“I don’t know anything about morphine! I know what doctors are: Tell them to look for something, and they’ll find it! Tainted fish paste isn’t good enough for them!”
Poirot said:
“You do not think it possible that she committed suicide?”
“She?” Mrs. Bishop snorted. “No indeed. Hadn’t she made up her mind to marry Mr. Roddy? Catch her committing suicide!”
Five
Since it was a Sunday, Hercule Poirot found Ted Bigland at his father’s farm.
There was little difficulty in getting Ted Bigland to talk. He seemed to welcome the opportunity—as though it was a relief.
He said thoughtfully:
“So you’re trying to find out who killed Mary? It’s a black mystery, that.”
Poirot said:
“You do not believe that Miss Carlisle killed her, then?”
Ted Bigland frowned—a puzzled, almost childlike frown it was.
He said slowly:
“Miss Elinor’s a lady. She’s the kind—well, you couldn’t imagine her doing anything like that—anything violent, if you know what I mean. After all, ’tisn’t likely, is it, sir, that a nice young lady would go and do a thing of that kind?”
Hercule Poirot nodded in a contemplative manner.
He said:
“No, it is not likely… But when it comes to jealousy—”
He paused, watching the good-looking, fair young giant before him.
Ted Bigland said:
“Jealousy? I know things happen that way; but it’s usually drink and getting worked up that makes a fellow see red and run amok. Miss Elinor—a nice quiet young lady like that—”
Poirot said:
“But Mary Gerrard died…and she did not die a natural death. Have you any idea—is there anything you can tell me to help me find out—who killed Mary Gerrard?”
Slowly the other shook his head.
He said:
“It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem possible, if you take my meaning, that anyone could have killed Mary. She was—she was like a flower.
”
And suddenly, for a vivid minute, Hercule Poirot had a new conception of the dead girl… In that halting rustic voice the girl Mary lived and bloomed again. “She was like a flower.”
II
There was suddenly a poignant sense of loss, of something exquisite destroyed….
In his mind phrase after phrase succeeded each other. Peter Lord’s “She was a nice kid.” Nurse Hopkins’ “She could have gone on the films any time.” Mrs. Bishop’s venomous “No patience with her airs and graces.” And now last, putting to shame, laying aside those other views, the quiet wondering: “She was like a flower.”