Mrs McGinty’s Dead

Poirot mentioned Mrs Summerhayes at Long Meadows.

Oh yes, auntie went to her—two days a week. They’d come back from India where they’d had a lot of native servants and Mrs Summerhayes didn’t know a thing about a house. They tried to market-garden, but they didn’t know anything about that, either. When the children came home for the holidays, the house was just pandemonium. But Mrs Summerhayes was a nice lady and auntie liked her.

So the portrait grew. Mrs McGinty knitted, and scrubbed floors and polished brass, she liked cats and didn’t like dogs. She liked children, but not very much. She kept herself to herself.

She attended church on Sunday, but didn’t take part in any church activities. Sometimes, but rarely, she went to the pictures. She didn’t hold with goings on—and had given up working for an artist and his wife when she discovered they weren’t properly married. She didn’t read books, but she enjoyed the Sunday paper and she liked old magazines when her ladies gave them to her. Although she didn’t go much to the pictures, she was interested in hearing about film stars and their doings. She wasn’t interested in politics, but voted Conservative like her husband had always done. Never spent much on clothes, but got quite a lot given her from her ladies, and was of a saving disposition.

Mrs McGinty was, in fact, very much the Mrs McGinty that Poirot had imagined she would be. And Bessie Burch, her niece, was the Bessie Burch of Superintendent Spence’s notes.

Before Poirot took his leave, Joe Burch came home for the lunch hour. A small, shrewd man, less easy to be sure about than his wife. There was a faint nervousness in his manner. He showed less signs of suspicion and hostility than his wife. Indeed he seemed anxious to appear cooperative. And that, Poirot reflected, was very faintly out of character. For why should Joe Burch be anxious to placate an importunate foreign stranger? The reason could only be that the stranger had brought with him a letter from Superintendent Spence of the County Police.

So Joe Burch was anxious to stand in well with the police? Was it that he couldn’t afford, as his wife could, to be critical of the police?

A man, perhaps, with an uneasy conscience. Why was that conscience uneasy? There could be so many reasons—none of them connected with Mrs McGinty’s death. Or was it that, somehow or other, the cinema alibi had been cleverly faked, and that it was Joe Burch who had knocked on the door of the cottage, had been admitted by auntie and who had struck down the unsuspecting old woman? He would pull out the drawers and ransack the rooms to give the appearance of robbery, he might hide the money outside, cunningly, to incriminate James Bentley, the money that was in the Savings Bank was what he was after. Two hundred pounds coming to his wife which, for some reason unknown, he badly needed. The weapon, Poirot remembered, had never been found. Why had that not also been found on the scene of the crime? Any moron knew enough to wear gloves or rub off fingerprints. Why then had the weapon, which must have been a heavy one with a sharp edge, been removed? Was it because it could easily be identified as belonging to the Burch ménage? Was that same weapon, washed and polished, here in the house now? Something in the nature of a meat chopper, the police surgeon had said—but not, it seemed, actually a meat chopper. Something, perhaps a little unusual…a little out of the ordinary, easily identified. The police had hunted for it, but not found it. They had searched woods, dragged ponds. There was nothing missing from Mrs McGinty’s kitchen, and nobody could say that James Bentley had had anything of that kind in his possession. They had never traced any purchase of a meat chopper or any such implement to him. A small, but negative point in his favour. Ignored in the weight of other evidence. But still a point…

Poirot cast a swift glance round the rather overcrowded little sitting-room in which he was sitting.

Was the weapon here, somewhere, in this house? Was that why Joe Burch was uneasy and conciliatory?

Poirot did not know. He did not really think so. But he was not absolutely sure…

Chapter 6 (#u0d668e7a-43ca-4acd-a0f5-133e7851156a)

I

In the offices of Messrs Breather & Scuttle, Poirot was shown, after some demur, into the room of Mr Scuttle himself.

Mr Scuttle was a brisk, bustling man, with a hearty manner.

‘Good morning. Good morning.’ He rubbed his hands. ‘Now, what can we do for you?’

His professional eye shot over Poirot, trying to place him, making, as it were, a series of marginal notes.

Foreign. Good quality clothes. Probably rich. Restaurant proprietor? Hotel manager? Films?

‘I hope not to trespass on your time unduly. I wanted to talk to you about your former employee, James Bentley.’

Mr Scuttle’s expressive eyebrows shot up an inch and dropped.

‘James Bentley. James Bentley?’ He shot out a question. ‘Press?’

‘No.’

‘And you wouldn’t be police?’

‘No. At least—not of this country.’

‘Not of this country.’ Mr Scuttle filed this away rapidly as though for future reference. ‘What’s it all about?’

Poirot, never hindered by a pedantic regard for truth, launched out into speech.

‘I am opening a further inquiry into James Bentley’s case—at the request of certain relatives of his.’

‘Didn’t know he had any. Anyway, he’s been found guilty, you know, and condemned to death.’

‘But not yet executed.’

‘While there’s life, there’s hope, eh?’ Mr Scuttle shook his head. ‘Should doubt it, though. Evidence was strong. Who are these relations of his?’

‘I can only tell you this, they are both rich and powerful. Immensely rich.’

‘You surprise me.’ Mr Scuttle was unable to help thawing slightly. The words ‘immensely rich’ had an attractive and hypnotic quality. ‘Yes, you really do surprise me.’

‘Bentley’s mother, the late Mrs Bentley,’ explained Poirot, ‘cut herself and her son off completely from her family.’

‘One of these family feuds, eh? Well, well. And young Bentley without a farthing to bless himself with. Pity these relations didn’t come to the rescue before.’

‘They have only just become aware of the facts,’ explained Poirot. ‘They have engaged me to come with all speed to this country and do everything possible.’

Mr Scuttle leaned back, relaxing his business manner.

‘Don’t know what you can do. I suppose there’s insanity? A bit late in the day—but if you got hold of the big medicos. Of course I’m not up in these things myself.’

Poirot leaned forward.

‘Monsieur, James Bentley worked here. You can tell me about him.’

‘Precious little to tell—precious little. He was one of our junior clerks. Nothing against him. Seemed a perfectly decent young fellow, quite conscientious and all that. But no idea of salesmanship. He just couldn’t put a project over. That’s no good in this job. If a client comes to us with a house he wants to sell, we’re there to sell it for him. And if a client wants a house, we find him one. If it’s a house in a lonely place with no amenities, we stress its antiquity, call it a period piece—and don’t mention the plumbing! And if the house looks straight into the gasworks, we talk about amenities and facilities and don’t mention the view. Hustle your client into it—that’s what you’re here to do. All sorts of little tricks there are. “We advise you, madam, to make an immediate offer. There’s a Member of Parliament who’s very keen on it—very keen indeed. Going out to see it again this afternoon.” They fall for that every time—a Member of Parliament is always a good touch. Can’t think why! No member ever lives away from his constituency. It’s just the good solid sound of it.’ He laughed suddenly, displayed gleaming dentures. ‘Psychology—that’s what it is—just psychology.’

Poirot leapt at the word.

‘Psychology. How right you are. I see that you are a judge of men.’

‘Not too bad. Not too bad,’ said Mr Scuttle modestly.

‘So I ask you again what was your impression of James Bentley? Between ourselves—strictly between ourselves—you think he killed the old woman?’

Scuttle stared.

‘Of course.’

‘And you think, too, that it was a likely thing for him to do—psychologically speaking?’

‘Well—if you put it like that—no, not really. Shouldn’t have thought he had the guts. Tell you what, if you ask me, he was barmy. Put it that way, and it works. Always a bit soft in the head, and what with being out of a job and worrying and all that, he just went right over the edge.’

‘You had no special reason for discharging him?’

Scuttle shook his head.