Peril at End House - Agatha Christie [53]
‘Pouf!’ said Poirot. ‘That ascent is a steep one. I am hot. My moustaches are limp. Yes, as I was saying just now, I am on the side of the innocent. I am on the side of Mademoiselle Nick because she was attacked. I am on the side of Mademoiselle Maggie because she has been killed.’
‘And you are against Frederica Rice and Charles Vyse.’
‘No, no, Hastings. I keep an open mind. I say only that at the moment one of those two is indicated. Chut!’
We had come out on the strip of lawn by the house, and a man was driving a mowing machine. He had a long, stupid face and lack-lustre eyes. Beside him was asmall boy of about ten, ugly but intelligent-looking.
It crossed my mind that we had not heard the mowing machine in action, but I presumed that the gardener was not overworking himself. He had probably been resting from his labours, and had sprung into action on hearing our voices approaching.
‘Good morning,’ said Poirot.
‘Good morning, sir.’
‘You are the gardener, I suppose. The husband of Madame who works in the house.’
‘He’s my Dad,’ said the small boy.
‘That’s right, sir,’ said the man. ‘You’ll be the foreign gentleman, I take it, that’s really a detective. Is there any news of the young mistress, sir?’
‘I come from seeing her at the immediate moment. She has passed a satisfactory night.’
‘We’ve had policemen here,’ said the small boy. ‘That’s where the lady was killed. Here by the steps. I seen a pig killed once, haven’t I, Dad?’
‘Ah!’ said his father, unemotionally.
‘Dad used to kill pigs when he worked on a farm. Didn’t you, Dad? I seen a pig killed. I liked it.’
‘Young ’uns like to see pigs killed,’ said the man, as though stating one of the unalterable facts of nature.
‘Shot with a pistol, the lady was,’ continued the boy. ‘She didn’t have her throat cut. No!’
We passed on to the house, and I felt thankful to get away from the ghoulish child.
Poirot entered the drawing-room, the windows of which were open, and rang the bell. Ellen, neatly attired in black, came in answer to the bell. She showed no surprise at seeing us.
Poirot explained that we were here by permission of Miss Buckley to make a search of the house.
‘Very good sir.’
‘The police have finished?’
‘They said they had seen everything they wanted, sir. They’ve been about the garden since very early in the morning. I don’t know whether they’ve found anything.’
She was about to leave the room when Poirot stopped her with a question.
‘Were you very surprised last night when you heard Miss Buckley had been shot?’
‘Yes, sir, very surprised. Miss Maggie was a nice young lady, sir. I can’t imagine anyone being so wicked as to want to harm her.’
‘If it had been anyone else, you would not have been so surprised—eh?’
‘I don’t know what you mean, sir?’
‘When I came into the hall last night,’ he said, ‘you asked at once whether anyone had been hurt. Were you expecting anything of the kind?’
She was silent. Her fingers pleated a corner of her apron. She shook her head and murmured:
‘You gentlemen wouldn’t understand.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Poirot, ‘I would understand. However fantastic what you may say, I would understand.’
She looked at him doubtfully, then seemed to make up her mind to trust him.
‘You see, sir,’ she said, ‘this isn’t a good house.’
I was surprised and a little contemptuous. Poirot, however, seemed to find the remark not in the least unusual.
‘You mean it is an old house.’
‘Yes, sir, not a good house.’
‘You have been here long?’
‘Six years, sir. But I was here as a girl. In the kitchen as kitchen-maid. That was in the time of old Sir Nicholas. It was the same then.’
Poirot looked at her attentively.
In an old house,’ she said, ‘there is sometimes an atmosphere of evil.’
‘That’s it, sir,’ said Ellen, eagerly. ‘Evil. Bad thoughts and bad deeds too. It’s like dry rot in a house, sir, you can’t get it out. It’s a sort of feeling in the air. I always knew something bad would happen in this house, someday.’
‘Well, you have been proved right.’
‘Yes, sir.’
There was a very slight underlying satisfaction in her tone, the