Agatha Christie – Poirot’s Early Cases

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 iast eight years – that is, until a week go.’ ‘Oho, 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 IF. dward’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 ]e 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 old days, M. Poirot.’

‘I congratulate you on YOur independent spirit, madame; but let us be practical. You return to Polgarwith today?’

‘Yes, I came up by an excursion. Six this morning the train started, and the train goes back at five this afternoon.’

‘Bienl 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.’

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 – vo//d – I do not know, Hastings. But the case interests me – it interests me enormously. For, see you, 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?’