Black Coffee - Agatha Christie [38]
He broke off as Lucia Amory entered the room, carrying her handbag. ‘I understand you wanted to see me, Monsieur Poirot. Is that correct?’ she asked.
‘Yes, madame. I would like simply to ask you a few questions.’ He indicated a chair by the table. ‘Won’t you sit down?’
Lucia moved to the chair and sat, as Poirot turned to Hastings. ‘My friend, the garden outside that window is very fine,’ Poirot observed, taking Hastings by the arm and propelling him gently towards the french windows. Hastings looked distinctly reluctant to leave, but Poirot’s insistence, though gentle, was firm. ‘Yes, my friend. Observe the beauties of nature. Do not ever lose a chance of observing the beauties of nature.’
Somewhat unwillingly, Hastings allowed himself to be bundled out of doors. Then, the day being warm and sunny, he decided to make the best of his present situation and explore the Amorys’ garden. Ambling across the lawn, he made his way towards a hedge beyond which a formal garden looked extremely inviting.
As he walked along the length of the hedge, Hastings became aware of voices quite close by, voices which, as he approached, he recognized as those of Barbara Amory and Dr Graham, who were, it seemed, enjoying a tête à tête on a bench, just the other side of the hedge. In the hope that he might overhear something relevant to Sir Claud Amory’s death or the disappearance of the formula that it would be useful for Poirot to know, Hastings stopped to listen.
‘– perfectly clear that he thinks his beautiful young cousin can do better for herself than a country doctor. That seems to be the basis of his lack of enthusiasm for our seeing each other,’ Kenneth Graham was saying.
‘Oh, I know Richard can be an old stick-in-the-mud at times, and carry on like someone twice his age,’ Barbara’s voice replied. ‘But I don’t think you ought to allow yourself to be affected by it, Kenny. I certainly don’t take any notice of him.’
‘Well, I shan’t either,’ said Dr Graham. ‘But, look here, Barbara, I asked you to meet me out here because I wanted to talk to you privately, without being seen or heard by the family. First of all, I ought to tell you that there can be no doubt about it, your uncle was poisoned last night.’
‘Oh, yes?’ Barbara sounded bored.
‘You don’t seem at all surprised to hear that.’
‘Oh I suppose I’m surprised. After all, members of one’s family don’t get poisoned every day, do they? But I have to admit that I’m not particularly upset that he’s dead. In fact, I think I’m glad.’
‘Barbara!’
‘Now, don’t you start pretending you’re surprised to hear that, Kenny. You’ve listened to me going on about the mean old so-and-so on countless occasions. He didn’t really care for any of us, he was only interested in his mouldy old experiments. He treated Richard very badly, and he wasn’t particularly welcoming to Lucia when Richard brought her back from Italy as his bride. And Lucia is so sweet, and so absolutely right for Richard.’
‘Barbara, darling, I have to ask you this. Now, I promise that anything you say to me will go no further. I’ll protect you if necessary. But, tell me, do you know something – anything at all – about your uncle’s death? Have you any reason to suspect that Richard, for example, might have felt so desperate about his financial situation that he would think of killing his father in order to get his hands now on what would eventually be his inheritance?’
‘I don’t want to continue this conversation, Kenny. I thought you asked me out here to whisper sweet nothings to me, not to accuse my cousin of murder.’
‘Darling, I’m not accusing Richard of anything. But you must admit there’s something wrong here. Richard doesn’t seem to want a police investigation into his uncle’s death. It’s almost as though he were afraid of what it might reveal. There’s no way he can stop the police from taking over, of course, but he’s made it perfectly clear that he