Mrs McGinty's Dead - Agatha Christie [71]
A difference crept into Spence’s manner. It was, perhaps, even more gentle, but an official hardness underlay it.
‘You were there,’ he said. ‘At Laburnums. At what time?’
‘I don’t know exactly,’ said Deirdre. ‘Between half-past eight and nine, I suppose. Probably nearly nine. After dinner, anyway. You see, she telephoned to me.’
‘Mrs Upward telephoned to you?’
‘Yes. She said Robin and Mrs Oliver were going to the theatre in Cullenquay and that she would be all alone and would I come along and have coffee with her.’
‘And you went?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you—had coffee with her?’
Deirdre shook her head.
‘No, I got there—and I knocked. But there wasn’t any answer. So I opened the door and went into the hall. It was quite dark and I’d seen from outside that there was no light in the sitting-room. So I was puzzled. I called “Mrs Upward” once or twice but there was no answer. So I thought there must be some mistake.’
‘What mistake did you think there could have been?’
‘I thought perhaps she’d gone to the theatre with them after all.’
‘Without letting you know?’
‘That did seem queer.’
‘You couldn’t think of any other explanation?’
‘Well, I thought perhaps Frieda might have bungled the original message. She does get things wrong sometimes. She’s a foreigner. She was excited herself last night because she was leaving.’
‘What did you do, Miss Henderson?’
‘I just went away.’
‘Back home?’
‘Yes—that is, I went for a walk first. It was quite fine.’
Spence was silent for a moment or two, looking at her. He was looking, Poirot noticed, at her mouth.
Presently he roused himself and said briskly:
‘Well, thank you, Miss Henderson. You were quite right to come and tell us this. We’re much obliged to you.’
He got up and shook hands with her.
‘I thought I ought to,’ said Deirdre. ‘Mother didn’t want me to.’
‘Didn’t she now?’
‘But I thought I’d better.’
‘Quite right.’
He showed her out and came back.
He sat down, drummed on the table and looked at Poirot.
‘No lipstick,’ he said. ‘Or is that only this morning?’
‘No, it is not only this morning. She never uses it.’
‘That’s odd, nowadays, isn’t it?’
‘She is rather an odd kind of girl—undeveloped.’
‘And no scent, either, as far as I could smell. That Mrs Oliver says there was a distinct smell of scent—expensive scent, she says—in the house last night. Robin Upward confirms that. It wasn’t any scent his mother uses.’
‘This girl would not use scent, I think,’ said Poirot.
‘I shouldn’t think so either,’ said Spence. ‘Looks rather like the hockey captain from an old-fashioned girls’ school—but she must be every bit of thirty, I should say.’
‘Quite that.’
‘Arrested development, would you say?’
Poirot considered. Then he said it was not quite so simple as that.
‘It doesn’t fit,’ said Spence frowning. ‘No lipstick, no scent. And since she’s got a perfectly good mother, and Lily Gamboll’s mother was done in in a drunken brawl in Cardiff when Lily Gamboll was nine years old, I don’t see how she can be Lily Gamboll. But—Mrs Upward telephoned her to come there last night—you can’t get away from that.’ He rubbed his nose. ‘It isn’t straightforward going.’
‘What about the medical evidence?’
‘Not much help there. All the police surgeon will say definitely is that she was probably dead by half-past nine.’
‘So she may have been dead when Deirdre Henderson came to Laburnums?’
‘Probably was if the girl is speaking the truth. Either she is speaking the truth—or else she’s a deep one. Mother didn’t want her to come to us, she said. Anything there?’
Poirot considered.
‘Not particularly. It is what mother would say. She is the type, you comprehend, that avoids unpleasantness.’
Spence sighed.
‘So we’ve got Deirdre Henderson—on the spot. Or else someone who came there before Deirdre Henderson. A woman. A woman who used lipstick and expensive scent.’
Poirot murmured: ‘You will inquire—’
Spence broke in.
‘I’m inquiring! Just tactfully for the moment. We don’t want to alarm anyone. What was Eve Carpenter doing last night? What was Shelagh Rendell