The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie Read Free Book Online

undisguised hostility of Mr. Riddell himself.
    He was a big clumsy giant of a man with a broad face and small suspicious eyes. He was in the act of eating meat pie, washed down by exceedingly black tea. He peered at us angrily over the rim of his cup.
    â€œTold all I’ve got to tell once, haven’t I?” he growled. “What’s it to do with me, anyway? Told it to the blarsted police, I ’ave, and now I’ve got to spit it all out again to a couple of blarsted foreigners.”
    Poirot gave a quick, amused glance in my direction and then said:
    â€œIn truth I sympathize with you, but what will you? It is a question of murder, is it not? One has to be very, very careful.”
    â€œBest tell the gentleman what he wants, Bert,” said the woman nervously.
    â€œYou shut your blarsted mouth,” roared the giant.
    â€œYou did not, I think, go to the police of your own accord.” Poirot slipped the remark in neatly.
    â€œWhy the hell should I? It were no business of mine.”
    â€œA matter of opinion,” said Poirot indifferently. “There has been a murder—the police want to know who has been in the shop—I myself think it would have—what shall I say?—looked more natural if you had come forward.”
    â€œI’ve got my work to do. Don’t say I shouldn’t have come forward in my own time—”
    â€œBut as it was, the police were given your name as that of a person seen to go into Mrs. Ascher’s and they had to come to you. Were they satisfied with your account?”
    â€œWhy shouldn’t they be?” demanded Bert truculently.
    Poirot merely shrugged his shoulders.
    â€œWhat are you getting at, mister? Nobody’s got anything against me? Everyone knows who did the old girl in, that b—of a husband of hers.”
    â€œBut he was not in the street that evening and you were.”
    â€œTrying to fasten it on me, are you? Well, you won’t succeed. What reason had I got to do a thing like that? Think I wanted to pinch a tin of her bloody tobacco? Think I’m a bloody homicidal maniac as they call it? Think I—?”
    He rose threateningly from his seat. His wife bleated out:
    â€œBert, Bert—don’t say such things. Bert—they’ll think—”
    â€œCalm yourself, monsieur,” said Poirot. “I demand only your account of your visit. That you refuse it seems to me—what shall we say—a little odd?”
    â€œWho said I refused anything?” Mr. Riddell sank back again into his seat. “I don’t mind.”
    â€œIt was six o’clock when you entered the shop?”
    â€œThat’s right—a minute or two after, as a matter of fact. Wanted a packet of Gold Flake. I pushed open the door—”
    â€œIt was closed, then?”
    â€œThat’s right. I thought shop was shut, maybe. But it wasn’t. I went in, there wasn’t anyone about. I hammered on the counter and waited a bit. Nobody came, so I went out again. That’s all, and you can put it in your pipe and smoke it.”
    â€œYou didn’t see the body fallen down behind the counter?”
    â€œNo, no more would you have done—unless you was looking for it, maybe.”
    â€œWas there a railway guide lying about?”
    â€œYes, there was—face downwards. It crossed my mind like that the old woman might have had to go off sudden by train and forgot to lock shop up.”
    â€œPerhaps you picked up the railway guide or moved it along the counter?”
    â€œDidn’t touch the b—thing. I did just what I said.”
    â€œAnd you did not see anyone leaving the shop before you yourself got there?”
    â€œDidn’t see any such thing. What I say is, why pitch on me—?”
    Poirot rose.
    â€œNobody is pitching upon you—yet. Bonsoir, monsieur.”
    He left the man with his mouth open and I followed him.
    In the street he consulted his