Sad cypress - Agatha Christie [57]
‘And you are sure that it was not yours? You haven’t mistaken the day?’
‘Absolutely certain. I was over at Withenbury, came back late, snatched a bit of lunch, and then the call came through about Mary Gerrard and I rushed over.’
Poirot said softly:
‘Then it would seem, my friend, that we have come upon something tangible at last.’
Peter Lord said:
‘Someone was here that morning…someone who was not Elinor Carlisle, nor Mary Gerrard, nor Nurse Hopkins…’
Poirot said:
‘This is very interesting. Come, let us make our investigations. Let us see, for instance, supposing a man (or woman) were to wish to approach the house unseen, how they would set about it.’
Half-way along the drive a path branched off through some shrubbery. They took this and at a certain turn in it Peter Lord clutched Poirot’s arm, pointing to a window.
He said:
‘That’s the window of the pantry where Elinor Carlisle was cutting the sandwiches.’
Poirot murmured:
‘And from here, anyone could see her cutting them. The window was open, if I remember rightly?’
Peter Lord said:
‘It was wide open. It was a hot day, remember.’
Hercule Poirot said musingly:
‘Then if anyone wished to watch unseen what was going on, somewhere about here would be a good spot.’
The two men cast about. Peter Lord said:
‘There’s a place here – behind these bushes. Some stuff’s been trampled down here. It’s grown up again now, but you can see plainly enough.’
Poirot joined him. He said thoughtfully:
‘Yes, this is a good place. It is concealed from the path, and that opening in the shrubs gives one a good view of the window. Now, what did he do, our friend who stood here? Did he perhaps smoke?’
They bent down, examining the ground and pushing aside the leaves and branches.
Suddenly Hercule Poirot uttered a grunt.
Peter Lord straightened up from his own search.
‘What is it?’
‘A match-box, my friend. An empty match-box, trodden heavily into the ground, sodden and decayed.’
With care and delicacy he salved the object. He displayed it at last on a sheet of notepaper taken from his pocket.
Peter Lord said:
‘It’s foreign. My god! German matches!’
Hercule Poirot said:
‘And Mary Gerrard had recently come from Germany!’
Peter Lord said exultantly:
‘We’ve got something now! You can’t deny it.’
Hercule Poirot said slowly:
‘Perhaps…’
‘But, damn it all, man. Who on earth round here would have had foreign matches?’
Hercule Poirot said:
‘I know – I know.’
His eyes, perplexed eyes, went to the gap in the bushes and the view of the window.
He said:
‘It is not quite so simple as you think. There is one great difficulty. Do you not see it yourself?’
‘What? Tell me.’
Poirot sighed.
‘If you do not see for yourself…But come, let us go on.’
They went on to the house. Peter Lord unlocked the back door with a key.
He led the way through the scullery to the kitchen, through that, along a passage where there was a cloakroom on one side and the butler’s pantry on the other. The two men looked round the pantry.
It had the usual cupboards with sliding glass doors for glass and china. There was a gas-ring and two kettles and canisters marked Tea and Coffee on a shelf above. There was a sink and draining-board and a papier-mâché washing-up bowl. In front of the window was a table.
Peter Lord said:
‘It was on this table that Elinor Carlisle cut the sandwiches. The fragment of the morphine label was found in this crack in the floor under the sink.’
Poirot said thoughtfully:
‘The police are careful searchers. They do not miss much.’
Peter Lord said violently:
‘There’s no evidence that Elinor ever handled that tube! I tell you, someone was watching her from the shrubbery outside. She went down to the Lodge and he saw his chance and slipped in, uncorked the tube, crushed some tablets of morphine to powder and put them into the top sandwich.
He never noticed that he’d torn a bit off the label of the tube, and that it had fluttered down the crack. He hurried away, started up his car and went off again.’
Poirot sighed.
‘And still you do not see! It is extraordinary how dense