Five

MARY DROWER

I think that I can date my interest in the case from that first mention of the A B C railway guide.

Up till then I had not been able to raise much enthusiasm. This sordid¹ murder of an old woman ina back-street shop was so like the usual type of crime reported in the newspapers that it failed tostrike a significant note. In my own mind I had put down the anonymous² letter with its mention ofthe 21st as a mere³ coincidence. Mrs. Ascher, I felt reasonably sure, had been the victim of herdrunken brute⁴ of a husband. But now the mention of the railway guide (so familiarly known by itsabbreviation of A B C, listing as it did all railway stations in their alphabetical⁵ order) sent a quiverof excitement through me. Surely—surely this could not be a second coincidence?

The sordid crime took on a new aspect.

Who was the mysterious individual who had killed Mrs. Ascher and left an A B C railway guidebehind him?

When we left the police station our first visit was to the mortuary to see the body of the deadwoman. A strange feeling came over me as I gazed down on that wrinkled old face with the scantygrey hair drawn⁶ back tightly from the temples. It looked so peaceful, so incredibly remote fromviolence.

“Never knew who or what struck her,” observed the sergeant⁷. “That’s what Dr. Kerr says. I’mglad it was that way, poor old soul. A decent woman she was.”

“She must have been beautiful once,” said Poirot.

“Really?” I murmured incredulously.

“But yes, look at the line of the jaw⁸, the bones, the moulding of the head.”

He sighed as he replaced the sheet and we left the mortuary.

Our next move was a brief interview with the police surgeon.

Dr. Kerr was a competent-looking middle-aged⁹ man. He spoke¹⁰ briskly and with decision.

“The weapon wasn’t found,” he said. “Impossible to say what it may have been. A weightedstick, a club, a form of sandbag—any of those would fit the case.”

“Would much force be needed to strike such a blow?”

The doctor shot a keen glance at Poirot.

“Meaning, I suppose, could a shaky old man of seventy do it? Oh, yes, it’s perfectly¹¹ possible—given sufficient weight in the head of the weapon, quite a feeble person could achieve the desiredresult.”

“Then the murderer could just as well be a woman as a man?”

The suggestion took the doctor somewhat aback.

“A woman, eh? Well, I confess it never occurred to me to connect a woman with this type ofcrime. But of course it’s possible—perfectly possible. Only, psychologically speaking, I shouldn’tsay this was a woman’s crime.”

Poirot nodded his head in eager agreement.

“Perfectly, perfectly. On the face of it, highly improbable. But one must take all possibilitiesinto account. The body was lying—how?”

The doctor gave us a careful description of the position of the victim. It was his opinion that shehad been standing¹² with her back to the counter (and therefore to her assailant) when the blow hadbeen struck. She had slipped down in a heap behind the counter quite out of sight of anyoneentering the shop casually¹³.

When we had thanked Dr. Kerr and taken our leave, Poirot said:

“You perceive, Hastings, that we have already one further point in favour of Ascher’sinnocence. If he had been abusing his wife and threatening her, she would have been facing himover the counter. Instead she had her back to her assailant—obviously she is reaching downtobacco or cigarettes for a customer.”

I gave a little shiver.

“Pretty gruesome.”

Poirot shook his head gravely.

“Pauvre femme,” he murmured.

Then he glanced at his watch.

“Overton is not, I think, many miles from here. Shall we run over there and have an interviewwith the niece of the dead woman?”

“Surely you will go first to the shop where the crime took place?”

“I prefer to do that later. I have a reason.”

He did not explain further, and a few minutes later we were driving on the London road in thedirection of Overton.

The address which the inspector¹⁴ had given us was that of a good-sized house about a mile onthe London side of the village.

Our ring at the bell was answered by a pretty dark-haired girl whose eyes were red with recentweeping.

Poirot said gently:

“Ah! I think it is you who are Miss Mary Drower, the parlour-maid here?”

“Yes, sir, that’s right. I’m Mary, sir.”

“Then perhaps I can talk to you for a few minutes if your mistress will not object. It is aboutyour aunt, Mrs. Ascher.”

“The mistress is out, sir. She wouldn’t mind, I’m sure, if you came in here.”

She opened the door of a small morning room. We entered and Poirot, seating himself on achair by the window, looked up keenly into the girl’s face.

“You have heard of your aunt’s death, of course?”

The girl nodded, tears coming once more into her eyes.

“This morning, sir. The police came over. Oh! it’s terrible! Poor auntie! Such a hard life asshe’d had, too. And now this—it’s too awful.”

“The police did not suggest your returning to Andover?”

“They said I must come to the inquest—that’s on Monday, sir. But I’ve nowhere to go there—Icouldn’t fancy being over the shop—now—and what with the housemaid being away, I didn’twant to put the mistress out more than may be.”

“You were fond of your aunt, Mary?” said Poirot gently.

“Indeed I was, sir. Very good she’s been to me always, auntie has. I went to her in Londonwhen I was eleven years old, after mother died. I started in service when I was sixteen, but Iusually went along to auntie’s on my day out. A lot of trouble she went through with that Germanfellow. ‘My old devil,’ she used to call him. He’d never let her be in peace anywhere. Sponging,cadging old beast.”

The girl spoke with vehemence¹⁵.

“Your aunt never thought of freeing herself by legal means from this persecution¹⁶?”

“Well, you see, he was her husband, sir, you couldn’t get away from that.”

The girl spoke simply but with finality.

“Tell me, Mary, he threatened her, did he not?”

“Oh, yes, sir, it was awful the things he used to say. That he’d cut her throat, and such like.

Cursing and swearing too—both in German and in English. And yet auntie says he was a finehandsome figure of a man when she married him. It’s dreadful to think, sir, what people come to.”

“Yes, indeed. And so, I suppose, Mary, having actually heard these threats, you were not sovery surprised when you learnt what had happened?”

“Oh, but I was, sir. You see, sir, I never thought for one moment that he meant it. I thought itwas just nasty talk and nothing more to it. And it isn’t as though auntie was afraid of him. Why,I’ve seen him slink away like a dog with its tail between its legs when she turned on him. He wasafraid of her if you like.”

“And yet she gave him money?”

“Well, he was her husband, you see, sir.”

“Yes, so you said before.” He paused for a minute or two. Then he said: “Suppose that, after all,he did not kill her.”

“Didn’t kill her?”

She stared.

“That is what I said. Supposing someone else killed her…Have you any idea who that someoneelse could be?”

She stared at him with even more amazement¹⁷.

“I’ve no idea, sir. It doesn’t seem likely, though, does it?”

“There was no one your aunt was afraid of?”

Mary shook her head.

“Auntie wasn’t afraid of people. She’d a sharp tongue and she’d stand up to anybody.”

“You never heard her mention anyone who had a grudge¹⁸ against her?”

“No, indeed, sir.”

“Did she ever get anonymous letters?”

“What kind of letters did you say, sir?”

“Letters that weren’t signed — or only signed by something like A B C.” He watched hernarrowly, but plainly she was at a loss. She shook her head wonderingly.

“Has your aunt any relations except you?”

“Not now, sir. One of ten she was, but only three lived to grow up. My Uncle Tom was killed inthe war, and my Uncle Harry¹⁹ went to South America and no one’s heard of him since, andmother’s dead, of course, so there’s only me.”

“Had your aunt any savings²⁰? Any money put by?”

“She’d a little in the Savings Bank, sir—enough to bury her proper, that’s what she always said.

Otherwise she didn’t more than just make ends meet—what with her old devil and all.”

Poirot nodded thoughtfully. He said—perhaps more to himself than to her:

“At present one is in the dark—there is no direction—if things get clearer—” He got up. “If Iwant you at any time, Mary, I will write to you here.”

“As a matter of fact, sir, I’m giving in my notice. I don’t like the country. I stayed here becauseI fancied it was a comfort to auntie to have me near by. But now”—again the tears rose in her eyes—“there’s no reason I should stay, and so I’ll go back to London. It’s gayer for a girl there.”

“I wish that, when you do go, you would give me your address. Here is my card.”

He handed it to her. She looked at it with a puzzled frown.

“Then you’re not—anything to do with the police, sir?”

“I am a private detective.”

She stood there looking at him for some moments in silence.

She said at last:

“Is there anything—queer going on, sir?”

“Yes, my child. There is—something queer going on. Later you may be able to help me.”

“I—I’ll do anything, sir. It—it wasn’t right, sir, auntie being killed.”

A strange way of putting it—but deeply moving.

A few seconds later we were driving back to Andover.

 

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