hung once more hopefully over the shorthand pad. This time Hercule Poirot responded.
‘Tell her I will do myself the honour to call upon her at any time she suggests, unless she prefers to consult me here. Do not type the letter – write it by hand.’
‘Yes, M. Poirot.’
Poirot produced more correspondence. ‘These are bills.’
Miss Lemon’s efficient hands sorted them quickly. ‘I’ll pay all but these two.’
‘Why those two? There is no error in them.’
‘They are firms you’ve only just begun to deal with. It looks bad to pay too promptly when you’ve just opened an account – looks as though you were working up to get some credit later on.’
‘Ah!’ 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.’
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