“Yes, I understand….”
He added:
“You were not in England yourself at the time of her death?”
“No, I went abroad on July 9th and returned on August 1st. Elinor’s telegram followed me about from place to place. I hurried home as soon as I got the news.”
Poirot said:
“It must have been a great shock to you. You had cared for the girl very much.”
Roddy said, and there was bitterness and exasperation in his voice:
“Why should these things happen to one? It’s not as though one wished them to happen! It is contrary to all—to all one’s ordered expectation of life!”
Hercule Poirot said:
“Ah, but life is like that! It does not permit you to arrange and order it as you will. It will not permit you to escape emotion, to live by the intellect and by reason! You cannot say, ‘I will feel so much and no more.’ Life, Mr. Welman, whatever else it is, is not reasonable!”
Roderick Welman murmured:
“So it seems….”
Poirot said:
“A spring morning, a girl’s face—and the well-ordered sequence of existence is routed.”
Roddy winced and Poirot went on:
“Sometimes it is little more than that—a face. What did you really know of Mary Gerrard, Mr. Welman?”
Roddy said heavily:
“What did I know? So little; I see that now. She was sweet, I think, and gentle; but really, I know nothing—nothing at all… That’s why, I suppose, I don’t miss her….”
His antagonism and resentment were gone now. He spoke naturally and simply. Hercule Poirot, as he had a knack of doing, had penetrated the other’s defences. Roddy seemed to feel a certain relief in unburdening himself.
He said:
“Sweet—gentle—not very clever. Sensitive, I think, and kind. She had a refinement that you would not expect to find in a girl of her class.”
“Was she the kind of girl who would make enemies unconsciously?”
Roddy shook his head vigorously.
“No, no, I can’t imagine anyone disliking her—really disliking her, I mean. Spite is different.”
Poirot said quickly.
“Spite? So there was spite, you think?”
Roddy said absently:
“Must have been—to account for that letter.”
Poirot said sharply:
“What letter?”