Fourteen

I“Decidedly,” said Hercule Poirot to himself the following morning, “the spring is here.”

His apprehensions of the night before seemed singularly groundless.

Mrs. Upward was a sensible woman who could take good care of herself.

Nevertheless in some curious way, she intrigued him. He did not at all understand herreactions. Clearly she did not want him to. She had recognized the photograph of Lily Gambolland she was determined to play a lone hand.

Poirot, pacing a garden path while he pursued these reflections, was startled by a voicebehind him.

“M. Poirot.”

Mrs. Rendell had come up so quietly that he had not heard her. Since yesterday he had feltextremely nervous.

“Pardon, madame. You made me jump.”

Mrs. Rendell smiled mechanically. If he were nervous, Mrs. Rendell, he thought, was evenmore so. There was a twitching in one of her eyelids and her hands worked restlessly together.

“I—I hope I’m not interrupting you. Perhaps you’re busy.”

“But no, I am not busy. The day is fine. I enjoy the feeling of spring. It is good to beoutdoors. In the house of Mrs. Summerhayes there is always, but always, the current of air.”

“The current—”

“What in England you call a draught.”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose there is.”

“The windows, they will not shut and the doors they fly open all the time.”

“It’s rather a ramshackle house. And of course, the Summerhayes are so badly off they can’tafford to do much to it. I’d let it go if I were them. I know it’s been in their family for hundreds ofyears, but nowadays you just can’t cling on to things for sentiment’s sake.”

“No, we are not sentimental nowadays.”

There was a silence. Out of the corner of his eye, Poirot watched those nervous white hands.

He waited for her to take the initiative. When she did speak it was abruptly.

“I suppose,” she said, “that when you are, well, investigating a thing, you’d always have tohave a pretext?”

Poirot considered the question. Though he did not look at her, he was perfectly aware of hereager sideways glance fixed on him.

“As you say, madame,” he replied non-committally. “It is a convenience.”

“To explain your being there, and—and asking things.”

“It might be expedient.”

“Why—why are you really here in Broadhinny, M. Poirot?”

He turned a mild surprised gaze on her.

“But, my dear lady, I told you—to inquire into the death of Mrs. McGinty.”

Mrs. Rendell said sharply:

“I know that’s what you say. But it’s ridiculous.”

Poirot raised his eyebrows.

“Is it?”

“Of course it is. Nobody believes it.”

“And yet I assure you, it is a simple fact.”

Her pale blue eyes blinked and she looked away.

“You won’t tell me.”

“Tell you—what, madame?”

She changed the subject abruptly again, it seemed.

“I wanted to ask you—about anonymous letters.”

“Yes,” said Poirot encouragingly as she stopped.

“They’re really always lies, aren’t they?”

“They are sometimes lies,” said Poirot cautiously.

“Usually,” she persisted.

“I don’t know that I would go as far as saying that.”

Shelagh Rendell said vehemently:

“They’re cowardly, treacherous, mean things!”

“All that, yes, I would agree.”

“And you wouldn’t ever believe what was said in one, would you?”

“That is a very difficult question,” said Poirot gravely.

“I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t believe anything of that kind.”

She added vehemently:

“I know why you’re down here. And it isn’t true, I tell you, it isn’t true.”

She turned sharply and walked away.

Hercule Poirot raised his eyebrows in an interested fashion.

“And now what?” he demanded of himself. “Am I being taken up the garden walk? Or is thisthe bird of a different colour?”

It was all, he felt, very confusing.

Mrs. Rendell professed to believe that he was down here for a reason other than that ofinquiring into Mrs. McGinty’s death. She had suggested that that was only a pretext.

Did she really believe that? Or was she, as he had just said to himself, leading him up thegarden walk?

What had anonymous letters got to do with it?

Was Mrs. Rendell the original of the photograph that Mrs. Upward had said she had “seenrecently?”

In other words, was Mrs. Rendell Lily Gamboll? Lily Gamboll, a rehabilitated member ofsociety, had been last heard of in Eire. Had Dr. Rendell met and married his wife there, inignorance of her history? Lily Gamboll had been trained as a stenographer. Her path and thedoctor’s might easily have crossed.

Poirot shook his head and sighed.

It was all perfectly possible. But he had to be sure.

A chilly wind sprang up suddenly and the sun went in.

Poirot shivered and retraced his steps to the house.

Yes, he had to be sure. If he could find the actual weapon of the murder—And at that moment, with a strange feeling of certainty—he saw it.

II

Afterwards he wondered whether, subconsciously, he had seen and noted it much earlier. It hadstood there, presumably, ever since he had come to Long Meadows. .?.?.

There on the littered top of the bookcase near the window.

He thought: “Why did I never notice that before?”

He picked it up, weighed it in his hands, examined it, balanced it, raised it to strike—Maureen came in through the door with her usual rush, two dogs accompanying her. Hervoice, light and friendly, said:

“Hallo, are you playing with the sugar cutter?”

“Is that what it is? A sugar cutter?”

“Yes. A sugar cutter—or a sugar hammer—I don’t know what exactly is the right term. It’srather fun, isn’t it? So childish with the little bird on top.”

Poirot turned the implement carefully in his hands. Made of much ornamented brass, it wasshaped like an adze, heavy, with a sharp cutting edge. It was studded here and there with colouredstones, pale blue and red. On top of it was a frivolous little bird with turquoise eyes.

“Lovely thing for killing anyone, wouldn’t it be?” said Maureen conversationally.

She took it from him and aimed a murderous blow at a point in space.

“Frightfully easy,” she said. “What’s that bit in the Idylls of the King? ‘?“Mark’s way,” hesaid, and clove him to the brain.’ I should think you could cleave anyone to the brain with this allright, don’t you?”

Poirot looked at her. Her freckled face was serene and cheerful.

She said:

“I’ve told Johnnie what’s coming to him if I get fed up with him. I call it the wife’s bestfriend!”

She laughed, put the sugar hammer down and turned towards the door.

“What did I come in here for?” she mused. “I can’t remember .?.?. Bother! I’d better go andsee if that pudding needs more water in the saucepan.”

Poirot’s voice stopped her before she got to the door.

“You brought this back with you from India, perhaps?”

“Oh no,” said Maureen. “I got it at the B. and B. at Christmas.”

“B. and B.?” Poirot was puzzled.

“Bring and Buy,” explained Maureen glibly. “At the Vicarage. You bring things you don’twant, and you buy something. Something not too frightful if you can find it. Of course there’spractically never anything you really want. I got this and that coffee pot. I like the coffee pot’snose and I liked the little bird on the hammer.”

The coffee pot was a small one of beaten copper. It had a big curving spout that struck afamiliar note to Poirot.

“I think they come from Baghdad,” said Maureen. “At least I think that’s what the Wetherbyssaid. Or it may have been Persia.”

“It was from the Wetherbys” house, then, that these came?”

“Yes. They’ve got a most frightful lot of junk. I must go. That pudding.”

She went out. The door banged. Poirot picked up the sugar cutter again and took it to thewindow.

On the cutting edge were faint, very faint, discolorations.

Poirot nodded his head.

He hesitated for a moment, then he carried the sugar hammer out of the room and up to hisbedroom. There he packed it carefully in a box, did the whole thing up neatly in paper and string,and going downstairs again, left the house.

He did not think that anyone would notice the disappearance of the sugar cutter. It was not atidy household.

III

At Laburnums, collaboration was pursuing its difficult course.

“But I really don’t feel it’s right making him a vegetarian, darling,” Robin was objecting.

“Too faddy. And definitely not glamorous.”

“I can’t help it,” said Mrs. Oliver obstinately. “He’s always been a vegetarian. He takes rounda little machine for grating raw carrots and turnips.”

“But, Ariadne, precious, why?”

“How do I know?” said Mrs. Oliver crossly. “How do I know why I ever thought of therevolting man? I must have been mad! Why a Finn when I know nothing about Finland? Why avegetarian? Why all the idiotic manerisms he’s got? These things just happen. You try something—and people seem to like it—and then you go on—and before you know where you are, you’vegot someone like that maddening Sven Hjerson tied to you for life. And people even write and sayhow fond you must be of him. Fond of him? If I met that bony, gangling, vegetable-eating Finn inreal life, I’d do a better murder than any I’ve ever invented.”

Robin Upward gazed at her with reverence.

“You know, Ariadne, that might be rather a marvellous idea. A real Sven Hjerson—and youmurder him. You might make a Swan Song book of it—to be published after your death.”

“No fear!” said Mrs. Oliver. “What about the money? Any money to be made out of murdersI want now.”

“Yes. Yes. There I couldn’t agree with you more.”

The harassed playwright strode up and down.

“This Ingrid creature is getting rather tiresome,” he said. “And after the cellar scene which isreally going to be marvellous, I don’t quite see how we’re going to prevent the next scene frombeing rather an anticlimax.”

Mrs. Oliver was silent. Scenes, she felt, were Robin Upward’s headache.

Robin shot a dissatisfied glance at her.

That morning, in one of her frequent changes of mood, Mrs. Oliver had disliked herwindswept coiffure. With a brush dipped in water she had plastered her grey locks close to herskull. With her high forehead, her massive glasses, and her stern air, she was reminding Robinmore and more of a schoolteacher who had awed his early youth. He found it more and moredifficult to address her as darling, and even flinched at “Ariadne.”

He said fretfully:

“You know, I don’t feel a bit in the mood today. All that gin yesterday, perhaps. Let’s scrapwork and go into the question of casting. If we can get Denis Callory, of course it will be toomarvellous, but he’s tied up in films at the moment. And Jean Bellews for Ingrid would be justright—and she wants to play it which is so nice. Eric—as I say, I’ve had a brainwave for Eric.

We’ll go over to the Little Rep tonight, shall we? And you’ll tell me what you think of Cecil forthe part.”

Mrs. Oliver agreed hopefully to this project and Robin went off to telephone.

“There,” he said returning. “That’s all fixed.”

IV

The fine morning had not lived up to its promise. Clouds had gathered and the day was oppressivewith a threat of rain. As Poirot walked through the dense shrubberies to the front door of Hunter’sClose, he decided that he would not like to live in this hollow valley at the foot of the hill. Thehouse itself was closed in by trees and its walls suffocated in ivy. It needed, he thought, thewoodman’s axe.

(The axe? The sugar cutter?)

He rang the bell and after getting no response, rang it again.

It was Deirdre Henderson who opened the door to him. She seemed surprised.

“Oh,” she said, “it’s you.”

“May I come in and speak to you?”

“I—well, yes, I suppose so.”

She led him into the small dark sitting room where he had waited before. On the mantelpiecehe recognized the big brother of the small coffee pot on Maureen’s shelf. Its vast hooked noseseemed to dominate the small Western room with a hint of Eastern ferocity.

“I’m afraid,” said Deirdre in an apologetic tone, “that we’re rather upset today. Our help, theGerman girl—she’s going. She’s only been here a month. Actually it seems she just took this postto get over to this country because there was someone she wanted to marry. And now they’vefixed it up, and she’s going straight off tonight.”

Poirot clicked his tongue.

“Most inconsiderate.”

“It is, isn’t it? My stepfather says it isn’t legal. But even if it isn’t legal, if she just goes offand gets married, I don’t see what one can do about it. We shouldn’t even have known she wasgoing if I hadn’t found her packing her clothes. She would just have walked out of the housewithout a word.”

“It is, alas, not an age of consideration.”

“No,” said Deirdre dully. “I suppose it’s not.”

She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand.

“I’m tired,” she said. “I’m very tired.”

“Yes,” said Poirot gently. “I think you may be very tired.”

“What was it you wanted, M. Poirot?”

“I wanted to ask you about a sugar hammer.”

“A sugar hammer?”

Her face was blank, uncomprehending.

“An instrument of brass, with a bird on it, and inlaid with blue and red and green stones.”

Poirot enunciated the description carefully.

“Oh yes, I know.”

Her voice showed no interest or animation.

“I understand it came from this house?”

“Yes. My mother bought it in the bazaar at Baghdad. It’s one of the things we took to theVicarage sale.”

“The Bring and Buy sale, that is right?”

“Yes. We have a lot of them here. It’s difficult to get people to give money, but there’susually something you can rake up and send.”

“So it was here, in this house, until Christmas, and then you sent it to the Bring and Buy sale?

Is that right?”

Deirdre frowned.

“Not the Christmas Bring and Buy. It was the one before. The Harvest Festival one.”

“The Harvest Festival—that would be—when? October? September?”

“The end of September.”

It was very quiet in the little room. Poirot looked at the girl and she looked back at him. Herface was mild, expressionless, uninterested. Behind the blank wall of her apathy, he tried to guesswhat was going on. Nothing, perhaps. Perhaps she was, as she had said, just tired. .?.?.

He said, quietly, urgently:

“You are quite sure it was the Harvest Festival Sale? Not the Christmas one?”

“Quite sure.”

Her eyes were steady, unblinking.

Hercule Poirot waited. He continued to wait. .?.?.

But what he was waiting for did not come.

He said formally:

“I must not keep you any longer, mademoiselle.”

She went with him to the front door.

Presently he was walking down the drive again.

Two divergent statements—statements that could not possibly be reconciled.

Who was right? Maureen Summerhayes or Deirdre Henderson?

If the sugar cutter had been used as he believed it had been used, the point was vital. TheHarvest Festival had been the end of September. Between then and Christmas, on November 22nd,Mrs. McGinty had been killed. Whose property had the sugar cutter been at the time?

He went to the post office. Mrs. Sweetiman was always helpful and she did her best. She’dbeen to both sales, she said. She always went. You picked up many a nice bit there. She helped,too, to arrange things beforehand. Though most people brought things with them and didn’t sendthem beforehand.

A brass hammer, rather like an axe, with coloured stones and a little bird? No, she couldn’trightly remember. There was such a lot of things, and so much confusion and some thingssnatched up at once. Well, perhaps she did remember something like that—priced at five shillingsit had been, and with a copper coffee pot, but the pot had got a hole in the bottom—you couldn’tuse it, only for ornament. But she couldn’t remember when it was—some time ago. Might havebeen Christmas, might have been before. She hadn’t been noticing. .?.?.

She accepted Poirot’s parcel. Registered? Yes.

She copied down the address; he noticed just a sharp flicker of interest in her keen black eyesas she handed him the receipt.

Hercule Poirot walked slowly up the hill, wondering to himself.

Of the two, Maureen Summerhayes, scatterbrained, cheerful, inaccurate, was the more likelyto be wrong. Harvest or Christmas, it would be all one to her.

Deirdre Henderson, slow, awkward, was far more likely to be accurate in her identification oftimes and dates.

Yet there remained that irking question.

Why, after his questions, hadn’t she asked him why he wanted to know? Surely a natural, analmost inevitable, question?

But Deirdre Henderson hadn’t asked it.