Mrs McGinty's Dead - Agatha Christie [42]
Mrs Wetherby seemed a small woman—a pathetic small woman in a large room. That was the effect. But she was not really quite so small as she had decided to appear. The ‘poor little me’ type can achieve its result quite well, even if really of medium height.
She was reclining very comfortably on a sofa and near her were books and some knitting and a glass of orange juice and a box of chocolates. She said brightly:
‘You must forgive me not getting up, but the doctor does so insist on my resting every day, and everyone scolds me if I don’t do what I’m told.’
Poirot took her extended hand and bowed over it with the proper murmur of homage.
Behind him, uncompromising, Deirdre said: ‘He wants to know about Mrs McGinty.’
The delicate hand that had lain passively in his tightened and he was reminded for a moment of the talon of a bird. Not really a piece of delicate Dresden china—a scratchy predatory claw…
Laughing slightly, Mrs Wetherby said:
‘How ridiculous you are, Deirdre darling. Who is Mrs McGinty?’
‘Oh, Mummy—you do remember really. She worked for us. You know, the one who was murdered.’
Mrs Wetherby closed her eyes, and shivered.
‘Don’t, darling. It was all so horrid. I felt nervous for weeks afterwards. Poor old woman, but so stupid to keep money under the floor. She ought to have put it in the bank. Of course I remember all that—I’d just forgotten her name.’
Deirdre said stolidly:
‘He wants to know about her.’
‘Now do sit down, M. Poirot. I’m quite devoured by curiosity. Mrs Rendell just rang up and she said we had a very famous criminologist down here, and she described you. And then, when that idiot Frieda described a visitor, I felt sure it must be you, and I sent down word for you to come up. Now tell me, what is all this?’
‘It is as your daughter says, I want to know about Mrs McGinty. She worked here. She came to you, I understand, on Wednesdays. And it was on a Wednesday she died. So she had been here that day, had she not?’
‘I suppose so. Yes, I suppose so. I can’t really tell now. It’s so long ago.’
‘Yes. Several months. And she did not say anything that day—anything special?’
‘That class of person always talks a lot,’ said Mrs Wetherby with distaste. ‘One doesn’t really listen. And anyway, she couldn’t tell she was going to be robbed and killed that night, could she?’
‘There is cause and effect,’ said Poirot.
Mrs Wetherby wrinkled her forehead.
‘I don’t see what you mean.’
‘Perhaps I do not see myself—not yet. One works through darkness towards light…Do you take in the Sunday papers, Mrs Wetherby?’
Her blue eyes opened very wide.
‘Oh yes. Of course. We have the Observer and the Sunday Times. Why?’
‘I wondered. Mrs McGinty took the Sunday Comet and the News of the World.’
He paused but nobody said anything. Mrs Wetherby sighed and half closed her eyes. She said:
‘It was all very upsetting. That horrible lodger of hers. I don’t think really he can have been quite right in the head. Apparently he was quite an educated man, too. That makes it worse, doesn’t it?’
‘Does it?’
‘Oh yes—I do think so. Such a brutal crime. A meat chopper. Ugh!’
‘The police never found the weapon,’ said Poirot.
‘I expect he threw it in a pond or something.’
‘They dragged the ponds,’ said Deirdre. ‘I saw them.’
‘Darling,’ her mother sighed, ‘don’t be morbid. You know how I hate thinking of things like that. My head.’
Fiercely the girl turned on Poirot.
‘You mustn’t go on about it,’ she said. ‘It’s bad for her. She’s frightfully sensitive. She can’t even read detective stories.’
‘My apologies,’ said Poirot. He rose to his feet. ‘I have only one excuse. A man is to be hanged in three weeks’ time. If he did not do it—’
Mrs Wetherby raised herself on her elbow. Her voice was shrill.
‘But of course he did it,’ she cried. ‘Of course he did.’
Poirot shook his head.
‘I am not so sure.’
He left the room quickly. As he went down the stairs, the girl came after him. She caught up