Mrs McGinty's Dead - Agatha Christie [20]
‘And he stuck to that story?’
‘Not likely. At the trial he told a completely different tale. You see, there was a hair on the cuff as well—a blood-stained hair, and the hair was identical with Mrs McGinty’s hair. That had got to be explained away. He admitted then that he had gone into the room the night before when he came back from his walk. He’d gone in, he said, after knocking, and found her there, on the floor, dead. He’d bent over and touched her, he said, to make sure. And then he’d lost his head. He’d always been very much affected by the sight of blood, he said. He went to his room in a state of collapse and more or less fainted. In the morning he couldn’t bring himself to admit he knew what had happened.’
‘A very fishy story,’ commented Poirot.
‘Yes, indeed. And yet, you know,’ said Spence thoughtfully, ‘it might well be true. It’s not the sort of thing that an ordinary man—or a jury—can believe. But I’ve come across people like that. I don’t mean the collapse story. I mean people who are confronted by a demand for responsible action and who simply can’t face up to it. Shy people. He goes in, say, and finds her. He knows that he ought to do something—get the police—go to a neighbour—do the right thing whatever it is. And he funks it. He thinks “I don’t need to know anything about it. I needn’t have come in here tonight. I’ll go to bed just as if I hadn’t come in here at all…” Behind it, of course, there’s fear—fear that he may be suspected of having a hand in it. He thinks he’ll keep himself out of it as long as possible, and so the silly juggins goes and puts himself into it—up to his neck.’
Spence paused.
‘It could have been that way.’
‘It could,’ said Poirot thoughtfully.
‘Or again, it may have been just the best story his counsel could think up for him. But I don’t know. The waitress in the café in Kilchester where he usually had lunch said that he always chose a table where he could look into a wall or a corner and not see people. He was that kind of a chap—just a bit screwy. But not screwy enough to be a killer. He’d no persecution complex or anything of that kind.’
Spence looked hopefully at Poirot—but Poirot did not respond—he was frowning.
The two men sat silent for a while.
Chapter 3
At last Poirot roused himself with a sigh.
‘Eh bien,’ he said. ‘We have exhausted the motive of money. Let us pass to other theories. Had Mrs McGinty an enemy? Was she afraid of anyone?’
‘No evidence of it.’
‘What did her neighbours have to say?’
‘Not very much. They wouldn’t to the police, perhaps, but I don’t think they were holding anything back. She kept herself to herself, they said. But that’s regarded as natural enough. Our villages, you know, M. Poirot, aren’t friendly. Evacuees found that during the war. Mrs McGinty passed the time of day with the neighbours but they weren’t intimate.’
‘How long had she lived there?’
‘Matter of eighteen or twenty years, I think.’
‘And the forty years before that?’
‘There’s no mystery about her. Farmer’s daughter from North Devon. She and her husband lived near Ilfracombe for a time, and then moved to Kilchester. Had a cottage the other side of it—but found it damp, so they moved to Broadhinny. Husband seems to have been a quiet, decent man, delicate—didn’t go to the pub much. All very respectable and above board. No mysteries anywhere, nothing to hide.’
‘And yet she was killed?’
‘And yet she was killed.’
‘The niece didn’t know of anyone who had a grudge against her aunt?’
‘She says not.’
Poirot rubbed his nose in an exasperated fashion.
‘You comprehend, my dear friend, it would be so much easier if Mrs McGinty was not Mrs McGinty, so to speak. If she could be what is called a Mystery Woman—a woman with a past.’
‘Well, she wasn’t,’ said Spence stolidly. ‘She was just Mrs McGinty, a more or less uneducated woman, who let rooms and went out charring. Thousands of them all over England.’
‘But they do not all get murdered.’
‘No. I grant you that.’
‘So why should Mrs McGinty get murdered?