VMiss Morley had moved to the country. She was living in a small country cottage near Hertford.

The Grenadier greeted Poirot amicably¹. Since her brother’s death her face had perhaps grownslightly grimmer, her carriage more upright, her general attitude towards life more unyielding. Sheresented bitterly the slur² cast upon her brother’s professional name by the findings of the inquest.

Poirot, she had reason to believe, shared the view that the verdict of the Coroner’s inquest wasuntrue. Hence the Grenadier unbent a little.

She answered his questions readily enough and with competence³. All Mr. Morley’s professionalpapers had been carefully filed by Miss Nevill and had been handed over by her to Mr. Morley’ssuccessor. Some of the patients had transferred themselves to Mr. Reilly, others had accepted thenew partner, others again had gone to other dentists elsewhere.

Miss Morley, after she had given what information she could, said:

“So you have found that woman who was Henry’s patient—Miss Sainsbury Seale—and she wasmurdered too.”

The “too” was a little defiant⁴. She stressed the word.

Poirot said:

“Your brother never mentioned Miss Sainsbury Seale particularly to you?”

“No, I don’t remember his doing so. He would tell me if he had had a particularly trying patient,or if one of his patients had said something amusing he would pass it on to me, but we didn’tusually talk about his work much. He was glad to forget it when the day was over. He was verytired sometimes.”

“Do you remember hearing of a Mrs. Chapman amongst your brother’s patients?”

“Chapman? No, I don’t think so. Miss Nevill is really the person to help you over all this.”

“I am anxious to get in touch with her. Where is she now?”

“She has taken a post with a dentist in Ramsgate, I believe.”

“She has not married that young man Frank Carter yet?”

“No. I rather hope that will never come off. I don’t like that young man, M. Poirot. I reallydon’t. There is something wrong about him. I still feel that he hasn’t really any proper moralsense.”

Poirot said:

“Do you think it is possible that he could have shot your brother?”

Miss Morley said slowly:

“I do feel perhaps that he would be capable of it—he has a very uncontrollable temper. But Idon’t really see that he had any motive—nor opportunity for that matter. You see, it wasn’t asthough Henry had succeeded in persuading Gladys to give him up. She was sticking to him in themost faithful way.”

“Could he have been bribed⁵, do you think?”

“Bribed? To kill my brother? What an extraordinary idea!”

A nice-looking dark-haired girl brought in the tea at this moment. As she closed the door behindher again, Poirot said:

“That girl was with you in London, was she not?”

“Agnes? Yes, she was house-parlourmaid. I let the cook go—she didn’t want to come to thecountry anyway—and Agnes does everything for me. She is turning into quite a nice little cook.”

Poirot nodded.

He knew very accurately⁶ the domestic arrangements of 58, Queen Charlotte Street. They hadbeen thoroughly⁷ gone into at the time of the tragedy. Mr. Morley and his sister had occupied thetwo top floors of the house as a maisonette. The basement had been shut up altogether except for anarrow passage leading from the area to the back yard where a wire cage ran up to the top floorwith the tradesmen’s deliveries and where a speaking tube was installed. Therefore the onlyentrance to the house was by the front door which it was Alfred’s business to answer. This hadenabled the police to be sure that no outsider could have entered the house on that particularmorning.

Both cook and house-parlourmaid had been with the Morleys for some years and bore goodcharacters. So, although it was theoretically possible that one or the other of them might have creptdown to the second floor and shot her master, the possibility had never been taken seriously intoaccount. Neither of the two had appeared unduly⁸ flustered⁹ or upset at being questioned, and therecertainly seemed no possible reason for connecting either of them with his death.

Nevertheless, as Agnes handed Poirot his hat and stick on leaving, she asked him with anunusually nervous abruptness¹⁰:

“Does—does anyone know anything more about the master’s death, sir?”

Poirot turned to look at her. He said:

“Nothing fresh has come to light.”

“They’re still quite sure as he did shoot himself because he’d made a mistake with that drug?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

Agnes pleated her apron¹¹. Her face was averted¹². She said rather indistinctly:

“The—the mistress doesn’t think so.”

“And you agree with her, perhaps?”

“Me? Oh, I don’t know nothing, sir. I only—I only wanted to be sure.”

Hercule Poirot said in his most gentle voice:

“It would be a relief to you to feel beyond any possible doubt that it was suicide?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” Agnes agreed quickly, “it would indeed.”

“For a special reason, perhaps?”

Her startled eyes met his. She shrank back a little.

“I—I don’t know anything about it, sir. I only just asked.”

“But why did she ask?” Hercule Poirot demanded of himself, as he walked down the path to thegate.

He felt sure that there was an answer to that question. But as yet he could not guess what it was.

All the same, he felt a step nearer.

 

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