Mrs McGinty's Dead - Agatha Christie [51]
‘There are three women of thirty-odd. There is Deirdre Henderson. There is Dr Rendell’s wife, and there is Mrs Guy Carpenter. That is to say, any one of these could be Lily Gamboll or alternatively Eva Kane’s daughter as far as age goes.’
‘And as far as possibility goes?’
Poirot sighed.
‘Eva Kane’s daughter may be tall or short, dark or fair—we have no guide to what she looks like. We have considered Deirdre Henderson in that role. Now for the other two. First of all I will tell you this: Mrs Rendell is afraid of something.’
‘Afraid of you?’
‘I think so.’
‘That might be significant,’ said Spence slowly. ‘You’re suggesting that Mrs Rendell might be Eva Kane’s daughter or Lily Gamboll. Is she fair or dark?’
‘Fair.’
‘Lily Gamboll was a fair-haired child.’
‘Mrs Carpenter is also fair-haired. A most expensively made-up young woman. Whether she is actually good-looking or not, she has very remarkable eyes. Lovely wide-open dark-blue eyes.’
‘Now, Poirot—’ Spence shook his head at his friend.
‘Do you know what she looked like as she ran out of the room to call her husband? I was reminded of a lovely fluttering moth. She blundered into the furniture and stretched her hands out like a blind thing.’
Spence looked at him indulgently.
‘Romantic, that’s what you are, M. Poirot,’ he said. ‘You and your lovely fluttering moths and wide-open blue eyes.’
‘Not at all,’ said Poirot. ‘My friend Hastings, he was romantic and sentimental, me never! Me, I am severely practical. What I am telling you is that if a girl’s claims to beauty depend principally on the loveliness of her eyes, then, no matter how short-sighted she is, she will take off her spectacles and learn to feel her way round even if outlines are blurred and distance hard to judge.’
And gently, with his forefinger, he tapped the photograph of the child Lily Gamboll in the thick disfiguring spectacles.
‘So that’s what you think? Lily Gamboll?’
‘No, I speak only of what might be. At the time Mrs McGinty died Mrs Carpenter was not yet Mrs Carpenter. She was a young war widow, very badly off, living in a labourer’s cottage. She was engaged to be married to the rich man of the neighbourhood—a man with political ambitions and a great sense of his own importance. If Guy Carpenter had found out that he was about to marry, say, a child of low origin who had obtained notoriety by hitting her aunt on the head with a chopper, or alternatively the daughter of Craig, one of the most notorious criminals of the century—prominently placed in your Chamber of Horrors— well, one asks would he have gone through with it? You say perhaps, if he loved the girl, yes! But he is not quite that kind of man. I would put him down as selfish, ambitious, and a man very nice in the manner of his reputation. I think that if young Mrs Selkirk, as she was then, was anxious to achieve the match she would have been very very anxious that no hint of an unfortunate nature got to her fiancé’s ears.’
‘I see, you think it’s her, do you?’
‘I tell you again, mon cher, I do not know. I examine only possibilities. Mrs Carpenter was on her guard against me, watchful, alarmed.’
‘That looks bad.’
‘Yes, yes, but it is all very difficult. Once I stayed with some friends in the country and they went out to do the shooting. You know the way it goes? One walks with the dogs and the guns, and the dogs, they put up the game—it flies out of the woods, up into the air and you go bang bang. That is like us. It is not only one bird we put up, perhaps, there are other birds in the covert. Birds, perhaps, with which we have nothing to do. But the birds themselves do not know that. We must make very sure, cher ami, which is our bird. During Mrs Carpenter’s widowhood, there may have been indiscretions—no worse than that, but still inconvenient. Certainly there must be some reason why she says to me quickly that Mrs McGinty was a liar!’
Superintendent Spence rubbed his nose.
‘Let’s get this clear, Poirot. What do you really think?’
‘What I think