nurse-companion. A very sensible and competent woman. I really don’t think she would talk.’
‘Even the sensible and the competent have been given tongues by le bon Dieu–and they do not always employ their tongues wisely. I have no doubt that the nurse-companion talked, that the servants talked, that everyone talked! You have all the materials there for the starting of a very enjoyable village scandal. Now I will ask you one more thing. Who is the lady?’
‘I don’t understand.’ Dr Oldfield flushed angrily.
Poirot said gently:
‘I think you do. I am asking you who the lady is with whom your name has been coupled.’
Dr Oldfield rose to his feet. His face was stiff and cold. He said:
‘There is no “lady in the case”. I’m sorry, M. Poirot, to have taken up so much of your time.’
He went towards the door.
Hercule Poirot said:
‘I regret it also. Your case interests me. I would like to have helped you. But I cannot do anything unless I am told the whole truth.’
‘I have told you the truth.’
‘No…’
Dr Oldfield stopped. He wheeled round.
‘Why do you insist that there is a woman concerned in this?’
‘Mon cher docteur! Do you not think I know the female mentality? The village gossip, it is based always, always on the relations of the sexes. If a man poisons his wife in order to travel to the North Pole or to enjoy the peace of a bachelor existence–it would not interest his fellow-villagers for a minute! It is because they are convinced that the murder has been committed in order that the man may marry another woman that the talk grows and spreads. That is elemental psychology.’
Oldfield said irritably:
‘I’m not responsible for what a pack of damned gossiping busybodies think!’
‘Of course you are not.’
Poirot went on:
‘So you might as well come back and sit down and give me the answer to the question I asked you just now.’
Slowly, almost reluctantly, Oldfield came back and resumed his seat.
He said, colouring up to his eyebrows:
‘I suppose it’s possible that they’ve been saying things about Miss Moncrieffe. Jean Moncrieffe is my dispenser, a very fine girl indeed.’
‘How long has she worked for you?’
‘For three years.’
‘Did your wife like her?’
‘Er–well, no, not exactly.’
‘She was jealous?’
‘It was absurd!’
Poirot smiled.
He said:
‘The jealousy of wives is proverbial. But I will tell you something. In my experience jealousy, however far-fetched and extravagant it may seem, is nearly always based on reality. There is a saying, is there not, that the customer is always right? Well, the same is true of the jealous husband or wife. However little concrete evidence there may be, fundamentally they are always right.’
Dr Oldfield said robustly:
‘Nonsense. I’ve never said anything to Jean Moncrieffe that my wife couldn’t have overheard.’
‘That, perhaps. But it does not alter the truth of what I said.’ Hercule Poirot leaned forward. His voice was urgent, compelling. ‘Doctor Oldfield, I am going to do my utmost in this case. But I must have from you the most absolute frankness without regard to conventional appearances or to your own feelings. It is true, is it not, that you had ceased to care for your wife for some time before she died?’
Oldfield was silent for a minute or two. Then he said:
‘This business is killing me. I must have hope. Somehow or other I feel that you will be able to do something for me. I will be honest with you, M. Poirot. I did not care deeply for my wife. I made her, I think, a good husband, but I was never really in love with her.’
‘And this girl, Jean?’
The perspiration came out in a fine dew on the doctor’s forehead. He said:
‘I –I should have asked her to marry me before now if it weren’t for all this scandal and talk.’
Poirot sat back in his chair. He said:
‘Now at last we have come to the true facts! Eh bien, Doctor Oldfield, I will take up your case. But remember this–it is the truth that I shall seek out.’
Oldfield said bitterly:
‘It isn’t the truth that’s going to hurt me!’
He hesitated and said:
‘You know, I’ve contemplated the possibility of an action for slander! If I could pin any one down to a definite accusation–surely then I should be vindicated? At least, sometimes I think so…At other times I think it would only make things worse–give bigger publicity to the whole thing and have people saying: “It mayn’t have been proved but there’s no smoke without fire.”’
He looked at Poirot.
‘Tell me, honestly, is there any way out of this nightmare?’
‘There is always a way,’ said Hercule Poirot.
II
‘We are going into the country, Georges,’ said Hercule Poirot to his valet.
‘Indeed, sir?’ said the imperturbable George.
‘And the purpose of our journey is to destroy a monster with nine heads.’
‘Really, sir? Something after the style of the Loch Ness Monster?’
‘Less tangible than that. I did not refer to a flesh and blood animal, Georges.’
‘I misunderstood you, sir.’
‘It would be easier if it were one. There is nothing so intangible, so difficult to pin down, as the source of a rumour.’
‘Oh yes, indeed, sir. It’s difficult to know how a thing starts sometimes.’
‘Exactly.’
Hercule Poirot did not put up at Dr Oldfield’s house. He went instead to the local inn. The morning after his arrival, he had his first interview with Jean Moncrieffe.
She was a tall girl with copper-coloured hair and steady blue eyes. She had about her a watchful look, as of one who is upon her guard.
She said:
‘So Doctor Oldfield did go to you…I knew he was thinking about it.’
There was a lack of enthusiasm in her tone.
Poirot said:
‘And you did not approve?’
Her eyes met his. She said coldly:
‘What can you do?’
Poirot said quietly:
‘There might be a way of tackling the situation.’
‘What way?’ She threw the words at him scornfully. ‘Do you mean go round to all the whispering old women and say “Really, please, you must stop talking like this. It’s so bad for poor Doctor Oldfield.” And they’d answer you and say: “Of course, I have never believed the story!” That’s the worst of the whole thing–they don’t say: “My dear, has it ever occurred to you that perhaps Mrs Oldfield’s death wasn’t quite what it seemed?” No, they say: “My dear, of course I don’t believe