“But she is in her grave, and oh,
The difference to me!”
“I beg your pardon,” said Roddy.
Hercule Poirot explained:
“Wordsworth. I read him much. Those lines express, perhaps, what you feel?”
“I?”
Roddy looked stiff and unapproachable.
Poirot said:
“I apologize—I apologize deeply! It is so hard—to be a detective and also a pukka sahib. As it is so well expressed in your language, there are things that one does not say. But, alas, a detective is forced to say them! He must ask questions: about people’s private affairs, about their feelings!”
Roddy said:
“Surely all this is quite unnecessary?”
Poirot said quickly and humbly:
“If I might just understand the position? Then we will pass from the unpleasant subject and not refer to it again. It is fairly widely known, Mr. Welman, that you—admired Mary Gerrard? That is, I think, true?”
Roddy got up and stood by the window. He played with the blind tassel. He said:
“Yes.”
“You fell in love with her?”
“I suppose so.”
“Ah, and you are now heartbroken by her death—”
“I—I suppose—I mean—well, really, M. Poirot—”
He turned—a nervous, irritable, sensitive creature at bay.
Hercule Poirot said:
“If you could just tell me—just show me clearly—then it would be finished with.”
Roddy Welman sat down in a chair. He did not look at the other man. He spoke in a series of jerks.
“It’s very difficult to explain. Must we go into it?”
Poirot said:
“One cannot always turn aside and pass by from the unpleasantnesses of life, Mr. Welman! You say you suppose you cared for this girl. You are not sure, then?”
Roddy said:
“I don’t know… She was so lovely. Like a dream… That’s what it seems like now. A dream! Not real! All that—my seeing her first—my—well, my infatuation for her! A kind of madness! And now everything is finished—gone…as though—as though it had never happened.”
Poirot nodded his head….
He said: