Hercule Poirot's Casebook

His voice was very gentle and friendly. It led her on subtly.

'Well, for instance, we were discussing suicide once and she

said much the easiest way would be to turn the gas on and stuff

up all the cracks and just go to bed. I said I thought that would

be impossible - to lie there waiting. I said I'd far rather shoc

myself. And she said no, she could never shoot herself. She'd

be too frightened in case it didn't come offand anyway she sai

she'd hate the bang.'

'I see,' said Poirot. 'As you say, it is odd... Because, as yo

have just told me, there was a gas fiYe in her room.'

Jane Plenderleith looked at him, slightly startled.

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'Yes, there was... I can't understand - no, I can't under

stand why she didn't do it that way.'

Poirot shook his head.

'Yes, it seems - odd - not natural somehow.'

i 'The whole thing doesn't

natural. I still can't believe

seem

':flae killed herself. I suppose it must be,suicide?'

'Well, there is one other

possibility.

i! 'What do you mean?'

.t Poirot looked straight at her.

/?-- 'It might be- murder.'

'Oh, no?' Jane Penderleith shrank back. 'Oh no! What a

horrible suggestion.

'orrible, perhaps, but does it strike you as an impossible

one?

:: 'But the door locked the inside. So

the window.'

was

on

'The door was locked - yes. But there is nothing to show if

were locked from the inside or the outside. You se, the key

missing.'

[i: 'But then - if it is missing...' She took a minute or two.

[]"Then it must have been locked from the outside. Otherwise it

would be somewhere in the room.'

'Ah, but it may be. The room has not been thoroughly

searched yet, remember. Or it may have been thrown out of the

window and somebody may have picked it up.'

'Murder!' said Jane Plenderleith. She turned over the

possibility, her dark clever face eager on the scent. 'I believe

you're right.'

'But if it were murder there would have been a motive. Do

you know of a motive, mademoiselle?'

Slowly she shook her head. And yet, in spite of the denial,

Poirot again got the impression that Jane Ple-derleith was

deliberately keeping something back. The door opened and

Japp came in.

Poirot rose.

'I have been suggesting to Miss Plenderleith,' he said, 'that

her friend's death was not suicide.'

75

Japp looked momentarily put out. He cast a glance of

reproach at Poirot.

'It's a bit early to say anything definite,' he remarked.

'We've always got to take all possibilities into account, you

understand. That's all there is to it at the moment.'-Jane

Plenderleith replied quietly.

'I see.'

Japp came towards her.

'Now then, Miss Plenderleith, have you ever seen this

before?'

On the palm of his hand he held out a small oval of dark blue

enamel.

Jane Plenderleith shook her head.

'No, never.'

'It's not yours nor Mrs Allen's?'

'No. It's not the kind of thing usually worn by our sex, is it?'

'Oh! so you recognize it.'

'Well, it's pretty obvious, isn't it? That's half of a man's cuff

link.'

CHAPTER4

'That young woman's too cocky by half,' Japp complained.

The two men were once more in Mrs Allen's bedroom. The

body had been photographed and removed and the fingerprint

man had done his work and departed.

'It would be unadvisable to treat her as a fool,' agreed Poi?or.

'She most emphatically is not a fool. She is, in fact, a

particularly clever and competent young woman.'

'Think she did it?' asked Japp with a momentary ray of hope.

'She might have, you know. We'll have to get her alibi looked

into. Some quarrel over this young man - this budding M.P.

She's rather too scathing about him, I think! Sounds fishy.

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Rather as though she were sweet on him herself and he'd

turned her down. She's the kind that would bump anyone off

if she felt like it, and keep her head while she was doing it, too.

Yes, we'll have to look into that alibi. She had it very pat and

after all Essex isn't very far away. Plenty of trains. Or a fast car.

It's worth while finding out if she went to bed with a headache

for instance last night.'

'You are right,' agreed Poirot.

'In any case,' continued Japp, 'she's holding out on us. Eh?

Didn't you feel that too? That young woman knows something.'

Poirot nodded thoughtfully.

'Yes, that could be clearly seen.'

'That's always a difficulty in these cases,' Japp complained.

'People will hold their tongues - sometimes out of the most

honourable motives.'

'For which one can hardly blame them, my friend.'

'No, but it makes it much harder for us,' Japp grumbled.

'It merely displays to its full advantage your ingenuity.'

Poirot consoled him. 'What about fingerprints, by the way?'

'Well, it's murder all right. No prints whatever on the pistol.

Wiped clean before being placed in her hand. Even if she

managed to wind her arm round her head in some marvellous

acrobatic fashion she could hardly fire off a pistol without

hanging on to it and she couldn't wipe it after she was dead.'

'No, no, an outside agency is clearly indicated.'

'Otherwise the prints are disappointing. None on the door-handle.

None on the window. Suggestive, eh? Plenty of Mrs

Allen's all over the place.'

'Did Jameson get anything?'