Mrs McGinty's Dead - Agatha Christie [14]
Everything, Hercule Poirot decided, was too artistic nowadays. Nowhere was there the love of order and method that he himself prized so highly. And seldom was there any appreciation of subtlety. Scenes of violence and crude brutality were the fashion, and as a former police officer, Poirot was bored by brutality. In his early days, he had seen plenty of crude brutality. It had been more the rule than the exception. He found it fatiguing, and unintelligent.
‘The truth is,’ Poirot reflected as he turned his steps homeward, ‘I am not in tune with the modern world. And I am, in a superior way, a slave as other men are slaves. My work has enslaved me just as their work enslaves them. When the hour of leisure arrives, they have nothing with which to fill their leisure. The retired financier takes up golf, the little merchant puts bulbs in his garden, me, I eat. But there it is, I come round to it again. One can only eat three times a day. And in between are the gaps.’
He passed a newspaper-seller and scanned the bill.
‘Result of McGinty Trial. Verdict.’
It stirred no interest in him. He recalled vaguely a small paragraph in the papers. It had not been an interesting murder. Some wretched old woman knocked on the head for a few pounds. All part of the senseless crude brutality of these days.
Poirot turned into the courtyard of his block of flats. As always his heart swelled in approval. He was proud of his home. A splendid symmetrical building. The lift took him up to the third floor where he had a large luxury flat with impeccable chromium fittings, square armchairs, and severely rectangular ornaments. There could truly be said not to be a curve in the place.
As he opened the door with his latchkey and stepped into the square, white lobby, his manservant, George, stepped softly to meet him.
‘Good evening, sir. There is a—gentleman waiting to see you.’
He relieved Poirot deftly of his overcoat.
‘Indeed?’ Poirot was aware of that very slight pause before the word gentleman. As a social snob, George was an expert.
‘What is his name?’
‘A Mr Spence, sir.’
‘Spence.’ The name, for the moment, meant nothing to Poirot. Yet he knew that it should do so.
Pausing for a moment before the mirror to adjust his moustaches to a state of perfection, Poirot opened the door of the sitting-room and entered. The man sitting in one of the big square armchairs got up.
‘Hallo, M. Poirot, hope you remember me. It’s a long time…Superintendent Spence.’
‘But of course.’ Poirot shook him warmly by the hand.
Superintendent Spence of the Kilchester Police. A very interesting case that had been…As Spence had said, a long time ago now…
Poirot pressed his guest with refreshments. A grenadine? Crème de Menthe? Benedictine? Crème de Cacao?…
At this moment George entered with a tray on which was a whisky bottle and a siphon. ‘Or beer if you prefer it, sir?’ he murmured to the visitor.
Superintendent Spence’s large red face lightened.
‘Beer for me,’ he said.
Poirot was left to wonder once more at the accomplishments of George. He himself had had no idea that there was beer in the flat and it seemed incomprehensible to him that it could be preferred to a sweet liqueur.
When Spence had his foaming tankard, Poirot poured himself out a tiny glass of gleaming green crème de menthe.
‘But it is charming of you to look me up,’ he said. ‘Charming. You have come up from—?’
‘Kilchester. I’ll be retired in about six months. Actually, I was due for retirement eighteen months ago. They asked me to stop on and I did.’
‘You were wise,’ said Poirot with feeling. ‘You were very wise…’
‘Was I? I wonder. I’m not so sure.’
‘Yes,