Dead Man's Folly - Agatha Christie [65]
‘Perhaps I have used the wrong word. You do not know, but I think you guess, Madame. I’m quite sure that you guess.’
‘Now you are being – excuse me – absurd!’
‘It is not absurd – it is something quite different – it is dangerous.’
‘Dangerous? To whom?’
‘To you, Madame. So long as you keep your knowledge to yourself you are in danger. I know murderers better than you do, Madame.’
‘I have told you already, I have no knowledge.’
‘Suspicions, then –’
‘I have no suspicions.’
‘That, excuse me, is not true, Madame.’
‘To speak out of mere suspicion would be wrong – indeed, wicked.’
Poirot leaned forward. ‘As wicked as what was done here just over a month ago?’
She shrank back into her chair, huddled into herself. She half whispered:
‘Don’t talk to me of it.’ And then added, with a long shuddering sigh, ‘Anyway, it’s over now. Done – finished with.’
‘How can you tell that, Madame? I tell you of my own knowledge that it is never finished with a murderer.’
She shook her head.
‘No. No, it’s the end. And, anyway, there is nothing I can do. Nothing.’
He got up and stood looking down at her. She said almost fretfully:
‘Why, even the police have given up.’
Poirot shook his head.
‘Oh, no, Madame, you are wrong there. The police do not give up. And I,’ he added, ‘do not give up either. Remember that, Madame, I, Hercule Poirot, do not give up.’
It was a very typical exit line.
Chapter 17
After leaving Nasse, Poirot went to the village where, by inquiry, he found the cottage occupied by the Tuckers. His knock at the door went unanswered for some moments as it was drowned by the high-pitched tone of Mrs Tucker’s voice from inside.
‘– And what be yu thinking of, Jim Tucker, bringing them boots of yours on to my nice linoleum? If I’ve tell ee once I’ve tell ee a thousand times. Been polishing it all the morning, I have, and now look at it.’
A faint rumbling denoted Mr Tucker’s reaction to these remarks. It was on the whole a placatory rumble.
‘Yu’ve no cause to go forgetting. ’Tis all this eagerness to get the sports news on the wireless. Why, ’twouldn’t have took ee tu minutes to be off with them boots. And yu, Gary, do ee mind what yu’m doing with that lollipop. Sticky fingers I will not have on my best silver teapot. Marilyn, that be someone at the door, that be. Du ee go and see who ’tis.’
The door was opened gingerly and a child of about eleven or twelve years old peered out suspiciously at Poirot. One cheek was bulged with a sweet. She was a fat child with small blue eyes and a rather piggy kind of prettiness.
‘’Tis a gentleman, Mum,’ she shouted.
Mrs Tucker, wisps of hair hanging over her somewhat hot face, came to the door.
‘What is it?’ she demanded sharply. ‘We don’t need…’ She paused, a faint look of recognition came across her face. ‘Why let me see, now, didn’t I see you with the police that day?’
‘Alas, Madame, that I have brought back painful memories,’ said Poirot, stepping firmly inside the door.
Mrs Tucker cast a swift agonized glance at his feet, but Poirot’s pointed patent-leather shoes had only trodden the high road. No mud was being deposited on Mrs Tucker’s brightly polished linoleum.
‘Come in, won’t you, sir,’ she said, backing before him, and throwing open the door of a room on her right hand.
Poirot was ushered into a devastatingly neat little parlour. It smelt of furniture polish and Brasso and contained a large Jacobean suite, a round table, two potted geraniums, an elaborate brass fender, and a large variety of china ornaments.
‘Sit down, sir, do. I can’t remember the name. Indeed, I don’t think as I ever heard it.’
‘My name is Hercule Poirot,’ said Poirot rapidly. ‘I found myself once more in this part of the world and I called here to offer you my condolences and to ask you if there had been any developments. I trust the murderer of your daughter has been discovered.’
‘Not sight or sound of him,’ said Mrs Tucker, speaking with some bitterness. ‘And ’tis a downright wicked shame if you ask me. ’Tis my opinion the police don’t disturb themselves