Mrs McGinty's Dead - Agatha Christie [81]
‘Oh, it’s you, Roger?’
‘I wondered what all the noise was in here. It’s impossible to read quietly in this house.’
‘It was just Deirdre, dear. She came in with the dog.’
Mr Wetherby stooped and picked up the bronze monstrosity from the floor.
‘Surely Deirdre’s old enough not to knock things down the whole time.’
‘She’s just rather awkward.’
‘Well, it’s absurd to be awkward at her age. And can’t she keep that dog from barking?’
‘I’ll speak to her, Roger.’
‘If she makes her home here, she must consider our wishes and not behave as though the house belonged to her.’
‘Perhaps you’d rather she went away,’ murmured Mrs Wetherby. Through half-closed eyes she watched her husband.
‘No, of course not. Of course not. Naturally her home is with us. I only ask for a little more good sense and good manners.’ He added: ‘You’ve been out, Edith?’
‘Yes. I just went down to the post office.’
‘No fresh news about poor Mrs Upward?’
‘The police still don’t know who it was.’
‘They seem to be quite hopeless. Any motive? Who gets her money?’
‘The son, I suppose.’
‘Yes—yes, then it really seems as though it must have been one of these tramps. You should tell this girl she’s got to be careful about keeping the front door locked. And only to open it on the chain when it gets near dusk. These men are very daring and brutal nowadays.’
‘Nothing seems to have been taken from Mrs Upward’s.’
‘Odd.’
‘Not like Mrs McGinty,’ said Mrs Wetherby.
‘Mrs McGinty? Oh! the charwoman. What’s Mrs McGinty got to do with Mrs Upward?’
‘She did work for her, Roger.’
‘Don’t be silly, Edith.’
Mrs Wetherby closed her eyes again. As Mr Wetherby went out of the room she smiled to herself.
She opened her eyes with a start to find Maude standing over her, holding a glass.
‘Your egg nog, madam,’ said Maude.
Her voice was loud and clear. It echoed too resonantly in the deadened house.
Mrs Wetherby looked up with a vague feeling of alarm.
How tall and unbending the girl was. She stood over Mrs Wetherby like—‘like a figure of doom,’ Mrs Wetherby thought to herself—and then wondered why such extraordinary words had come into her head.
She raised herself on her elbow and took the glass.
‘Thank you, Maude,’ she said.
Maude turned and went out of the room.
Mrs Wetherby still felt vaguely upset.
Chapter 22
I
Hercule Poirot took a hired car back to Broadhinny.
He was tired because he had been thinking. Thinking was always exhausting. And his thinking had not been entirely satisfactory. It was as though a pattern, perfectly visible, was woven into a piece of material and yet, although he was holding the piece of material, he could not see what the pattern was.
But it was all there. That was the point. It was all there. Only it was one of those patterns, self-coloured and subtle, that are not easy to perceive.
A little way out of Kilchester his car encountered the Summerhayes’ station wagon coming in the opposite direction. Johnnie was driving and he had a passenger. Poirot hardly noticed them. He was still absorbed in thought.
When he got back to Long Meadows, he went into the drawing-room. He removed a colander full of spinach from the most comfortable chair in the room and sat down. From overhead came the faint drumming of a typewriter. It was Robin Upward, struggling with a play. Three versions he had already torn up, so he told Poirot. Somehow, he couldn’t concentrate.
Robin might feel his mother’s death quite sincerely, but he remained Robin Upward, chiefly interested in himself.
‘Madre,’ he said solemnly, ‘would have wished me to go on with my work.’
Hercule Poirot had heard many people say much the same thing. It was one of the most convenient assumptions, this knowledge of what the dead would wish. The bereaved had never any doubt about their dear ones’ wishes and those wishes usually squared with their own inclinations.
In this case it was probably true. Mrs Upward had had great faith in Robin’s work and had been extremely proud of him.
Poirot leaned