After the Funeral - Agatha Christie [36]
III
Mr. Entwhistle had meditated a good deal over how much he should tell Helen. In the end he decided he should take her wholly into his confidence.
First he thanked her for sorting out Richard’s things and for making various household arrangements. The house had been advertised for sale and there were one or two prospective buyers who would shortly be coming to look over it.
“Private buyers?”
“I’m afraid not. The Y.W.C.A. are considering it, and there is a young people’s club, and the Trustees of the Jefferson Trust are looking for a suitable place to house their Collection.”
“It seems sad that the house will not be lived in, but of course it is not a practicable proposition nowadays.”
“I am going to ask you if it would be possible for you to remain here until the house is sold. Or would it be a great inconvenience?”
“No—actually it would suit me very well. I don’t want to go to Cyprus until May, and I much prefer being here than being in London as I had planned. I love this house, you know; Leo loved it, and we were always happy when we were here together.”
“There is another reason why I should be grateful if you would stay on. There is a friend of mine, a man called Hercule Poirot—”
Helen said sharply: “Hercule Poirot? Then you think—”
“You know of him?”
“Yes. Some friends of mine—but I imagined that he was dead long ago.”
“He is very much alive. Not young, of course.”
“No, he could hardly be young.”
She spoke mechanically. Her face was white and strained. She said with an effort:
“You think—that Cora was right? That Richard was—murdered?”
Mr. Entwhistle unburdened himself. It was a pleasure to unburden himself to Helen with her clear calm mind.
When he had finished she said:
“One ought to feel it’s fantastic—but one doesn’t. Maude and I, that night after the funeral—it was in both our minds, I’m sure. Saying to ourselves what a silly woman Cora was—and yet being uneasy. And then—Cora was killed—and I told myself it was just coincidence—and of course it may be—but oh! if one can only be sure. It’s all so difficult.”
“Yes, it’s difficult. But Poirot is a man of great originality and he has something really approaching genius. He understands perfectly what we need—assurance that the whole thing is a mare’s nest.”
“And suppose it isn’t?”
“What makes you say that?” asked Mr. Entwhistle sharply.
“I don’t know. I’ve been uneasy… Not just about what Cora said that day—something else. Something that I felt at the time to be wrong.”
“Wrong? In what way?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know.”
“You mean it was something about one of the people in the room?”
“Yes—yes—something of that kind. But I don’t know who or what… Oh that sounds absurd—”
“Not at all. It is interesting—very interesting. You are not a fool, Helen. If you noticed something, that something has significance.”
“Yes, but I can’t remember what it was. The more I think—”
“Don’t think. That is the wrong way to bring anything back. Let it go. Sooner or later it will flash into your mind. And when it does—let me know—at once.”
“I will.”
Nine
Miss Gilchrist pulled her black hat down firmly on her head and tucked in a wisp of grey hair. The inquest was set for twelve o’clock and it was not quite twenty past eleven. Her grey coat and skirt looked quite nice, she thought, and she had bought herself a black blouse. She wished she could have been all in black, but that would have been far beyond her means. She looked round the small neat bedroom and at the walls hung with representations of Brixham Harbour, Cockington Forge, Anstey’s Cove, Kyance Cove, Polflexan Harbour, Babbacombe Bay, etc., all signed in a dashing way, Cora Lansquenet. Her eyes rested with particular fondness on Polflexan Harbour. On the chest of drawers a faded photograph carefully framed represented the