“Would much force be needed to strike such a blow?”
The doctor shot a keen glance at Poirot.
“Meaning, I suppose, could a shaky old man of seventy do it? Oh, yes, it’s perfectly possible—given sufficient weight in the head of the weapon, quite a feeble person could achieve the desired result.”
“Then the murderer could just as well be a woman as a man?”
The suggestion took the doctor somewhat aback.
“A woman, eh? Well, I confess it never occurred to me to connect a woman with this type of crime. But of course it’s possible—perfectly possible. Only, psychologically speaking, I shouldn’t say this was a woman’s crime.”
Poirot nodded his head in eager agreement.
“Perfectly, perfectly. On the face of it, highly improbable. But one must take all possibilities into account. The body was lying—how?”
The doctor gave us a careful description of the position of the victim. It was his opinion that she had been standing with her back to the counter (and therefore to her assailant) when the blow had been struck. She had slipped down in a heap behind the counter quite out of sight of anyone entering the shop casually.
When we had thanked Dr. Kerr and taken our leave, Poirot said:
“You perceive, Hastings, that we have already one further point in favour of Ascher’s innocence. If he had been abusing his wife and threatening her, she would have been facing him over the counter. Instead she had her back to her assailant—obviously she is reaching down tobacco or cigarettes for a customer.”
I gave a little shiver.
“Pretty gruesome.”
Poirot shook his head gravely.
“Pauvre femme,” he murmured.
Then he glanced at his watch.
“Overton is not, I think, many miles from here. Shall we run over there and have an interview with the niece of the dead woman?”
“Surely you will go first to the shop where the crime took place?”
“I prefer to do that later. I have a reason.”
He did not explain further, and a few minutes later we were driving on the London road in the direction of Overton.
The address which the inspector had given us was that of a good-sized house about a mile on the London side of the village.
Our ring at the bell was answered by a pretty dark-haired girl whose eyes were red with recent weeping.
Poirot said gently:
“Ah! I think it is you who are Miss Mary Drower, the parlour-maid here?”
“Yes, sir, that’s right. I’m Mary, sir.”
“Then perhaps I can talk to you for a few minutes if your mistress will not object. It is about your aunt, Mrs. Ascher.”
“The mistress is out, sir. She wouldn’t mind, I’m sure, if you came in here.”
She opened the door of a small morning room. We entered and Poirot, seating himself on a chair by the window, looked up keenly into the girl’s face.
“You have heard of your aunt’s death, of course?”
The girl nodded, tears coming once more into her eyes.
“This morning, sir. The police came over. Oh! it’s terrible! Poor auntie! Such a hard life as she’d had, too. And now this—it’s too awful.”
“The police did not suggest your returning to Andover?”
“They said I must come to the inquest—that’s on Monday, sir. But I’ve nowhere to go there—I couldn’t fancy being over the shop—now—and what with the housemaid being away, I didn’t want to put the mistress out more than may be.”
“You were fond of your aunt, Mary?” said Poirot gently.
“Indeed I was, sir. Very good she’s been to me always, auntie has. I went to her in London when I was eleven years old, after mother died. I started in service when I was sixteen, but I usually went along to auntie’s on my day out. A lot of trouble she went through with that German fellow. ‘My old devil,’ she used to call him. He’d never let her be in peace anywhere. Sponging, cadging old beast.”
The girl spoke with vehemence.
“Your aunt never thought of freeing herself by legal means from this persecution?”
“Well, you see, he was her husband, sir, you couldn’t get away from that.”
The girl spoke simply but with finality.
“Tell me, Mary, he threatened her, did he not?”
“Oh, yes, sir, it was awful the things he used to say. That he’d cut her throat, and such like. Cursing and swearing too—both in German and in English. And yet auntie says he was a fine handsome figure of a man when she married him. It’s dreadful to think, sir, what people come to.”
“Yes, indeed. And so, I suppose, Mary, having actually heard these threats, you were not so very surprised when you learnt what had happened?”
“Oh, but I was, sir. You see, sir, I never thought for one moment that he meant it. I thought it was just nasty talk and nothing more to it. And it isn’t as though auntie was afraid of him. Why, I’ve seen him slink away like a dog with its tail between its legs when she turned on him. He was afraid of her if you like.”
“And yet she gave him money?”
“Well, he was her husband, you see, sir.”
“Yes, so you said before.” He paused for a minute or two. Then he said: “Suppose that, after all, he did not kill her.”
“Didn’t kill her?”
She stared.
“That is what I said. Supposing someone else killed her…Have you any idea who that someone else could be?”
She stared at him with even more amazement.
“I’ve no idea, sir. It doesn’t seem likely, though, does it?”
“There was no one your aunt was afraid of?”
Mary shook her head.
“Auntie wasn’t afraid of people. She’d a sharp tongue and she’d stand up to anybody.”
“You never heard her mention anyone who had a grudge against her?”
“No, indeed, sir.”
“Did she ever get anonymous letters?”
“What kind of letters did you say, sir?”
“Letters that weren’t signed—or only signed by something like A B C.” He watched her narrowly, but plainly she was at a loss. She shook her head wonderingly.
“Has your aunt any relations except you?”
“Not now, sir. One of ten she was, but only three lived to grow up. My Uncle Tom was killed in the war, and my Uncle Harry went to South America and no one’s heard of him since, and mother’s dead, of course, so there’s only me.”
“Had your aunt any savings? Any money put by?”
“She’d a little in the Savings Bank, sir—enough to bury her proper, that’s what she always said. Otherwise she didn’t more than just make ends meet—what with her old devil and all.”
Poirot nodded thoughtfully. He said—perhaps more to himself than to her:
“At present one is in the dark—there is no direction—if things get clearer—” He got up. “If I want you at any time, Mary, I will write to you here.”
“As a matter of fact, sir, I’m giving in my notice. I don’t like the country. I stayed here because I fancied it was a comfort to auntie to have me near by. But now”—again the tears rose in her eyes—“there’s no reason I should stay, and so I’ll go back to London. It’s gayer for a girl there.”
“I wish that, when you do go, you would give me your address. Here is my card.”
He handed it to her. She looked at it with a puzzled frown.
“Then you’re not—anything to do with the police, sir?”
“I am a private detective.”
She stood there looking at him for some moments in silence.
She said at last:
“Is there anything—queer going on, sir?”
“Yes, my child. There is—something queer going on. Later you may be able to help me.”
“I—I’ll do anything, sir. It—it wasn’t right, sir, auntie being killed.”
A strange way of putting it—but deeply moving.
A few seconds later we were driving back to Andover.
Six
THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
The street in which the tragedy had occurred was a turning off the main street. Mrs. Ascher’s shop was situated about halfway down it on the right-hand side.
As we turned into the street Poirot glanced at his watch and I realized why he had delayed his visit to the scene of the crime until now. It was just on half past five. He had wished to reproduce yesterday’s atmosphere as closely as possible.
But if that had been his purpose it was defeated. Certainly at this moment the road bore very little likeness to its appearance on the previous evening. There were a certain number of small shops interspersed between private houses of the poorer class. I judged that ordinarily there would be a fair number of people passing up and down—mostly people of the poorer classes, with a good sprinkling of children playing on the pavements and in the road.
At this moment there was a solid mass of people standing staring at one particular house or shop and it took little perspicuity to guess which that was. What we saw was a mass of average human beings looking with intense interest at the spot where another human being had been done to death.
As we drew nearer this proved to be indeed the case. In front of a small dingy-looking shop with its shutters now closed stood a harassed-looking young policeman who was stolidly adjuring the crowd to “pass along there.” By the help of a colleague, displacements took place—a certain number of people grudgingly sighed and betook themselves to their ordinary vocations, and almost immediately other persons came along and took up their stand to gaze their fill on the spot where murder had been committed.
Poirot stopped a little distance from the main body of the crowd. From where we stood the legend painted over the door could be read plainly enough. Poirot repeated it under his breath.
“A. Ascher. Oui, c’est peut-être là—”
He broke off.
“Come, let us go inside, Hastings.”
I was only too ready.
We made our way through the crowd and accosted the young policeman. Poirot produced the credentials which the inspector had given him. The constable nodded, and unlocked the door to let us pass within. We did so and entered to the intense interest of the lookers-on.
Inside it was very dark owing to the shutters being closed. The constable found and switched on the electric light. The bulb was a low-powered one so that the interior was still dimly lit.
I looked about me.
A dingy little place. A few cheap magazines strewn about, and yesterday’s newspapers—all with a day’s dust on them. Behind the counter a row of shelves reaching to the ceiling and packed with tobacco and packets of cigarettes. There were also a couple of jars of peppermint humbugs and barley sugar. A commonplace little shop, one of many thousand such others.
The constable in his slow Hampshire voice was explaining the mise en scène.
“Down in a heap behind the counter, that’s where she was. Doctor says as how she never knew what hit her. Must have been reaching up to one of the shelves.”
“There was nothing in her hand?”
“No, sir, but there was a packet of Player’s down beside her.”
Poirot nodded. His eyes swept round the small space observing—noting.
“And the railway guide was—where?”
“Here, sir.” The constable pointed out the spot on the counter. “It was open at the right page for Andover and lying face down. Seems as though he must have been looking up the trains to London. If so, it mightn’t have been an Andover man at all. But then, of course, the railway guide might have belonged to someone else what had nothing to do with the murder at all, but just forgot it here.”
“Fingerprints?” I suggested.
The man shook his head.
“The whole place was examined straight away, sir. There weren’t none.”
“Not on the counter itself?” asked Poirot.
“A long sight too many, sir! All confused and jumbled up.”
“Any of Ascher’s among them?”
“Too soon to say, sir.”
Poirot nodded, then asked if the dead woman lived over the shop.
“Yes, sir, you go through that door at the back, sir. You’ll excuse me not coming with you, but I’ve got to stay—”
Poirot passed through the door in question and I followed him. Behind the shop was a microscopic sort of parlour and kitchen combined—it was neat and clean but very dreary looking and scantily furnished. On the mantelpiece were a few photographs. I went up and looked at them and Poirot joined me.
The photographs were three in all. One was a cheap portrait of the girl we had been with that afternoon, Mary Drower. She was obviously wearing her best clothes and had the self-conscious, wooden smile on her face that so often disfigures the expression in posed photography, and makes a snapshot preferable.
The second was a more expensive type of picture—an artistically blurred reproduction of an elderly woman with white hair. A high fur collar stood up round the neck.
I guessed that this was probably the Miss Rose who had left Mrs. Ascher the small legacy which had enabled her to start in business.
The third photograph was a very old one, now faded and yellow. It represented a young man and woman in somewhat old-fashioned clothes standing arm in arm. The man had a buttonhole and there was an air of bygone festivity about the whole pose.
“Probably a wedding picture,” said Poirot. “Regard, Hastings, did I not tell you that she had been a beautiful woman?”
He was right. Disfigured by old-fashioned hairdressing and weird clothes, there was no disguising the handsomeness of the girl in the picture with her clear-cut features and spirited bearing. I looked closely at the second figure. It was almost impossible to recognise the seedy Ascher in this smart young man with the military bearing.
I recalled the leering drunken old man, and the toil-worn face of the dead woman—and I shivered a little at the remorselessness of time….
From the parlour a stair led to two upstairs rooms. One was empty and unfurnished, the other had evidently been the dead woman’s bedroom. After being searched by the police it had been left as it was. A couple of old worn blankets on the bed—a little stock of well-darned underwear in a drawer—cookery recipes in another—a paper-backed novel entitled The Green Oasis—a pair of new stockings—pathetic in their cheap shininess—a couple of china ornaments—a Dresden shepherd much broken, and a blue and yellow spotted dog—a black raincoat and a woolly jumper hanging on pegs—such were the worldly possessions of the late Alice Ascher.
If there had been any personal papers, the police had taken them.
“Pauvre femme,” murmured Poirot. “Come, Hastings, there is nothing for us here.”
When we were once more in the street, he hesitated for a minute or two, then crossed the road. Almost exactly opposite Mrs. Ascher’s was a greengrocer’s shop—of the type that has most of its stock outside rather than inside.
In a low voice Poirot gave me certain instructions. Then he himself entered the shop. After waiting a minute or two I followed him in. He was at the moment negotiating for a lettuce. I myself bought a pound of strawberries.
Poirot was talking animatedly to the stout lady who was serving him.
“It was just opposite you, was it not, that this murder occurred? What an affair! What a sensation it must have caused you!”
The stout lady was obviously tired of talking about the murder. She must have had a long day of it. She observed:
“It would be as well if some of that gaping crowd cleared off. What is there to look at, I’d like to know?”
“It must have been very different last night,” said Poirot. “Possibly you even observed the murderer enter the shop—a tall, fair man with a beard, was he not? A Russian, so I have heard.”
“What’s that?” The woman looked up sharply. “A Russian did it, you say?”
“I understand
that the police have arrested him.”
“Did you ever know?” The woman was excited, voluble. “A foreigner.”
“Mais oui. I thought perhaps you might have noticed him last night?”
“Well, I don’t get much chance of noticing, and that’s a fact. The evening’s our busy time and there’s always a fair few passing along and getting home after their work. A tall, fair man with a beard—no, I can’t say I saw anyone of that description anywhere about.”
I broke in on my cue.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said to Poirot. “I think you have been misinformed. A short dark man I was told.”
An interested discussion intervened in which the stout lady, her lank husband and a hoarse-voiced shop-boy all participated. No less than four short dark men had been observed, and the hoarse boy had seen a tall fair one, “but he hadn’t got no beard,” he added regretfully.
Finally, our purchases made, we left the establishment, leaving our falsehoods uncorrected.
“And what was the point of all that, Poirot?” I demanded somewhat reproachfully.
“Parbleu, I wanted to estimate the chances of a stranger being noticed entering the shop opposite.”
“Couldn’t you simply have asked—without all that tissue of lies?”
“No, mon ami. If I had ‘simply asked,’ as you put it, I should have got no answer at all to my questions. You yourself are English and yet you do not seem to appreciate the quality of the English reaction to a direct question. It is invariably one of suspicion and the natural result is reticence. If I had asked those people for information they would have shut up like oysters. But by making a statement (and a somewhat out of the way and preposterous one) and by your contradiction of it, tongues are immediately loosened. We know also that that particular time was a ‘busy time’—that is, that everyone would be intent on their own concerns and that there would be a fair number of people passing along the pavements. Our murderer chose his time well, Hastings.”
He paused and then added on a deep note of reproach:
“Is it that you have not in any degree the common sense, Hastings? I say to you: ‘Make a purchase quelconque’—and you deliberately choose the strawberries! Already they commence to creep through their bag and endanger your good suit.”