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he couldn't afford, as his wife could, to be critical of the police?
    A man, perhaps, with an uneasy conscience. Why was that conscience uneasy? There could be so many reasons - none of them connected with Mrs McGinty's death. Or was it that, somehow or other, the cinema alibi had been cleverly faked, and that it was Joe Burch who had knocked on the door of the cottage, had been admitted by Auntie and who had struck down the unsuspecting old woman. He would pull out the drawers and ransack the rooms to give the appearance of robbery, he might hide the money outside, cunningly, to incriminate James Bentley, the money that was in the Savings Bank was what he was after. Two hundred pounds coming to his wife which, for some reason unknown, he badly needed. The weapon, Poirot remembered, had never been found. Why had that not also been left on the scene of the crime? Any moron knew enough to wear gloves or rub off fingerprints. Why then had the weapon, which must have been a heavy one with a sharp edge, been removed? Was it because it could easily be identified as belonging to the Burch ménage? Was that same weapon, washed and polished, here in the house now? Something in the nature of a meat chopper, the police surgeon had said - but not, it seemed, actually a meat chopper. Something, perhaps a little unusual... a little out of the ordinary, easily identified. The police had hunted for it, but not found it. They had searched woods, dragged ponds. There was nothing missing from Mrs McGinty's kitchen, and nobody could say that James Bentley had had anything of that kind in his possession. They had never traced any purchase of a meat chopper or any such implement to him. A small, but negative point in his favour. Ignored in the weight of other evidence. But still a point...
    Poirot cast a swift glance round the rather overcrowded little sitting-room in which he was sitting.
    Was the weapon here, somewhere, in this house? Was that why Joe Butch was uneasy and conciliatory?
    Poirot did not know. He did not really think so. But he was not absolutely sure...

Mrs McGinty's Dead

Chapter 6
    In the offices of Messrs. Breather & Scuttle, Poirot was shown, after some demur, into the room of Mr Scuttle himself.
    Mr Scuttle was a brisk, bustling man, with a hearty manner.
    “Good morning. Good morning.” He rubbed his hands. “Now, what can we do for you?”
    His professional eye shot over Poirot, trying to place him, making, as it were, a series of marginal notes.
    Foreign. Good quality clothes. Probably rich. Restaurant proprietor? Hotel manager? Films?
    “I hope not to trespass on your time unduly. I wanted to talk to you about your former employee, James Bentley.”
    Mr Scuttle's expressive eyebrows shot up an inch and dropped.
    “James Bentley. James Bentley?” He shot out a question. “Press?”
    “No.”
    “And you wouldn't be police?”
    “No. At least - not of this country.”
    “Not of this country.” Mr Scuttle filed this away rapidly as though for future reference. What's it all about?"
    Poirot, never hindered by a pedantic regard for truth, launched out into speech.
    “I am opening a further inquiry into James Bentley's case - at the request of certain relatives of his.”
    “Didn't know he had any. Anyway, he's been found guilty, you know, and condemned to death.”
    “But not yet executed.”
    “While there's life, there's hope, eh?” Mr Scuttle shook his head. “Should doubt it, though. Evidence was strong. Who are these relations of his?”
    “I can tell you only this, they are both rich and powerful. Immensely rich.”
    “You surprise me.” Mr Scuttle was unable to help thawing slightly. The words “immensely rich” had an attractive and hypnotic quality. “Yes, you really do surprise me.”
    “Bentley's mother, the late Mrs Bentley,” explained Poirot, “cut herself and her son off completely from her family.”
    “One of these family feuds, eh? Well, well. And young Bentley without a farthing to