Mrs McGinty's Dead by Agatha Christie Page B

what did you think of her?”
    “Why - nothing in particular. She was just like anybody else.”
    “Talkative or silent? Curious or reserved? Pleasant or morose? A nice woman, or - not a very nice woman?”
    Miss Henderson reflected.
    “She worked well - but she talked a lot. Sometimes she said rather funny things. I didn't - really - like her very much.”
    The door opened and the foreign help said:
    “Miss Deirdre, your mother say: please to bring.”
    “My mother wants me to take this gentleman upstairs to her?”
    “Yes please, thank you.”
    Deirdre Henderson looked at Poirot doubtfully. “Will you come up to my mother?”
    “But certainly.”
    Deirdre led the way across the hall and up the stairs. She said inconsequently: “One does get so very tired of foreigners.”
    Since her mind was clearly running on her domestic help and not on the visitor, Poirot did not take offence. He reflected that Deirdre Henderson seemed a rather simple young woman - simple to the point of gaucheness.
    The room upstairs was crowded with knick-knacks. It was the room of a woman who had travelled a good deal and who had been determined wherever she went to have a souvenir of the place. Most of the souvenirs were clearly made for the delight and exploitation of tourists. There were too many sofas and tables and chairs in the room, too little air and too many draperies - and in the midst of it all was Mrs Wetherby.
    Mrs Wetherby seemed a small woman - a pathetic small woman in a large room. That was the effect. But she was not really quite so small as she had decided to appear. The “poor little me” type can achieve its result quite well, even if really of medium height.
    She was reclining very comfortably on a sofa and near her were books and some knitting and a glass of orange juice and a box of chocolates. She said brightly:
    “You must forgive me not getting up, but the doctor does so insist on my resting every day, and everyone scolds me if I don't do what I'm told.”
    Poirot took her extended hand and bowed over it with the proper murmur of homage.
    Behind him, uncompromising, Deirdre said: “He wants to know about Mrs McGinty.”
    The delicate hand that had lain passively in his tightened and he was reminded for a moment of the talon of a bird. Not really a piece of delicate Dresden china - a scratchy predatory claw...
    Laughing slightly, Mrs Wetherby said:
    “How ridiculous you are, Deirdre darling. Who is Mrs McGinty?”
    “Oh, Mummy - you do remember really. She worked for us. You know, the one who was murdered.”
    Mrs Wetherby closed her eyes, and shivered.
    “Don t, darling. It was all so horrid. I felt nervous for weeks afterwards. Poor old woman, but so stupid to keep money under the floor. She ought to have put it in the bank. Of course I remember all that - I'd just forgotten her name.”
    Deirdre said stolidly:
    “He wants to know about her.”
    “Now do sit down, M. Poirot. I'm quite devoured by curiosity. Mrs Rendell just rang up and she said we had a very famous criminologist down here, and she described you. And then, when that idiot Frieda described a visitor, I felt sure it must be you, and I sent down word for you to come up. Now tell me, what's all this?”
    “It is as your daughter says, I want to know about Mrs McGinty. She worked here. She came to you, I understand, on Wednesdays. And it was on a Wednesday she died. So she had been here that day, had she not?”
    “I suppose so. Yes, I suppose so. I can t really tell now. It's so long ago.”
    “Yes. Several months. And she did not say anything that day - anything special?”
    “That class of person always talks a lot,” said Mrs Wetherby with distaste. “One doesn't really listen. And anyway she couldn't tell she was going to be robbed and killed that night, could she?”
    “There is cause and effect,” said Poirot.
    Mrs Wetherby wrinkled her forehead.
    “I don't see what you mean.”
    “Perhaps I do not see myself - not yet. One works