The Clocks - Agatha Christie [71]
“Identified by his wife. You have been to Crowdean?”
“Not yet. I thought of going down tomorrow.”
“Oh, you have some leisure time?”
“Not yet. I’m still on the job. My job takes me there—” I paused a moment and then said: “I don’t know much about what’s been happening while I’ve been abroad—just the mere fact of identification—what do you think of it?”
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
“It was to be expected.”
“Yes—the police are very good—”
“And wives are very obliging.”
“Mrs. Merlina Rival! What a name!”
“It reminds me of something,” said Poirot. “Now of what does it remind me?”
He looked at me thoughtfully but I couldn’t help him. Knowing Poirot, it might have reminded him of anything.
“A visit to a friend—in a country house,” mused Poirot, then shook his head. “No—it is so long ago.”
“When I come back to London, I’ll come and tell you all I can find out from Hardcastle about Mrs. Merlina Rival,” I promised.
Poirot waved a hand and said: “It is not necessary.”
“You mean you know all about her already without being told?”
“No. I mean that I am not interested in her—”
“You’re not interested—but why not? I don’t get it.” I shook my head.
“One must concentrate on the essentials. Tell me instead of the girl called Edna—who died in the telephone box in Wilbraham Crescent.”
“I can’t tell you more than I’ve told you already—I know nothing about the girl.”
“So all you know,” said Poirot accusingly, “or all you can tell me is that the girl was a poor little rabbit, whom you saw in a typewriting office, where she had torn the heel off her shoe in a grating—” he broke off. “Where was that grating, by the way?”
“Really, Poirot, how should I know?”
“You could have known if you had asked. How do you expect to know anything if you do not ask the proper questions?”
“But how can it matter where the heel came off?”
“It may not matter. On the other hand, we should know a definite spot where this girl had been, and that might connect up with a person she had seen there—or with an event of some kind which took place there.”
“You are being rather farfetched. Anyway I do know it was quite near the office because she said so and that she bought a bun and hobbled back on her stocking feet to eat the bun in the office and she ended up by saying how on earth was she to get home like that?”
“Ah, and how did she get home?” Poirot asked with interest.
I stared at him.
“I’ve no idea.”
“Ah—but it is impossible, the way you never ask the right questions! As a result you know nothing of what is important.”
“You’d better come down to Crowdean and ask questions yourself,” I said, nettled.
“That is impossible at the moment. There is a most interesting sale of authors’ manuscripts next week—”
“Still on your hobby?”
“But, yes, indeed.” His eyes brightened. “Take the works of John Dickson Carr or Carter Dickson, as he calls himself sometimes—”
I escaped before he could get under way, pleading an urgent appointment. I was in no mood to listen to lectures on past masters of the art of crime fiction.
II
I was sitting on the front step of Hardcastle’s house, and rose out of the gloom to greet him when he got home on the following evening.
“Hallo, Colin? Is that you? So you’ve appeared out of the blue again, have you?”
“If you called it out of the red, it would be much more appropriate.”
“How long have you been here, sitting on my front doorstep?”
“Oh, half an hour or so.”
“Sorry you couldn’t get into the house.”
“I could have got into the house with perfect ease,” I said indignantly. “You don’t know our training!”
“Then why didn’t you get in?”
“I wouldn’t like to lower your prestige in any way,” I explained. “A detective inspector of police would be bound to lose face if his house were entered burglariously with complete ease.”
Hardcastle took his keys from his pocket and opened the front door.
“Come on in,” he said, “and don’t talk nonsense.”
He led the way into the sitting room, and proceeded to supply liquid refreshment.
“Say when.”
I said it, not too soon, and we settled ourselves with our drinks.