After the Funeral - Agatha Christie [57]
Yes, Poirot thought, he could have relied on the information that Helen had got for him. He had done so really. But by nature and long habit he trusted nobody until he himself had tried and proved them.
In any case the evidence was slight and unsatisfactory. It boiled down to the fact that Richard Abernethie had been prescribed vitamin oil capsules. That these had been in a large bottle which had been nearly finished at the time of his death. Anybody who had wanted to, could have operated on one or more of those capsules with a hypodermic syringe and could have rearranged the bottle so that the fatal dose would only be taken some weeks after that somebody had left the house. Or someone might have slipped into the house on the day before Richard Abernethie died and have doctored a capsule then—or, which was more likely—have substituted something else for a sleeping tablet in the little bottle that stood beside the bed. Or again he might have quite simply tampered with the food or drink.
Hercule Poirot had made his own experiments. The front door was kept locked, but there was a side door giving on the garden which was not locked until evening. At about quarter past one, when the gardeners had gone to lunch and when the household was in the dining room, Poirot had entered the grounds, come to the side door, and mounted the stairs to Richard Abernethie’s bedroom without meeting anybody. As a variant he had pushed through a baize door and slipped into the larder. He had heard voices from the kitchen at the end of the passage but no one had seen him.
Yes, it could have been done. But had it been done? There was nothing to indicate that that was so. Not that Poirot was really looking for evidence—he wanted only to satisfy himself as to possibilities. The murder of Richard Abernethie could only be a hypothesis. It was Cora Lansquenet’s murder for which evidence was needed. What he wanted was to study the people who had been assembled for the funeral that day, and to form his own conclusions about them. He already had his plan, but first he wanted a few more words with old Lanscombe.
Lanscombe was courteous but distant. Less resentful than Janet, he nevertheless regarded this upstart foreigner as the materialization of the Writing on the Wall. This was What We are Coming to!
He put down the leather with which he was lovingly polishing the Georgian teapot and straightened his back.
“Yes, sir?” he said politely.
Poirot sat down gingerly on a pantry stool.
“Mrs. Abernethie tells me that you hoped to reside in the lodge by the north gate when you retired from service here?”
“That is so, sir. Naturally all that is changed now. When the propety is sold—”
Poirot interrupted deftly:
“It might still be possible. There are cottages for the gardeners. The lodge is not needed for the guests or their attendants. It might be possible to make an arrangement of some kind.”
“Well, thank you, sir, for the suggestion. But I hardly think— The majority of the—guests would be foreigners, I presume?”
“Yes, they will be foreigners. Amongst those who fled from Europe to this country are several who are old and infirm. There can be no future for them if they return to their own countries, for these persons, you understand, are those whose relatives there have perished. They cannot earn their living here as an able-bodied man or woman can do. Funds have been raised and are being administered by the organization which I represent to endow various country homes for them. This place is, I think, eminently suitable. The matter is practically settled.”
Lanscombe sighed.
“You’ll understand, sir, that it’s sad for me to think that this won’t be a private dwelling house any longer. But I know how things are nowadays. None of the family could afford to live here—and I don’t