he asked.
‘Not to me, she didn’t. She wasn’t a nervous woman. She’d stay late sometimes at Mr Carpenter’s—that’s Holmeleigh at the top of the hill. They often have people to dinner and stopping with them, and Mrs McGinty would go there in the evening sometimes to help wash up, and she’d come down the hill in the dark, and that’s more than I’d like to do. Very dark it is—coming down that hill.’
‘Do you know her niece at all—Mrs Burch?’
‘I know her just to speak to. She and her husband come over sometimes.’
‘They inherited a little money when Mrs McGinty died.’
The piercing dark eyes looked at him severely.
‘Well, that’s natural enough, isn’t it, sir? You can’t take it with you, and it’s only right your own flesh and blood should get it.’
‘Oh yes, oh yes, I am entirely in agreement. Was Mrs McGinty fond of her niece?’
‘Very fond of her, I think, sir. In a quiet way.’
‘And her niece’s husband?’
An evasive look appeared in Mrs Sweetiman’s face.
‘As far as I know.’
‘When did you see Mrs McGinty last?’
Mrs Sweetiman considered, casting her mind back.
‘Now let me see, when was it, Edna?’ Edna, in the doorway, sniffed unhelpfully. ‘Was it the day she died? No, it was the day before—or the day before that again? Yes, it was a Monday. That’s right. She was killed on the Wednesday. Yes, it was Monday. She came in to buy a bottle of ink.’
‘She wanted a bottle of ink?’
‘Expect she wanted to write a letter,’ said Mrs Sweetiman brightly.
‘That seems probable. And she was quite her usual self, then? She did not seem different in any way?’
‘N-no, I don’t think so.’
The sniffing Edna shuffled through the door into the shop and suddenly joined in the conversation.
‘She was different,’ she asserted. ‘Pleased about something—well—not quite pleased—excited.’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ said Mrs Sweetiman. ‘Not that I noticed it at the time. But now that you say so—sort of spry, she was.’
‘Do you remember anything she said on that day?’
‘I wouldn’t ordinarily. But what with her being murdered and the police and everything, it makes things stand out. She didn’t say anything about James Bentley, that I’m quite sure. Talked about the Carpenters a bit and Mrs Upward—places where she worked, you know.’
‘Oh yes, I was going to ask you whom exactly she worked for here.’
Mrs Sweetiman replied promptly:
‘Mondays and Thursdays she went to Mrs Summerhayes at Long Meadow. That’s where you are staying, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Poirot sighed, ‘I suppose there is not anywhere else to stay?’
‘Not right in Broadhinny, there isn’t. I suppose you aren’t very comfortable at Long Meadows? Mrs Summerhayes is a nice lady but she doesn’t know the first thing about a house. These ladies don’t who come back from foreign parts. Terrible mess there always was there to clean up, or so Mrs McGinty used to say. Yes, Monday afternoons and Thursday mornings Mrs Summerhayes, then Tuesday mornings Dr Rendell’s and afternoons Mrs Upward at Laburnums. Wednesday was Mrs Wetherby at Hunter’s Close and Friday Mrs Selkirk—Mrs Carpenter she is now. Mrs Upward’s an elderly lady who lives with her son. They’ve got a maid, but she’s getting on, and Mrs McGinty used to go once a week to give things a good turn out. Mr and Mrs Wetherby never seem to keep any help long—she’s rather an invalid. Mr and Mrs Carpenter have a beautiful home and do a lot of entertaining. They’re all very nice people.’
It was with this final pronouncement on the population of Broadhinny that Poirot went out into the street again.
He walked slowly up the hill towards Long Meadows. He hoped devoutly that the contents of the bulged tin and the bloodstained beans had been duly eaten for lunch and had not been saved for a supper treat for him. But possibly there were other doubtful tins. Life at Long Meadows certainly had its dangers.
It had been, on the whole, a disappointing day.
What had he learned?
That James Bentley had a friend. That neither he nor Mrs McGinty had had any enemies. That Mrs McGinty had looked excited two days before her death and had bought a bottle of ink—
Poirot stopped dead…Was that a fact, a tiny fact at last?
He had asked idly, what Mrs McGinty should want with a bottle of ink, and Mrs Sweetiman had replied, quite seriously, that she supposed she wanted to write a letter.
There was significance there—a significance that had nearly escaped him because to him, as to most people, writing a letter was a common everyday occurrence.
But it was not so to Mrs McGinty. Writing a letter was to Mrs McGinty such an uncommon occurrence that she had to go out and buy a bottle of ink if she wanted to do so.
Mrs McGinty, then, hardly ever wrote letters. Mrs Sweetiman, who was the postmistress, was thoroughly cognisant of the fact. But Mrs McGinty had written a letter two days before her death. To whom had she written and why?
It might be quite unimportant. She might have written to her niece—to an absent friend. Absurd to lay such stress on a simple thing like a bottle of ink.
But it was all he had got and he was going to follow it up.
A bottle of ink…
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