Third girl - Agatha Christie [65]
‘Well, let me see now. About a year — a year and a half perhaps. No, I think it must have been about two years. No. 76, seventh floor.’
‘That is the top floor?’
‘Yes, sir. A Mrs Charpentier.’
Poirot did not press for any other descriptive information since he might be presumed to know such things about his own relative. Instead he asked:
‘Did it cause much excitement, much questioning? What time of day was it?’
‘Five or six o’clock in the morning, I think. No warning or anything. Just down she came. In spite of being so early we got a crowd almost at once, pushing through the railing over there. You know what people are.’
‘And the police, of course.’
‘Oh yes, the police came quite quickly. And a doctor and an ambulance. All the usual,’ said the porter rather in the weary tone of one who had had people throwing themselves out of a seventh-storey window once or twice every month.
‘And I suppose people came down from the flats when they heard what had happened.’
‘Oh, there wasn’t so many coming from the flats because for one thing with the noise of traffic and everything around here most of them didn’t know about it. Someone or other said she gave a bit of a scream as she came down, but not so that it caused any real commotion. It was only people in the street, passing by, who saw it happen. And then, of course, they craned their necks over the railings, and other people saw them craning, and joined them. You know what an accident is!’
Poirot assured him he knew what an accident was.
‘She lived alone?’ he said, making it only half a question.
‘That’s right.’
‘But she had friends, I suppose, among the other flat dwellers?’
Joe shrugged and shook his head. ‘May have done. I couldn’t say. Never saw her in the restaurant much with any of our lot. She had outside friends to dinner here sometimes. No, I wouldn’t say she was specially pally with anybody here. You’d do best,’ said Joe, getting slightly restive, ‘to go and have a chat with Mr McFarlane who’s in charge here if you want to know about her.’
‘Ah, I thank you. Yes, that is what I mean to do.’
‘His office is in that block over there, sir. On the ground floor. You’ll see it marked up on the door.’
Poirot went as directed. He detached from his briefcase the top letter with which Miss Lemon had supplied him, and which was marked ‘Mr McFarlane’. Mr McFarlane turned out to be a good-looking, shrewd-looking man of about forty-five. Poirot handed him the letter. He opened and read it.
‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘I see.’
He laid it down on the desk and looked at Poirot.
‘The owners have instructed me to give you all the help I can about the sad death of Mrs Louise Charpentier. Now what do you want to know exactly, Monsieur’ — he glanced at the letter again — ‘Monsieur Poirot?’
‘This is, of course, all quite confidential,’ said Poirot. ‘Her relatives have been communicated with by the police and by a solicitor, but they were anxious, as I was coming to England, that I should get a few more personal facts, if you understand me. It is distressing when one can get only official reports.’
‘Yes, quite so. Yes, I quite understand that it must be. Well, I’ll tell you anything I can.’
‘How long had she been here and how did she come to take the flat?’
‘She’d been here — I can look it up exactly — about two years. There was a vacant tenancy and I imagine that the lady who was leaving, being an acquaintance of hers, told her in advance that she was giving it up. That was a Mrs Wilder. Worked for the BBC. Had been in London for some time, but was going to Canada. Very nice lady — I don’t think she knew the deceased well at all. Just happened to mention she was giving up the flat. Mrs Charpentier liked the flat.’
‘You found her a suitable tenant?’ There was a very faint hesitation before Mr McFarlane answered:
‘She was a satisfactory tenant, yes.’
‘You need not mind telling me,’ said Hercule Poirot.
‘There were wild parties, eh? A little too — shall we say — gay in her entertaining?’
Mr McFarlane stopped being so discreet.
‘There were a few complaints from time to