After the Funeral - Agatha Christie [87]
Poirot’s face was noncommittal. He said:
“Why does your husband accuse himself of the crime?”
“Because he’s—” a word trembled on Susan’s tongue and was rejected. Poirot seized on it.
“You were going to say ‘because he is batty’ speaking in jest—but the jest was too near the truth, was it not?”
“Greg’s all right. He is. He is.”
“I know something of his history,” said Poirot. “He was for some months in Forsdyke House Mental Home before you met him.”
“He was never certified. He was a voluntary patient.”
“That is true. He is not, I agree, to be classed as insane. But he is, very definitely, unbalanced. He has a punishment complex—has had it, I suspect, since infancy.”
Susan spoke quickly and eagerly:
“You don’t understand, M. Poirot. Greg has never had a chance. That’s why I wanted Uncle Richard’s money so badly. Uncle Richard was so matter-of-fact. He couldn’t understand. I knew Greg had got to set up for himself. He had got to feel he was someone—not just a chemist’s assistant, being pushed around. Everything will be different now. He will have his own laboratory. He can work out his own formulas.”
“Yes, yes—you will give him the earth—because you love him. Love him too much for safety or for happiness. But you cannot give to people what they are incapable of receiving. At the end of it all, he will still be something that he does not want to be….”
“What’s that?”
“Susan’s husband.”
“How cruel you are! And what nonsense you talk!”
“Where Gregory Banks is concerned you are unscrupulous. You wanted your uncle’s money—not for yourself—but for your husband. How badly did you want it?”
Angrily, Susan turned and dashed away.
V
“I thought,” said Michael Shane lightly, “that I’d just come along and say good-bye.”
He smiled, and his smile had a singularly intoxicating quality.
Poirot was aware of the man’s vital charm.
He studied Michael Shane for some moments in silence. He felt as though he knew this man least well of all the house party, for Michael Shane only showed the side of himself that he wanted to show.
“Your wife,” said Poirot conversationally, “is a very unusual woman.”
Michael raised his eyebrows.
“Do you think so? She’s a lovely, I agree. But not, or so I’ve found, conspicuous for brains.”
“She will never try to be too clever,” Poirot agreed. “But she knows what she wants.” He sighed. “So few people do.”
“Ah!” Michael’s smile broke out again. “Thinking of the malachite table?”
“Perhaps.” Poirot paused and added: “And of what was on it.”
“The wax flowers, you mean?”
“The wax flowers.”
Michael frowned.
“I don’t always quite understand you, M. Poirot. However,” the smile was switched on again, “I’m more thankful than I can say that we’re all out of the wood. It’s unpleasant, to say the least of it, to go around with the suspicion that somehow or other one of us murdered poor old Uncle Richard.”
“That is how he seemed to you when you met him?” Poirot inquired. “Poor old Uncle Richard?”
“Of course he was very well-preserved and all that—”
“And in full possession of his faculties—”
“Oh yes.”
“And, in fact, quite shrewd?”
“I dare say.”
“A shrewd judge of character.”
The smile remained unaltered.
“You can’t expect me to agree with that, M. Poirot. He didn’t approve of me.”
“He thought you, perhaps, the unfaithful type?” Poirot suggested.
Michael laughed.
“What an old-fashioned idea!”
“But it is true, isn’t it?”
“Now I wonder what you mean by that?”
Poirot placed the tips of his fingers together.
“There have been inquiries made, you know,” he murmured.
“By you?”
“Not only by me.”
Michael Shane gave him a quick searching glance. His reactions, Poirot noted, were quick. Michael Shane was no fool.
“You mean—the police are interested?