After the Funeral - Agatha Christie [53]
“Ça se peut,” said Hercule Poirot.
“Pardon? Anyway, he went into this Sanatorium and they treated him and discharged him as cured, and he met Miss Abernethie as she was then. And he got a job in this respectable but rather obscure little chemist’s shop. Told them he’d been out of England for a year and a half, and gave them his former reference from some shop in Eastbourne. Nothing against him in that shop, but a fellow dispenser said he had a very queer temper and was odd in his manner sometimes. There’s a story about a customer saying once as a joke, ‘Wish you’d sell me something to poison my wife, ha ha!’ And Banks says to him, very soft and quiet: ‘I could… It would cost you two hundred pounds.’ The man felt uneasy and laughed it off. May have been all a joke, but it doesn’t seem to me that Banks is the joking kind.”
“Mon ami,” said Hercule Poirot. “It really amazes me how you get your information! Medical and highly confidential most of it!”
Mr. Goby’s eyes swivelled right round the room and he murmured, looking expectantly at the door, that there were ways….
“Now we come to the country department. Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Abernethie. Very nice place they’ve got, but sadly needing money spent on it. Very straitened they seem to be, very straitened. Taxation and unfortunate investments. Mr. Abernethie enjoys ill health and the emphasis is on the enjoyment. Complains a lot and has everyone running and fetching and carrying. Eats hearty meals, and seems quite strong physically if he likes to make the effort. There’s no one in the house after the daily woman goes and no one’s allowed into Mr. Abernethie’s room unless he rings the bell. He was in a very bad temper the morning of the day after the funeral. Swore at Mrs. Jones. Ate only a little of his breakfast and said he wouldn’t have any lunch—he’d had a bad night. He said the supper she had left out for him was unfit to eat and a good deal more. He was alone in the house and unseen by anybody from 9:30 that morning until the following morning.”
“And Mrs. Abernethie?”
“She started off from Enderby by car at the time you mentioned. Arrived on foot at a small local garage in a place called Cathstone and explained her car had broken down a couple of miles away.
“A mechanic drove her out to it, made an investigation and said they’d have to tow it in and it would be a long job—couldn’t promise to finish it that day. The lady was very put out, but went to a small inn, arranged to stay the night, and asked for some sandwiches as she said she’d like to see something of the countryside—it’s on the edge of the moorland country. She didn’t come back to the inn till quite late that evening. My informant said he didn’t wonder. It’s a sordid little place!”
“And the times?”
“She got the sandwiches at eleven. If she’d walked to the main road, a mile, she could have hitchhiked into Wallcaster and caught a special South Coast express which stops at Reading West. I won’t go into details of buses etcetera. It could just have been done if you could make the—er—attack fairly late in the afternoon.”
“I understand the doctor stretched the time limit to possibly 4:30.”
“Mind you,” said Mr. Goby, “I shouldn’t say it was likely. She seems to be a nice lady, liked by everybody. She’s devoted to her husband, treats him like a child.”
“Yes, yes, the maternal complex.”
“She’s strong and hefty, chops the wood and often hauls in great baskets of logs. Pretty good with the inside of a car, too.”
“I was coming to that. What exactly was wrong with the car?”
“Do you want the exact details, M. Poirot?”
“Heaven forbid. I have no mechanical knowledge.”
“It was a difficult thing to spot. And also to put right. And it could