Mrs Todd’s cheque for a guinea was never cashed. Instead Poirot had it framed and hung on the all of our sitting-room.
‘It is to me a little reminder, Hastings. Never to despise the trivial—the undignified. A disappearing domestic at one end—a cold-blooded murder at the other. To me, one of the most interesting of my cases.’
I
‘Mrs Pengelley,’ announced our landlady, and withdrew discreetly.
Many unlikely people came to consult Poirot, but to my mind, the woman who stood nervously just inside the door, fingering her feather neck-piece, was the most unlikely of all. She was so extraordinarily commonplace—a thin, faded woman of about fifty, dressed in a braided coat and skirt, some gold jewellery at her neck, and with her grey hair surmounted by a singularly unbecoming hat. In a country town you pass a hundred Mrs Pengelleys in the street every day.
Poirot came forward and greeted her pleasantly, perceiving her obvious embarrassment.
‘Madame! Take a chair, I beg of you. My colleague, Captain Hastings.’
The lady sat down, murmuring uncertainly: ‘You are M. Poirot, the detective?’
‘At your service, madame.’
But our guest was still tongue-tied. She sighed, twisted her fingers, and grew steadily redder and redder.
‘There is something I can do for you, eh, madame?’
‘Well, I thought—that is—you see—’
‘Proceed, madame, I beg of you—proceed.’
Mrs Pengelley, thus encouraged, took a grip on herself.
‘It’s this way, M. Poirot—I don’t want to have anything to do with the police. No, I wouldn’t go to the police for anything! But all the same, I’m sorely troubled about something. And yet I don’t know if I ought—’ She stopped abruptly.
‘Me, I have nothing to do with the police. My investigations are strictly private.’
Mrs Pengelley caught at the word.
‘Private—that’s what I want. I don’t want any talk or fuss, or things in the papers. Wicked it is, the way they write things, until the family could never hold up their heads again. And it isn’t as though I was even sure—it’s just a dreadful idea that’s come to me, and put it out of my head I can’t.’ She paused for breath. ‘And all the time I may be wickedly wronging poor Edward. It’s a terrible thought for any wife to have. But you do read of such dreadful things nowadays.’
‘Permit me—it is of your husband you speak?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you suspect him of—what?’
‘I don’t like even to say it, M. Poirot. But you do read of such things happening—and the poor souls suspecting nothing.’
I was beginning to despair of the lady’s ever coming to the point, but Poirot’s patience was equal to the demand made upon it.
‘Speak without fear, madame. Think what joy will be yours if we are able to prove your suspicions unfounded.’
‘That’s true—anything’s better than this wearing uncertainty. Oh, M. Poirot, I’m dreadfully afraid I’m being poisoned.’
‘What makes you think so?’
Mrs Pengelley, her reticence leaving her, plunged into a full recital more suited to the ears of her medical attendant.
‘Pain and sickness after food, eh?’ said Poirot thoughtfully. ‘You have a doctor attending you, madame? What does he say?’
‘He says it’s acute gastritis, M. Poirot. But I can see that he’s puzzled and uneasy, and he’s always altering the medicine, but nothing does any good.’
‘You have spoken of your—fears, to him?’
‘No, indeed, M. Poirot. It might get about in the town. And perhaps it is gastritis. All the same, it’s very odd that whenever Edward is away for the week-end, I’m quite all right again. Even Freda notices that—my niece, M. Poirot. And then there’s that bottle of weed-killer, never used, the gardener says, and yet it’s half-empty.’
She looked appealingly at Poirot. He smiled reassuringly at her, and reached for a pencil and notebook.
‘Let us be businesslike, madame. Now, then, you and your husband reside—where?’
‘Polgarwith, a small market town in Cornwall.’
‘You have lived there long?’
‘Fourteen years.’
‘And your household consists of you and your husband. Any children?’
‘No.’
‘But a niece, I think you said?’
‘Yes, Freda Stanton, the child of my husband’s only sister. She has lived with us for the last eight years—that is, until a week ago.’
‘Oh, and what happened a week ago?’
‘Things hadn’t been very pleasant for some time; I don’t know what had come over Freda. She was so rude and impertinent, and her temper something shocking, and in the end she flared up one day, and out she walked and took rooms of her own in the town. I’ve not seen her since. Better leave her to come to her senses, so Mr Radnor says.’
‘Who is Mr Radnor?’
Some of Mrs Pengelley’s initial embarrassment returned.
‘Oh, he’s—he’s just a friend. Very pleasant young fellow.’
‘Anything between him and your niece?’
‘Nothing whatever,’ said Mrs Pengelley emphatically.
Poirot shifted his ground.
‘You and your husband are, I presume, in comfortable circumstances?’
‘Yes, we’re very nicely off.’
‘The money, is it yours or your husband’s?’
‘Oh, it’s all Edward’s. I’ve nothing of my own.’
‘You see, madame, to be businesslike, we must be brutal. We must seek for a motive. Your husband, he would not poison you just pour passer le temps! Do you know of any reason why he should wish you out of the way?’
‘There’s the yellow-haired hussy who works for him,’ said Mrs Pengelley, with a flash of temper. ‘My husband’s a dentist, M. Poirot, and nothing would do but he must have a smart girl, as he said, with bobbed hair and a white overall, to make his appointments and mix his fillings for him. It’s come to my ears that there have been fine goings-on, though of course he swears it’s all right.’
‘This bottle of weed-killer, madame, who ordered it?’
‘My husband—about a year ago.’
‘Your niece, now, has she any money of her own?’
‘About fifty pounds a year, I should say. She’d be glad enough to come back and keep house for Edward if I left him.’
‘You have contemplated leaving him, then?’
‘I don’t intend to let him have it all his own way. Women aren’t the downtrodden slaves they were in the old days, M. Poirot.’
‘I