Mrs McGinty's Dead - Agatha Christie [58]
‘Not quite,’ said Poirot. ‘Both Mr and Mrs Carpenter were in Kilchester last night and came home separately. Mrs Rendell may have sat at home all the evening listening to her wireless or she may not—no one can say. Miss Henderson often goes to the pictures in Kilchester.’
‘She didn’t last night. She was at home. She told me so.’
‘You cannot believe all you are told,’ said Poirot reprovingly. ‘Families hang together. The foreign maid, Frieda, on the other hand, was at the pictures last night, so she cannot tell us who was or was not at home at Hunter’s Close! You see, it is not so easy to narrow things down.’
‘I can probably vouch for our lot,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘What time did you say this happened?’
‘At nine thirty-five exactly.’
‘Then at any rate Laburnums has got a clean bill of health. From eight o’clock to half-past ten, Robin, his mother, and I were playing poker patience.’
‘I thought possibly that you and he were closeted together doing the collaboration?’
‘Leaving Mamma to leap on a motor bicycle concealed in the shrubbery?’ Mrs Oliver laughed. ‘No, Mamma was under our eye.’ She sighed as sadder thoughts came to her. ‘Collaboration,’ she said bitterly. ‘The whole thing’s a nightmare! How would you like to see a big black moustache stuck on to Superintendent Battle and be told it was you.’
Poirot blinked a little.
‘But it is a nightmare, that suggestion!’
‘Now you know what I suffer.’
‘I, too, suffer,’ said Poirot. ‘The cooking of Madame Summerhayes, it is beyond description. It is not cooking at all. And the draughts, the cold winds, the upset stomachs of the cats, the long hairs of the dogs, the broken legs of the chairs, the terrible, terrible bed in which I sleep’—he shut his eyes in remembrance of agonies—‘the tepid water in the bathroom, the holes in the stair carpet, and the coffee—words cannot describe to you the fluid which they serve to you as coffee. It is an affront to the stomach.’
‘Dear me,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘And yet, you know, she’s awfully nice.’
‘Mrs Summerhayes? She is charming. She is quite charming. That makes it much more difficult.’
‘Here she comes now,’ said Mrs Oliver.
Maureen Summerhayes was approaching them.
There was an ecstatic look on her freckled face. She carried a glass in her hand. She smiled at them both with affection.
‘I think I’m a bit tiddly,’ she announced. ‘Such lots of lovely gin. I do like parties! We don’t often have one in Broadhinny. It’s because of you both being so celebrated. I wish I could write books. The trouble with me is, I can’t do anything properly.’
‘You are a good wife and mother, madame,’ said Poirot primly.
Maureen’s eyes opened. Attractive hazel eyes in a small freckled face. Mrs Oliver wondered how old she was. Not much more than thirty, she guessed.
‘Am I?’ said Maureen. ‘I wonder. I love them all terribly, but is that enough?’
Poirot coughed.
‘If you will not think me presumptuous, madame. A wife who truly loves her husband should take great care of his stomach. It is important, the stomach.’
Maureen looked slightly affronted.
‘Johnnie’s got a wonderful stomach,’ she said indignantly. ‘Absolutely flat. Practically not a stomach at all.’
‘I was referring to what is put inside it.’
‘You mean my cooking,’ said Maureen. ‘I never think it matters much what one eats.’
Poirot groaned.
‘Or what one wears,’ said Maureen dreamily. ‘Or what one does. I don’t think things matter—not really.’
She was silent for a moment or two, her eyes alcoholically hazy, as though she was looking into the far distance.
‘There was a woman writing in the paper the other day,’ she said suddenly. ‘A really stupid letter. Asking what was best to do—to let your child be adopted by someone who could give it every advantage—every advantage, that’s what she said—and she meant a good education, and clothes and comfortable surroundings—or whether to keep it when you couldn’t give it advantages of any kind. I think that’s stupid—really stupid. If you can just give a child enough to eat—that’s all that matters.’
She stared down into her empty glass as though it were