After the Funeral - Agatha Christie [76]
“Not at all,” said George.
“The Sacred Heart of Mary,” continued Poirot. “Fortunately, owing to the kindness of an unknown benefactory we were able to make a slightly higher offer.” He addressed Miss Gilchrist directly. “You do not like nuns, I think?”
Miss Gilchrist flushed and looked embarrassed.
“Oh, really, Mr. Pontarlier, you mustn’t—I mean, it’s nothing personal. But I never do see that it’s right to shut yourself up from the world in that way—not necessary, I mean, and really almost selfish, though not teaching ones, of course, or the ones that go about amongst the poor—because I’m sure they’re thoroughly unselfish women and do a lot of good.”
“I simply can’t imagine wanting to be a nun,” said Susan.
“It’s very becoming,” said Rosamund. “You remember—when they revived The Miracle last year. Sonia Wells looked absolutely too glamorous for words.”
“What beats me,” said George, “is why it should be pleasing to the Almighty to dress oneself up in medieval dress. For after all, that’s all a nun’s dress is. Thoroughly cumbersome, unhygienic and impractical.”
“And it makes them look so alike, doesn’t it?” said Miss Gilchrist. “It’s silly, you know, but I got quite a turn when I was at Mrs. Abernethie’s and a nun came to the door, collecting. I got it into my head she was the same as the nun who came to the door on the day of the inquest on poor Mrs. Lansquenet at Lytchett St. Mary. I felt, you know, almost as though she had been following me round!”
“I thought nuns always collected in couples,” said George. “Surely a detective story hinged on that point once?”
“There was only one this time,” said Miss Gilchrist. “Perhaps they’ve got to economize,” she added vaguely. “And anyway it couldn’t have been the same nun, for the other one was collecting for an organ for St—Barnabas, I think—and this one was for something quite different—something to do with children.”
“But they both had the same type of features?” Hercule Poirot asked. He sounded interested. Miss Gilchrist turned to him.
“I suppose that must be it. The upper lip—almost as though she had a moustache. I think, you know, that that is really what alarmed me—being in a rather nervous state at the time, and remembering those stories during the war of nuns who were really men and in the Fifth Column and landed by parachute. Of course it was very foolish of me. I knew that afterwards.”
“A nun would be a good disguise,” said Susan thoughtfully. “It hides your feet.”
“The truth is,” said George, “that one very seldom looks properly at anyone. That’s why one gets such wildly differing accounts of a person from different witnesses in court. You’d be surprised. A man is often described as tall—short; thin—stout; fair—dark; dressed in a dark—light—suit, and so on. There’s usually one reliable observer, but one has to make up one’s mind who that is.”
“Another queer thing,” said Susan, “is that you sometimes catch sight of yourself in a mirror unexpectedly and don’t know who it is. It just looks vaguely familiar. And you say to yourself, ‘There’s somebody I know quite well… ’ and then suddenly realize it’s yourself!”
George said: “It would be more difficult still if you could really see yourself—and not a mirror image.”
“Why?” asked Rosamund, looking puzzled.
“Because, don’t you see, nobody ever sees themselves—as they appear to other people. They always see themselves in a glass—that is—as a reversed image.”
“But why does that look any different?”
“Oh yes,” said Susan quickly. “It must. Because people’s faces aren’t the same both sides. Their eyebrows are different, and their mouths go up one side, and their noses aren’t really straight. You can see with a pencil—who’s got a pencil?”
Somebody produced a pencil, and they experimented,