“Yes, sir. She and her sisters and old General Arundell, their father, before them. Not that I remember him, naturally, but I believe he was quite a character. Was in the Indian Mutiny.”
“There were several daughters?”
“Three of them that I remember, and I believe there was one that married. Yes, Miss Matilda, Miss Agnes, and Miss Emily. Miss Matilda, she died first, and then Miss Agnes, and finally Miss Emily.”
“That was quite recently?”
“Beginning of May—or it may have been the end of April.”
“Had she been ill some time?”
“On and off—on and off. She was on the sickly side. Nearly went off a year ago with that there jaundice. Yellow as an orange she was for sometime after. Yes, she’d had poor health for the last five years of her life.”
“I suppose you have some good doctors down here?”
“Well, there’s Dr. Grainger. Been here close on forty years, he has, and folks mostly go to him. He’s a bit crotchety and he has his fancies but he’s a good doctor, none better. He’s got a young partner, Dr. Donaldson. He’s more the newfangled kind. Some folk prefer him. Then, of course, there’s Dr. Harding, but he doesn’t do much.”
“Dr. Grainger was Miss Arundell’s doctor, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes. He’s pulled her through many a bad turn. He’s the kind that fair bullies you into living whether you want to or not.”
Poirot nodded.
“One should learn a little about a place before one comes to settle in it,” he remarked. “A good doctor is one of the most important people.”
“That’s very true, sir.”
Poirot then asked
for his bill to which he added a substantial tip.
“Thank you, sir. Thank you very much, sir. I’m sure I hope you’ll settle here, sir.”
“I hope so, too,” said Poirot mendaciously.
We set forth from the George.
“Satisfied yet, Poirot?” I asked as we emerged into the street.
“Not in the least, my friend.”
He turned in an unexpected direction.
“Where are you off to now, Poirot?”
“The church, my friend. It may be interesting. Some brasses—an old monument.” I shook my head doubtfully.
Poirot’s scrutiny of the interior of the church was brief. Though an attractive specimen of what the guidebook calls Early Perp., it had been so conscientiously restored in Victorian vandal days that little of interest remained.
Poirot next wandered seemingly aimlessly about the churchyard reading some of the epitaphs, commenting on the number of deaths in certain families, occasionally exclaiming over the quaintness of a name.
I was not surprised, however, when he finally halted before what I was pretty sure had been his objective from the beginning:
An imposing marble slab bore a partly effaced inscription:
SACRED
TO THE MEMORY OF