After the Funeral - Agatha Christie [81]
“Certainly, sir. I will send Janet up with it, sir.”
Lanscombe looked disapprovingly at Hercule Poirot’s back as the latter climbed the stairs. Poirot was attired in an exotic silk dressing gown with a pattern of triangles and squares.
“Foreigners!” thought Lanscombe bitterly. “Foreigners in the house! And Mrs. Leo with concussion! I don’t know what we’re coming to. Nothing’s the same since Mr. Richard died.”
Hercule Poirot was dressed by the time he received his coffee from Janet. His murmurs of sympathy were well-received, since he stressed the shock her discovery must have given her.
“Yes, indeed, sir, what I felt when I opened the door of the study and came in with the Hoover and saw Mrs. Leo lying there I shall never forget. There she lay—and I made sure she was dead. She must have been taken faint as she stood at the phone—and fancy her being up at that time in the morning! I’ve never known her to do such a thing before.”
“Fancy, indeed!” He added casually: “No one else was up, I suppose?”
“As it happens, sir, Mrs. Timothy was up and about. She’s a very early riser always—often goes for a walk before breakfast.”
“She is of the generation that rises early,” said Poirot, nodding his head. “The younger ones, now—they do not get up so early?”
“No, indeed, sir, all fast asleep when I brought them their tea—and very late I was, too, what with the shock and getting the doctor to come and having to have a cup first to steady myself.”
She went off and Poirot reflected on what she had said.
Maude Abernethie had been up and about, and the younger generation had been in bed—but that, Poirot reflected, meant nothing at all. Anyone could have heard Helen’s door open and close, and have followed her down to listen—and would afterwards have made a point of being fast asleep in bed.
“But if I am right,” thought Poirot, “and after all, it is natural to me to be right—it is a habit I have!—then there is no need to go into who was here and who was these. First, I must seek a proof where I have deduced the proof may be. And then—I make my little speech. And I sit back and see what happens….”
As soon as Janet had left the room, Poirot drained his coffee cup, put on his overcoat and his hat, left his room, ran nimbly down the back stairs and left the house by the side door. He walked briskly the quarter mile to the post office where he demanded a trunk call. Presently he was once more speaking to Mr. Entwhistle.
“Yes, it is I yet again! Pay no attention to the commission with which I entrusted you. C’était une blague! Someone was listening. Now, mon vieux, to the real commission. You must, as I said, take a train. But not to Bury St. Edmunds. I want you to proceed to the house of Mr. Timothy Abernethie.”
“But Timothy and Maude are at Enderby.”
“Exactly. There is no one in the house but a woman by the name of Jones who has been persuaded by the offer of considerable largesse to guard the house whilst they are absent. What I want you to do is to take something out of that house!”
“My dear Poirot! I really can’t stoop to burglary!”
“It will not seem like burglary. You will say to the excellent Mrs. Jones who knows you, that you have been asked by Mr. or Mrs. Abernethie to fetch this particular object and take it to London. She will not suspect anything amiss.”
“No, no, probably not. But I don’t like it.” Mr. Entwhistle sounded most reluctant. “Why can’t you go and get whatever it is yourself?”
“Because, my friend, I should be a stranger of foreign appearance and as such a suspicious character, and Mrs. Jones would at once raise the difficulties! With you, she will not.”
“No, no—I see that. But what on earth are Timothy and Maude going to think when they hear about it? I have known them for forty odd years.”
“And you knew Richard Abernethie for that time also! And you knew Cora Lansquenet when she was a little girl!”
In a martyred voice Mr. Entwhistle asked:
“You’re sure this is really