How Does Your Garden Grow?: A Hercule Poirot Short Story. Agatha Christie

murmured Poirot. ‘I bow to your superior knowledge of the British tradesman.’

      ‘There’s nothing much I don’t know about them,’ said Miss Lemon grimly.

      The letter to Miss Amelia Barrowby was duly written and sent, but no reply was forthcoming. Perhaps, thought Hercule Poirot, the old lady had unravelled her mystery herself. Yet he felt a shade of surprise that in that case she should not have written a courteous word to say that his services were no longer required.

      It was five days later when Miss Lemon, after receiving her morning’s instructions, said, ‘That Miss Barrowby we wrote to – no wonder there’s been no answer. She’s dead.’

      Hercule Poirot said very softly, ‘Ah – dead.’ It sounded not so much like a question as an answer.

      Opening her handbag, Miss Lemon produced a newspaper cutting. ‘I saw it in the tube and tore it out.’

      Just registering in his mind approval of the fact that, though Miss Lemon used the word ‘tore’, she had neatly cut the entry with scissors, Poirot read the announcement taken from the Births, Deaths and Marriages in the Morning Post: ‘On March 26th – suddenly – at Rosebank, Charman’s Green, Amelia Jan Barrowby, in her seventy-third year. No flowers, by request.’