“No, I knew nothing whatever about her.”
“You knew her by sight, however. Did anything about her appearance strike you as unusual yesterday evening? Did she appear flurried or put out in any way?”
Mr. Partridge considered.
“As far as I noticed, she seemed exactly as usual,” he said.
Poirot rose.
“Thank you, Mr. Partridge, for answering these questions. Have you, by any chance, an A B C in the house? I want to look up my return train to London.”
“On the shelf just behind you,” said Mr. Partridge.
On the shelf in question were an A B C, a Bradshaw, the Stock Exchange Year Book, Kelly’s Directory, a Who’s Who and a local directory.
Poirot took down the A B C, pretended to look up a train, then thanked Mr. Partridge and took his leave.
Our next interview was with Mr. Albert Riddell and was of a highly different character. Mr. Albert Riddell was a platelayer and our conversation took place to the accompaniment of the clattering of plates and dishes by Mr. Riddell’s obviously nervous wife, the growling of Mr. Riddell’s dog and the undisguised hostility of Mr. Riddell himself.
He was a big clumsy giant of a man with a broad face and small suspicious eyes. He was in the act of eating meat pie, washed down by exceedingly black tea. He peered at us angrily over the rim of his cup.
“Told all I’ve got to tell once, haven’t I?” he growled. “What’s it to do with me, anyway? Told it to the blarsted police, I ’ave, and now I’ve got to spit it all out again to a couple of blarsted foreigners.”
Poirot gave a quick, amused glance in my direction and then said:
“In truth I sympathize with you, but what will you? It is a question of murder, is it not? One has to be very, very careful.”
“Best tell the gentleman what he wants, Bert,” said the woman nervously.
“You shut your blarsted mouth,” roared the giant.
“You did not, I think, go to the police of your own accord.” Poirot slipped the remark in neatly.
“Why the hell should I? It were no business of mine.”
“A matter of opinion,” said Poirot indifferently. “There has been a murder—the police want to know who has been in the shop—I myself think it would have—what shall I say?—looked more natural if you had come forward.”
“I’ve got my work to do. Don’t say I shouldn’t have come forward in my own time—”
“But as it was, the police were given your name as that of a person seen to go into Mrs. Ascher’s and they had to come to you. Were they satisfied with your account?”
“Why shouldn’t they be?” demanded Bert truculently.
Poirot merely shrugged his shoulders.
“What are you getting at, mister? Nobody’s got anything against me? Everyone knows who did the old girl in, that b—of a husband of hers.”
“But he was not in the street that evening and you were.”
“Trying to fasten it on me, are you? Well, you won’t succeed. What reason had I got to do a thing like that? Think I wanted to pinch a tin of her bloody tobacco? Think I’m a bloody homicidal maniac as they call it? Think I—?”
He rose threateningly from his seat. His wife bleated out:
“Bert, Bert—don’t say such things. Bert—they’ll think—”
“Calm yourself, monsieur,” said Poirot. “I demand only your account of your visit. That you refuse it seems to me—what shall we say—a little odd?”
“Who said I refused anything?” Mr. Riddell sank back again into his seat. “I don’t mind.”