'It's this way, M. Poirot - I don't want to have anything to do with the police. No, I wouldn't go to the police for anythingl But all the same, I'm sorely troubled about something. And yet I don't know if I ought - ' She stopped abruptly.
The, I have nothing to do with the police. My investigations are strictly private.'
Mrs Pengelley caught at the word.
'Private - that's what I want. I don't want any talk or fuss, or things in the papers. Wicked it is, the way they write things, until the family could never hold up their heads again. And it isn't as though I was even sure - it's just a dreadful idea that's come to me, and put it out of my head I can't.' She paused for breath. 'And all the time I may be wickedly wronging poor Edward. It's a terrible thought for any wife to have. But you do read of such dreadful things nowadays.'
'Permit me - it is of your husband you speak?'
'Yes.'
'And you suspect him of- what?'
'I don't like even to say it, M. Poirot. But you do read of such things happening - and the poor souls suspecting nothing.'
I was beginning to despair of the lady's ever coming to the point, but Poirot's patience was equal to the demand made upon it.
'Speak without fear, madame. Think what joy will be yours if we are able to prove your suspicions unfounded.'
'That's true - anything's better than this wearing uncertainty.
Oh, M. Poirot, I'm dreadfully afraid I'm being poisoned.'
'What makes you think so?'
Mrs Pengelley, her reticence leaving her, plunged into a full recital more suited to the ears of her medical attendant.
'Pain and sickness after food, eh?' said Poirot thoughtfully.
'You have a doctor attending you, madame? What does he say?'
'He says it's acute gastritis, M. Poirot. But I can see that he's puzzled and uneasy, and he's always altering the medicine, but nothing does any good.'
'You have spoken of your - fears, to him?'
'No, indeed, M. Poirot. It might get about in the town. And perhaps it/s gastritis. All the same, it's very odd that whenever Edward is away for the week-end, I'm quite all right again. Even Freda noticed that - my niece, M. Poirot. And then there's that bottle of weed-killer, never used, the gardener says, and yet it's half-empty.'
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?'
'Loyalty struggling with fear,' I suggested.
'Yet, ordinarily, a woman will accuse anyone in the world - but not her husband. She will stick to her belief in him through thick and thin.'
'The "other woman" complicates the matter.'
'Yes, affection may turn to hate, under the stimulus of jealousy.
But hate would take her to the police - not to me. She would want an outcry - a scandal. No, no, let us exercise our little grey cells.
Why did she come to me? To have her suspicions proved wrong?
Or - to have them proved right? Ah, we have here something I do not understand - an unknown factor. Is she a superb actress, our Mrs Pengelley? No, she was genuine, I would swear that she was genuine, and therefore I am interested. Look up the train to?olgarwith, I pray you.'
The best train of the day was the one-fifty from Paddington which reached Polgarwith just after seven o'clock. The journey was uneventful, and I had to rouse myself from a pleasant nap to alight upon the platform of the bleak little station. We took our bags to the Duchy Hotel, and after a light meal, Poirot suggested our stepping round to pay an after-dinner call on my so-called cousin.
The Pengelleys' house stood a little way back from the road with an old-fashioned cottage garden in front. The smell of stocks and mignonette came sweetly wafted on the evening breeze. It seemed impossible to associate thoughts of violence with this Old World cham. Poirot rang and knocked. As the summons was not
answered, he rang again. This time, after a little pause, the door was opened by a dishevelled-looking servant. Her eyes were red, and she was sniffing violently.