“Something at Churston?”
“No—not at Churston…Before that…No matter, presently it will come to me….”
He looked at me (perhaps I had not been attending very closely), laughed and began once more to hum.
“She is an angel, is she not? From Eden, by way of Sweden….”
“Poirot,” I said. “Go to the devil!”
Twenty
LADY CLARKE
There was an air of deep and settled melancholy over Combeside when we saw it again for the second time. This may, perhaps, have been partly due to the weather—it was a moist September day with a hint of autumn in the air, and partly, no doubt, it was the semi-shut-up state of the house. The downstairs rooms were closed and shuttered, and the small room into which we were shown smelt damp and airless.
A capable-looking hospital nurse came to us there pulling down her starched cuffs.
“M. Poirot?” she said briskly. “I am Nurse Capstick. I got Mr. Clarke’s letter saying you were coming.”
Poirot inquired after Lady Clarke’s health.
“Not at all bad really, all things considered.”
“All things considered,” I presumed, meant considering she was under sentence of death.
“One can’t hope for much improvement, of course, but some new treatment has made things a little easier for her. Dr. Logan is quite pleased with her condition.”
“But it is true, is it not, that she can never recover?”
“Oh, we never actually say that,” said Nurse Capstick, a little shocked by this plain speaking.
“I suppose her husband’s death was a terrible shock to her?”
“Well, M. Poirot, if you understand what I mean, it wasn’t as much of a shock as it would have been to anyone in full possession of her health and faculties. Things are dimmed for Lady Clarke in her condition.”
“Pardon my asking, but was she deeply attached to her husband and he to her?”
“Oh, yes, they were a very happy couple. He was very worried and upset about her, poor man. It’s always worse for a doctor, you know. They can’t buoy themselves up with false hopes. I’m afraid it preyed on his mind very much to begin with.”
“To begin with? Not so much afterwards?”
“One gets used to everything, doesn’t one? And then Sir Carmichael had his collection. A hobby is a great consolation to a man. He used to run up to sales occasionally, and then he and Miss Grey were busy recataloguing and rearranging the museum on a new system.”
“Oh, yes—Miss Grey. She has left, has she not?”
“Yes—I’m very sorry about it—but ladies do take these fancies sometimes when they’re not well. And there’s no arguing with them. It’s better to give in. Miss Grey was very sensible about it.”
“Had Lady Clarke always disliked her?”
“No—that is to say, not disliked. As a matter of fact, I think she rather liked her to begin with. But there, I mustn’t keep you gossiping. My patient will be wondering what has become of us.”
She led us upstairs to a room on the first floor. What had at one time been a bedroom had been turned into a cheerful-looking sitting room.
Lady Clarke was sitting in a big armchair near the window. She was painfully thin, and her face had the grey, haggard look of one who suffers much pain. She had a slightly faraway, dreamy look, and I noticed that the pupils of her eyes were mere pinpoints.
“This is M. Poirot whom you wanted to see,” said Nurse Capstick in her high, cheerful voice.
“Oh, yes, M. Poirot,” said Lady Clarke vaguely.