‘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.

Chapter 6

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.