‘Bien! I have nothing of great moment on hand. I can devote myself to your little affair. Tomorrow I shall be in Polgarwith. Shall we say that Hastings, here, is a distant relative of yours, the son of your second cousin? Me, I am his eccentric foreign friend. In the meantime, eat only what is prepared by your own hands, or under your eye. You have a maid whom you trust?’
‘Jessie is a very good girl, I am sure.’
‘Till tomorrow then, madame, and be of good courage.’
II
Poirot bowed the lady out, and returned thoughtfully to his chair. His absorption was not so great, however, that he failed to see two minute strands of feather scarf wrenched off by the lady’s agitated fingers. He collected them carefully and consigned them to the wastepaper basket.
‘What do you make of the case, Hastings?’
‘A nasty business, I should say.’
‘Yes, if what the lady suspects be true. But is it? Woe betide any husband who orders a bottle of weed-killer nowadays. If his wife suffers from gastritis, and is inclined to be of a hysterical temperament, the fat is in the fire.’
‘You think that is all there is to it?’
‘Ah—voilà—I do not know, Hastings. But the case interests me—it interests me enormously. For, you see, it has positively no new features. Hence the hysterical theory, and yet Mrs Pengelley did not strike me as being a hysterical woman. Yes, if I mistake not, we have here a very poignant human drama. Tell me, Hastings, what do you consider Mrs Pengelley’s feelings towards her husband to be?’
‘Loyalty struggling with fear,’ I suggested.
‘Yet, ordinarily, a woman will accuse anyone in the world—but not her husband. She will stick to her belief in him through thick and thin.’
‘The “other woman” complicates the matter.’
‘Yes, affection may turn to hate, under the stimulus of jealousy. But hate would take her to the police—not to me. She would want an outcry—a scandal. No, no, let us exercise our little grey cells. Why did she come to me? To have her suspicions proved wrong? Or—to have them proved right? Ah, we have here something I do not understand—an unknown factor. Is she a superb actress, our Mrs Pengelley? No, she was genuine, I would swear that she was genuine, and therefore I am interested. Look up the trains to Polgarwith, I pray you.’
III
The best train of the day was the one-fifty from Paddington which reached Polgarwith just after seven o’clock. The journey was uneventful, and I had to rouse myself from a pleasant nap to alight upon the platform of the bleak little station. We took our bags to the Duchy Hotel, and after a light meal, Poirot suggested our stepping round to pay an after-dinner call on my so-called cousin.
The Pengelleys’ house stood a little way back from the road with an old-fashioned cottage garden in front. The smell of stocks and mignonette came sweetly wafted on the evening breeze. It seemed impossible to associate thoughts of violence with this Old World charm. Poirot rang and knocked. As the summons was not answered, he rang again. This time, after a little pause, the door was opened by a dishevelled-looking servant. Her eyes were red, and she was sniffing violently.
‘We wish to see Mrs Pengelley,’ explained Poirot. ‘May we enter?’
The maid stared. Then, with unusual directness, she answered: ‘Haven’t you heard, then? She’s dead. Died this evening—about half an hour ago.’
We stood staring at her, stunned.
‘What did she die of?’ I asked at last.
‘There’s some as could tell.’ She gave a quick glance over her shoulder. ‘If it wasn’t that somebody ought to be in the house with the missus, I’d pack my box and go tonight. But I’ll not leave her dead with no one to watch by her. It’s not my place to say anything, and I’m not going to say anything—but everybody knows. It’s all over the town. And if Mr Radnor don’t write to the ’Ome Secretary, someone else will. The doctor may say what he likes. Didn’t I see the master with my own eyes a-lifting down of the weed-killer from the shelf this very evening? And didn’t he jump when he turned round and saw me watching of him? And the missus’ gruel there on the table, all ready to take to her? Not another bit of food passes my lips while I am in this house! Not if I dies for it.’
‘Where does the doctor live who attended your mistress?’
‘Dr Adams. Round the corner in High Street. The second house.’
Poirot turned away abruptly. He was very pale.
‘For a girl who was not going to say anything, that girl said a lot,’ I remarked dryly.
Poirot struck his clenched hand into his palm.
‘An imbecile, a criminal imbecile, that is what I have been, Hastings. I have boasted of my little grey cells, and now I have lost a human life, a life that came to me to be saved. Never did I dream that anything would happen so soon. May the good God forgive me, but I never believed anything would happen at all. Her story seemed to me artificial. Here we are at the doctor’s. Let us see what he can tell us.’
IV
Dr Adams was the typical genial red-faced country doctor of fiction. He received us politely enough, but at a hint of our errand, his red face became purple.
‘Damned nonsense! Damned nonsense, every word of it! Wasn’t I in attendance on the case? Gastritis—gastritis pure and simple. This town’s a hotbed of gossip—a lot of scandal-mongering old women get together and invent God knows what. They read these scurrilous rags of newspapers, and nothing will suit them but that someone in their town shall get poisoned too. They see a bottle of weed-killer on a shelf—and hey presto!—away goes their imagination with the bit between his teeth. I know Edward Pengelley—he wouldn’t poison his grandmother’s dog. And why should he poison his wife? Tell me that?’
‘There is one thing, M. le Docteur, that perhaps you do not know.’
And, very briefly, Poirot outlined the main facts of Mrs Pengelley’s visit to him. No one could have been more astonished than Dr Adams. His eyes almost started out of his head.
‘God bless my soul!’ he ejaculated. ‘The poor woman must have been mad. Why didn’t she speak to me? That was the proper thing to do.’
‘And have her fears ridiculed?’
‘Not at all, not at all. I hope I’ve got an open mind.’
Poirot looked at him and smiled. The physician was evidently more perturbed than he cared to admit. As we left the house, Poirot broke into a laugh.
‘He is as obstinate as a pig, that one. He has said it is gastritis; therefore it is gastritis! All the same, he has the mind uneasy.’
‘What’s our next step?’
‘A return to the inn, and a night of horror upon one of your English provincial beds, mon ami. It is a thing to make pity, the cheap English bed!’
‘And tomorrow?’
‘Rien à faire. We must return to town and await developments.’
‘That’s very tame,’ I said, disappointed. ‘Suppose there are none?’
‘There will be! I promise you that. Our old doctor may give as many certificates as he pleases. He cannot stop several hundred tongues from wagging. And they will wag to some purpose, I can tell you that!’
Our train for town left at eleven the following morning. Before we started for the station, Poirot expressed a wish to see Miss Freda Stanton, the niece mentioned