintendent Spence.
Chapter 4
With great distaste, Hercule Poirot looked round the room in which he stood. It was a room of gracious proportions but there its attraction ended. Poirot made an eloquent grimace as he drew a suspicious finger along the top of a book case. As he had suspected – dust! He sat down gingerly on a sofa and its broken springs sagged depressingly under him. The two faded armchairs were, as he knew, little better. A large fierce-looking dog whom Poirot suspected of having mange growled from his position on a moderately comfortable fourth chair.
The room was large, and had a faded Morris wallpaper. Steel engravings of unpleasant subjects hung crookedly on the walls with one or two good oil paintings. The chair-covers were both faded and dirty, the carpet had holes in it and had never been of a pleasant design. A good deal of miscellaneous bric-a-brac was scattered haphazard here and there. Tables rocked dangerously owing to absence of castors. One window was open, and no power on earth could, apparently, shut it again. The door, temporarily shut, was not likely to remain so. The latch did not hold, and with every gust of wind it burst open and whirling gusts of cold wind eddied round the room.
'I suffer,' said Hercule Poirot to himself in acute self-pity. 'Yes, I suffer.'
The door burst open and the wind and Mrs Summerhayes came in together. She looked round the room, shouted 'What?' to someone in the distance and went out again.
Mrs Summerhayes had red hair and an attractively freckled face and was usually in a distracted state of putting things down, or else looking for them.
Hercule Poirot sprang to his feet and shut the door.
A moment or two later it opened again and Mrs Summerhayes reappeared. This time she was carrying a large enamel basin and a knife.
A man's voice from some way away called out:
'Maureen, that cat's been sick again. What shall I do?'
Mrs Summerhayes called: 'I'm coming, darling. Hold everything.'
She dropped the basin and the knife and went out again.
Poirot got up again and shut the door. He said:
'Decidedly, I suffer.'
A car drove up, the large dog leaped from the chair and raised its voice in a crescendo of barking. He jumped on a small table by the window and the table collapsed with a crash.
'Enfin,' said Hercule Poirot. 'C'est insupportable!'
The door burst open, the wind surged round the room, the dog rushed out, still barking. Maureen's voice came, upraised loud and clear.
'Johnnie, why the hell did you leave the back door open! Those bloody hens are in the larder.'
'And for this,' said Hercule Poirot with feeling, 'I pay seven guineas a week!'
The door banged to with a crash. Through the window came the loud squawking of irate hens.
Then the door opened again and Maureen Summerhayes came in and fell upon the basin with a cry of joy.
'Couldn't think where I'd left it. Would you mind frightfully, Mr Er – hum – I mean, would it bother you if I sliced the beans in here? The smell in the kitchen is too frightful.'
'Madame, I should be enchanted.'
It was not, perhaps, the exact phrase, but it was near enough. It was the first time in twenty-four hours that Poirot had seen any chance of a conversation of more than six seconds' duration.
Mrs Summerhayes flung herself down in a chair and began slicing beans with frenzied energy and considerable awkwardness.
'I do hope,' she said, 'that you're not too frightfully uncomfortable? If there's anything you want altered, do say so.'
Poirot had already come to the opinion that the only thing in Long Meadows he could even tolerate was his hostess.
'You are too kind, madame,' he replied politely. 'I only wish it were within my powers to provide you with suitable domestics.'
'Domestics!' Mrs Summerhayes gave a squeal. 'What a hope! Can't even get hold of a daily. Our really good one was murdered. Just my luck.'
'That would be Mrs McGinty,' said Poirot quickly.
'Mrs McGinty it was. God, how I miss that woman! Of course it was all a big thrill at the time. First murder we've ever had right in the family, so to speak, but as I told Johnnie, it was a downright bit of bad luck for us. Without McGinty I just can't cope.'
'You were attached to her?'
'My dear man, she was reliable. She came. Monday afternoons and Thursday mornings – just like a clock. Now I have that Burp woman from up by the station. Five children and a husband. Naturally she's never here. Either the husband's taken queer, or the old mother, or the children have some foul disease or other. With old McGinty, at least it was only she herself who came over queer, and I must say she hardly ever did.'
'And you found her always reliable and honest? You had trust in her?'
'Oh, she'd never pinch anything – not even food. Of course she snooped a bit. Had a look at one's letters and all that. But one expects that sort of thing. I mean they must live such awfully drab lives, mustn't they?'
'Had Mrs McGinty had a drab life?'
'Ghastly, I expect,' said Mrs Summerhayes vaguely. 'Always on your knees scrubbing. And then piles of other people's washing up waiting for you on the sink when you arrive in the morning. If I had to face that every day, I'd be positively relieved to be murdered. I really would.'
The face of Major Summerhayes appeared at the window. Mrs Summerhayes sprang up, upsetting the beans, and rushed across to the window, which she opened to the fullest extent.
'That damned dog's eaten the hens' food again, Maureen.'
'Oh damn, now he'll be sick!'
'Look here,' John Summerhayes displayed a colander of greenery, 'is this enough spinach?'
'Of course not.'
'Seems a colossal amount to me.'
'It'll be about a teaspoonful when it's cooked. Don't you know by now what spinach is like?'
'Oh lord!'
'Has the fish come?'
'Not a sign of it.'
'Hell, we'll have to open a tin of something. You might do that, Johnnie. One of the ones in the corner cupboard. That one we thought was a bit bulged. I expect it's quite all right really.'
'What about the spinach?'
'I'll get that.'
She leaped through the window, and husband and wife moved away together.
'Nom d'un nom d'un nom!' said Hercule Poirot. He crossed the room and closed the window as nearly as he could. The voice of Major Summerhayes came to him borne on the wind.
'What about this new fellow, Maureen? Looks a bit peculiar to me. What's his name again?'
'I couldn't remember it just now when I was talking to him. Had to say Mr Er-um. Poirot – that's what it is. He's French.'
'You know, Maureen, I seem to have seen that name somewhere.'
'Home Perm, perhaps. He looks like a hairdresser.'
Poirot winced.
