ABC Murders - Agatha Christie [11]
“Probably a wedding picture,” said Poirot. “Regard, Hastings, did I not tell you that she had been a beautiful woman?”
He was right. Disfigured by old-fashioned hairdressing and weird clothes, there was no disguising the handsomeness of the girl in the picture with her clear-cut features and spirited bearing. I looked closely at the second figure. It was almost impossible to recognise the seedy Ascher in this smart young man with the military bearing.
I recalled the leering drunken old man, and the toil-worn face of the dead woman—and I shivered a little at the remorselessness of time….
From the parlour a stair led to two upstairs rooms. One was empty and unfurnished, the other had evidently been the dead woman’s bedroom. After being searched by the police it had been left as it was. A couple of old worn blankets on the bed—a little stock of well-darned underwear in a drawer—cookery recipes in another—a paper-backed novel entitled The Green Oasis—a pair of new stockings—pathetic in their cheap shininess—a couple of china ornaments—a Dresden shepherd much broken, and a blue and yellow spotted dog—a black raincoat and a woolly jumper hanging on pegs—such were the worldly possessions of the late Alice Ascher.
If there had been any personal papers, the police had taken them.
“Pauvre femme,” murmured Poirot. “Come, Hastings, there is nothing for us here.”
When we were once more in the street, he hesitated for a minute or two, then crossed the road. Almost exactly opposite Mrs. Ascher’s was a greengrocer’s shop—of the type that has most of its stock outside rather than inside.
In a low voice Poirot gave me certain instructions. Then he himself entered the shop. After waiting a minute or two I followed him in. He was at the moment negotiating for a lettuce. I myself bought a pound of strawberries.
Poirot was talking animatedly to the stout lady who was serving him.
“It was just opposite you, was it not, that this murder occurred? What an affair! What a sensation it must have caused you!”
The stout lady was obviously tired of talking about the murder. She must have had a long day of it. She observed:
“It would be as well if some of that gaping crowd cleared off. What is there to look at, I’d like to know?”
“It must have been very different last night,” said Poirot. “Possibly you even observed the murderer enter the shop—a tall, fair man with a beard, was he not? A Russian, so I have heard.”
“What’s that?” The woman looked up sharply. “A Russian did it, you say?”
“I understand that the police have arrested him.”
“Did you ever know?” The woman was excited, voluble. “A foreigner.”
“Mais oui. I thought perhaps you might have noticed him last night?”
“Well, I don’t get much chance of noticing, and that’s a fact. The evening’s our busy time and there’s always a fair few passing along and getting home after their work. A tall, fair man with a beard—no, I can’t say I saw anyone of that description anywhere about.”
I broke in on my cue.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said to Poirot. “I think you have been misinformed. A short dark man I was told.”
An interested discussion intervened in which the stout lady, her lank husband and a hoarse-voiced shop-boy all participated. No less than four short dark men had been observed, and the hoarse boy had seen a tall fair one, “but he hadn’t got no beard,” he added regretfully.
Finally, our purchases made, we left the establishment, leaving our falsehoods uncorrected.
“And what was the point of all that, Poirot?” I demanded somewhat reproachfully.
“Parbleu, I wanted to estimate the chances of a stranger being noticed entering the shop opposite.”
“Couldn’t you simply have asked—without all that tissue of lies?”
“No, mon ami. If I had ‘simply asked,’ as you put it, I should have got no answer at all to my questions. You yourself are English and yet you do not seem to appreciate the quality of the English reaction to a direct question. It is invariably one of suspicion and the natural result is reticence. If I had asked those