There was no time for more, for at that minute, as Poirot had prophesied, Blunt left the others in his abrupt fashion and came over to us. I suggested strolling on the terrace, and he acquiesced. Poirot stayed behind.
I stopped to examine a late rose.
‘How things change in the course of a day or two,’ I observed. ‘I was up here last Wednesday, I remember, walking up and down this same terrace. Ackroyd was with me – full of spirits. And now – three days later – Ackroyd’s dead, poor fellow. Mrs Ferrars dead – you knew her, didn’t you? But of course you did.’
Blunt nodded his head.
‘Had you seen her since you’d been down this time?’
‘Went with Ackroyd to call. Last Tuesday, think it was. fascinating woman – but something queer about her. Deep – one would never know what she was up to.’
I looked into his steady grey eyes. Nothing there surely. I went on:
‘I suppose you’d met her before?’
‘Last time I was here – she and her husband had just come here to live.’ He paused a minute and then added: ‘Rum thing, she had changed a lot between then and now.’
‘How – changed?’ I asked.
‘Looked ten years older.’
‘Were you down here when her husband died?’ I asked, trying to make the question sound as casual as possible.
‘No. from all I heard it would be good riddance. Uncharitable, perhaps, but the truth.’
I agreed.
‘Ashley Ferrars was by no means a pattern husband,’ I said cautiously.
‘Blackguard, I thought,’ said Blunt.
‘No,’ I said, ‘only a man with more money than was good for him.’
‘Oh! Money! All the troubles in the world can be put down to money – or the lack of it.’
‘Which has been your particular trouble?’ I asked.
‘Enough for what I want. I’m one of the lucky ones.’
‘Indeed.’
‘I’m not too flush just now, as a matter of fact. Came into a legacy a year ago, and like a fool let myself be persuaded into putting it into some wild-cat scheme.’
I sympathized, and narrated my own similar trouble.
Then the gong pealed out, and we all went in to lunch.
Poirot drew me back a little.‘Eh bien?’
‘he’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’m sure of it.’
‘Nothing – disturbing?’
‘He had a legacy just a year ago,’ I said. ‘But why not? Why shouldn’t he? I’ll swear the man is perfectly square and above board.’
‘Without doubt, without doubt,’ said Poirot soothingly. ‘Do not upset yourself.’
He spoke as though to a fractious child.
We all trooped into the dining-room. It seemed incredible that less than twenty-four hours had passed since I last sat at that table.
Afterwards, Mrs Ackroyd took me aside and sat down with me on a sofa.
‘I can’t help feeling a little hurt,’ she murmured, producing a handkerchief of the kind obviously not meant to be cried into. ‘hurt, I mean, by Roger’s lack of confidence in me. That twenty thousand pounds ought to have been left to me – not to Flora. A mother could be trusted to safeguard the interests of her child. A lack of trust, I call it.’
‘You forget, Mrs Ackroyd,’ I said, ‘Flora was Ackroyd’s own niece, a blood relation. It would have been different had you been his sister instead of his sister-in-law.’
‘As poor Cecil’s widow, I think my feelings ought to have been considered,’ said the lady, touching her eyelashes gingerly with the handkerchief. ‘But Roger was always most peculiar- not to say mean – about money matters. It has been a most difficult position for both flora and myself. he did not even give the poor child an allowance. He would pay her bills, you know, and even that with a good deal of reluctance and asking what she wanted all those fallals for – so like a man- but – now I’ve forgotten what it was I was going to say! oh, yes, not a penny we could call our own, you know. flora resented it – yes, I must say she resented it – very strongly. Though devoted to her uncle, of course. But any girl would have resented it. yes, I must say Roger had very strange ideas about money. He wouldn’t even buy new face towels, though I told him the old ones were in holes. And then,’ proceeded Mrs Ackroyd, with a sudden leap highly characteristic of her conversation, ‘to leave all that money – a thousand pounds, fancy, a thousand pounds! – to that woman.’
