Lord Edgware Dies - Agatha Christie [78]
‘To begin with, Miss Ellis, you have been with Lady Edgware how long?’
‘Three years, sir.’
‘That is as I thought. You know her affairs well.’
Ellis did not reply. She looked disapproving.
‘What I mean is, you should have a good idea of who her enemies are likely to be.’
Ellis compressed her lips more tightly.
‘Most women have tried to do her a spiteful turn, sir. Yes, they’ve all been against her, nasty jealousy.’
‘Her own sex did not like her?’
‘No, sir. She’s too good looking. And she always gets what she wants. There’s a lot of nasty jealousy in the theatrical profession.’
‘What about men?’
Ellis allowed a sour smile to appear on her withered countenance.
‘She can do what she likes with the gentlemen, sir, and that’s a fact.’
‘I agree with you,’ said Poirot, smiling. ‘Yet, even allowing for that, I can imagine circumstances arising –’ He broke off.
Then he said in a different voice:
‘You know Mr Bryan Martin, the film actor?’
‘Oh! yes, sir.’
‘Very well?’
‘Very well, indeed.’
‘I believe I am not mistaken in saying that a little less than a year ago Mr Bryan Martin was very deeply in love with your mistress.’
‘Head over ears, sir. And it’s “is” not “was”, if you ask me.’
‘He believed at that time she would marry him – eh?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Did she ever seriously consider marrying him?’
‘She thought of it, sir. If she could have got her freedom from his lordship, I believe she would have married him.’
‘And then, I suppose, the Duke of Merton appeared on the scene?’
‘Yes, sir. He was doing a tour through the States. Love at first sight it was with him.’
‘And so goodbye to Bryan Martin’s chances?’
Ellis nodded.
‘Of course Mr Martin made an enormous amount of money,’ she explained. ‘But the Duke of Merton had position as well. And her ladyship is very keen on position. Married to the Duke, she’d have been one of the first ladies in the land.’
The maid’s voice held a smug complacency. It amused me.
‘So Mr Bryan Martin was – how do you say – turned down? Did he take it badly?’
‘He carried on something awful, sir.’
‘Ah!’
‘He threatened her with a revolver once. And the scenes he made. It frightened me, it did. He was drinking a lot, too. He went all to pieces.’
‘But in the end he calmed down.’
‘So it seemed, sir. But he still hung about. And I didn’t like the look in his eye. I’ve warned her ladyship about it, but she only laughed. She’s one who enjoys feeling her power, if you know what I mean.’
‘Yes,’ said Poirot thoughtfully. ‘I think I know what you mean.’
‘We’ve not seen so much of him just lately, sir. A good thing in my opinion. He’s beginning to get over it, I hope.’
‘Perhaps.’
Something in Poirot’s utterance of the word seem to strike her. She asked anxiously:
‘You don’t think she’s in danger, sir?’
‘Yes,’ said Poirot gravely. ‘I think she is in great danger. But she has brought it on herself.’
His hand, running aimlessly along the mantelshelf, caught a vase of roses and it toppled over. The water fell on Ellis’s face and head. I had seldom known Poirot clumsy, and I could deduce from it that he was in a great state of mental perturbation. He was very upset – rushed for a towel – tenderly assisted the maid to dry her face and neck and was profuse in apologies.
Finally a treasury note changed hands and he escorted her towards the door, thanking her for her goodness in coming.
‘But it is still early,’ he said, glancing at the clock. ‘You will be back before your mistress returns.’
‘Oh! that is quite all right, sir. She is going out to supper, I think, and anyway, she never expects me to sit up for her unless she says so special.’
Suddenly Poirot flew off at a tangent. ‘Mademoiselle, pardon me, but you are limping.’
‘That’s nothing, sir. My feet are a little painful.’
‘The corns?’ murmured Poirot in the confidential voice of one sufferer to another.
Corns, apparently, it was. Poirot expatiated upon a certain remedy which, according to him, worked wonders.
Finally Ellis departed.