Mrs McGinty's Dead by Agatha Christie Page A

and she goes off, a rich widow, and marries someone else.”
    “The Sunday Companion did not mention that. Do you remember whom she married?”
    Rendell shook his head.
    “Don't think I ever heard the name, but someone told me that she'd done pretty well for herself?”
    “One wondered in reading the article where those four women were now,” mused Poirot.
    “I know. One may have met one of them at a party last week. I bet they all keep their past pretty dark. You'd certainly never recognise any of 'em from those photographs. My word, they looked a plain lot.”
    The clock chimed and Poirot rose to his feet. “I must detain you no longer. You have been most kind.”
    “Not much help, I'm afraid. The mere man barely knows what his charlady looks like. But half a second, you must meet the wife. She'd never forgive me.”
    He preceded Poirot out into the hall, calling loudly:
    “Shelagh - Shelagh -”
    A faint answer came from upstairs.
    “Come down here. I've got something for you.”
    A thin fair-haired pale woman ran lightly down the stairs.
    “Here's Mr Hercule Poirot, Shelagh. What do you think of that?”
    “Oh,” Mrs Rendell appeared to be startled out speaking. Her very pale blue eyes stared at Poirot apprehensively.
    “Madame,” said Poirot, bowing over her hand in his most foreign manner.
    “We heard that you were here,” said Shelagh Rendell. “But we didn't know -” she broke off. Her light eyes went quickly to her husband's face.
    “It is from him she takes the Greenwich time,” said Poirot to himself.
    He uttered a few florid phrases and took his leave.
    An impression remained with him of a genial Dr Rendell and a tongue-tied, apprehensive Mrs Rendell.
    So much for the Rendells, where Mrs McGinty had gone to work on Tuesday mornings.

Mrs McGinty's Dead
    II
    Hunter's Close was a solidly built Victorian house approached by a long untidy drive overgrown with weeds. It had not originally been considered a big house, but was now big enough to be inconvenient domestically.
    Poirot inquired of the foreign young woman who opened the door for Mrs Wetherby.
    She stared at him and then said: “I do not know. Please to come. Miss Henderson perhaps?”
    She left him standing in the hall. It was in an estate agent's phrase “fully furnished” - with a good many curios from various parts of the world. Nothing looked very clean or well dusted.
    Presently the foreign gift reappeared. She said: “Please to come,” and showed him into a chilly little room with a large desk. On the mantelpiece was a big and rather evil-looking copper coffee pot with an enormous hooked spout like a large hooked nose.
    The door opened behind Poirot and a girl came into the room.
    “My mother is lying down,” she said. “Can I do anything for you?”
    “You are Miss Wetherby?”
    “Henderson. Mr Wetherby is my stepfather.”
    She was a plain girl of about thirty, large and awkward. She had watchful, anxious eyes.
    “I was anxious to hear what you could tell me about a Mrs McGinty who used to work here.”
    She stared at him.
    “Mrs McGinty? But she's dead.”
    “I know that,” said Poirot gently. “Nevertheless, I would like to hear about her.”
    “Oh. Is it for insurance or something?”
    “Not for insurance. It is a question of fresh evidence.”
    “Fresh evidence. You mean - her death?”
    “I am engaged,” said Poirot, “by the solicitors for the defence to make an inquiry on James Bentley's behalf.”
    Staring at him, she asked: “But didn't he do it?”
    “The jury thought he did. But juries have been known to make a mistake.”
    “Then it was really somebody else who killed her?”
    “It may have been.”
    She asked abruptly: “Who?”
    “That,” said Poirot softly, “is the question.”
    “I don't understand at all.”
    “No? But you can tell me something about Mrs McGinty, can't you?”
    She said rather reluctantly:
    “I suppose so... What do you want to know?”
    “Well - to begin with -