Mrs McGinty's Dead - Agatha Christie [61]
Poirot pushed the door open and went through the right-hand door into the room he had left a few moments before. Mrs Upward was sitting before the fire. There was a rather grim look on her face. She had been so deeply in thought that his entry startled her.
At the sound of the apologetic little cough he gave, she looked up sharply, with a start.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It’s you. You startled me.’
‘I am sorry, madame. Did you think it was someone else? Who did you think it was?’
She did not answer that, merely said:
‘Did you leave something behind?’
‘What I feared I had left was danger.’
‘Danger?’
‘Danger, perhaps, to you. Because you recognized one of those photographs just now.’
‘I wouldn’t say recognized. All old photographs look exactly alike.’
‘Listen, madame. Mrs McGinty also, or so I believe, recognized one of those photographs. And Mrs McGinty is dead.’
With an unexpected glint of humour in her eye, Mrs Upward said:
‘Mrs McGinty’s dead. How did she die? Sticking her neck out just like I. Is that what you mean?’
‘Yes. If you know anything—anything at all, tell it to me now. It will be safer so.’
‘My dear man, it’s not nearly so simple as that. I’m not at all sure that I do know anything—certainly nothing as definite as a fact. Vague recollections are very tricky things. One would have to have some idea of how and where and when, if you follow what I mean.’
‘But it seems to me that you already have that idea.’
‘There is more to it than that. There are various factors to be taken into consideration. Now it’s no good your rushing me, M. Poirot. I’m not the kind of person who rushes into decisions. I’ve a mind of my own, and I take time to make it up. When I come to a decision, I act. But not till I’m ready.’
‘You are in many ways a secretive woman, madame.’
‘Perhaps—up to a point. Knowledge is power. Power must only be used for the right ends. You will excuse my saying that you don’t perhaps appreciate the pattern of our English country life.’
‘In other words you say to me, “You are only a damned foreigner.”’
Mrs Upward smiled slightly.
‘I shouldn’t be as rude as that.’
‘If you do not want to talk to me, there is Superintendent Spence.’
‘My dear M. Poirot. Not the police. Not at this stage.’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘I have warned you,’ he said.
For he was sure that by now Mrs Upward remembered quite well exactly when and where she had seen the photograph of Lily Gamboll.
Chapter 14
I
‘Decidedly,’ said Hercule Poirot to himself the following morning, ‘the spring is here.’
His apprehensions of the night before seemed singularly groundless.
Mrs Upward was a sensible woman who could take good care of herself.
Nevertheless in some curious way, she intrigued him. He did not at all understand her reactions. Clearly she did not want him to. She had recognized the photograph of Lily Gamboll and she was determined to play a lone hand.
Poirot, pacing a garden path while he pursued these reflections, was startled by a voice behind him.
‘M. Poirot.’
Mrs Rendell had come up so quietly that he had not heard her. Since yesterday he had felt extremely nervous.
‘Pardon, madame. You made me jump.’
Mrs Rendell smiled mechanically. If he were nervous, Mrs Rendell, he thought, was even more so. There was a twitching in one of her eyelids and her hands worked restlessly together.
‘I—I hope I’m not interrupting you. Perhaps you’re busy.’
‘But no, I am not busy. The day is fine. I enjoy the feeling of spring. It is good to be outdoors. In the house of Mrs Summerhayes there is always, but always, the current of air.’
‘The current—’
‘What in England you call a draught.’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose there is.’
‘The windows, they will not shut and the doors they fly open all the time.’
‘It’s rather a ramshackle house. And of course, the Summerhayes are so badly off they can’t afford to do much to it. I’d let it go if I were them. I know it’s been in their family for hundreds of years, but nowadays