Mrs McGinty's Dead - Agatha Christie [19]
‘And he knew that she had thirty pounds in the house? Why did she have thirty pounds in the house, by the way, since she had a Savings Bank account?’
‘Because she didn’t trust the Government. Said they’d got two hundred pounds of her money, but they wouldn’t get any more. She’d keep that where she could lay her hands on it any minute. She said that to one or two people. It was under a loose board in her bedroom floor—a very obvious place. James Bentley admitted he knew it was there.’
‘Very obliging of him. And did niece and husband know that too?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Then we have now arrived back at my first question to you. How did Mrs McGinty die?’
‘She died on the night of November 22nd. Police surgeon put the time of death as being between 7 and 10 p.m. She’d had her supper—a kipper and bread and margarine, and according to all accounts, she usually had that about half-past six. If she adhered to that on the night in question, then by the evidence of digestion she was killed about eight-thirty or nine o’clock. James Bentley, by his own account, was out walking that evening from seven-fifteen to about nine. He went out and walked most evenings after dark. According to his own story he came in at about nine o’clock (he had his own key) and went straight upstairs to his room. Mrs McGinty had had wash-basins fixed in the bedrooms because of summer visitors. He read for about half an hour and then went to bed. He heard and noticed nothing out of the way. Next morning he came downstairs and looked into the kitchen, but there was no one there and no signs of breakfast being prepared. He says he hesitated a bit and then knocked on Mrs McGinty’s door, but got no reply.
‘He thought she must have overslept, but didn’t like to go on knocking. Then the baker came and James Bentley went up and knocked again, and after that, as I told you, the baker went next door and fetched in a Mrs Elliot, who eventually found the body and went off the deep end. Mrs McGinty was lying on the parlour floor. She’d been hit on the back of the head with something rather in the nature of a meat chopper with a very sharp edge. She’d been killed instantaneously. Drawers were pulled open and things strewn about, and the loose board in the floor in her bedroom had been prised up and the cache was empty. All the windows were closed and shuttered on the inside. No signs of anything being tampered with or of being broken into from outside.’
‘Therefore,’ said Poirot, ‘either James Bentley must have killed her, or else she must have admitted her killer herself whilst Bentley was out?’
‘Exactly. It wasn’t any hold-up or burglar. Now who would she be likely to let in? One of the neighbours, or her niece, or her niece’s husband. It boils down to that. We eliminated the neighbours. Niece and her husband were at the pictures that night. It is possible—just possible, that one or other of them left the cinema unobserved, bicycled three miles, killed the old woman, hid the money outside the house, and got back into the cinema unnoticed. We looked into that possibility, but we didn’t find any confirmation of it. And why hide the money outside McGinty’s house if so? Difficult place to pick it up later. Why not somewhere along the three miles back? No, the only reason for hiding it where it was hidden—’
Poirot finished the sentence for him.
‘Would be because you were living in that house, but didn’t want to hide it in your room or anywhere inside. In fact: James Bentley.’
‘That’s right. Everywhere, every time, you came up against Bentley. Finally there was the blood on his cuff.’
‘How did he account for that?’
‘Said he remembered brushing up against