Inside it was very dark owing to the shutters being closed. The constable found and switched on the electric light. The bulb was a low-powered one so that the interior was still dimly lit.
I looked about me.
A dingy little place. A few cheap magazines strewn about, and yesterdays newspapersall with a days dust on them. Behind the counter a row of shelves reaching to the ceiling and packed with tobacco and packets of cigarettes. There were also a couple of jars of peppermint humbugs and barley sugar. A commonplace little shop, one of many thousand such others.
The constable in his slow Hampshire voice was explaining the mise en scène[81].
Down in a heap behind the counter, thats where she was. Doctor says as how she never knew what hit her. Must have been reaching up to one of the shelves.
There was nothing in her hand?
No, sir, but there was a packet of Players[82] down beside her.
Poirot nodded. His eyes swept round the small space observingnoting.
And the railway guide waswhere?
Here, sir. The constable pointed out the spot on the counter. It was open at the right page for Andover and lying face down. Seems as though he must have been looking up the trains to London. If so, it mightnt have been an Andover man at all. But then, of course, the railway guide might have belonged to someone else what had nothing to do with the murder at all, but just forgot it here.
Fingerprints? I suggested.
The man shook his head.
The whole place was examined straight away, sir. There werent none.
Not on the counter itself?asked Poirot.
A long sight too many, sir! All confused and jumbled up.
Any of Aschers among them?
Too soon to say, sir.
Poirot nodded, then asked if the dead woman lived over the shop.
Yes, sir, you go through that door at the back, sir. Youll excuse me not coming with you, but Ive got to stay
Poirot passed through the door in question and I followed him. Behind the shop was a microscopic sort of parlour and kitchen combinedit was neat and clean but very dreary looking and scantily furnished. On the mantelpiece were a few photographs. I went up and looked at them and Poirot joined me.
The photographs were three in all. One was a cheap portrait of the girl we had been with that afternoon, Mary Drower. She was obviously wearing her best clothes and had the self-conscious, wooden smile on her face that so often disfigures the expression in posed photography, and makes a snapshot preferable.
The second was a more expensive type of picturean artistically blurred reproduction of an elderly woman with white hair. A high fur collar stood up round the neck.
I guessed that this was probably the Miss Rose who had left Mrs Ascher the small legacy which had enabled her to start in business.
The third photograph was a very old one, now faded and yellow. It represented a young man and woman in somewhat old-fashioned clothes standing arm in arm[83]. The man had a button-hole and there was an air of bygone festivity about the whole pose.
Probably a wedding picture, said Poirot. Regard, Hastings, did I not tell you that she had been a beautiful woman?
He was right. Disfigured by old-fashioned hairdressing and weird clothes, there was no disguising the handsomeness of the girl in the picture with her clear-cut features and spirited bearing. I looked closely at the second figure. It was almost impossible to recognise the seedy Ascher in this smart young man with the military bearing.
I recalled the leering drunken old man, and the toil-worn face of the dead womanand I shivered a little at the remorselessness of time
From the parlour a stair led to two upstairs rooms. One was empty and unfurnished, the other had evidently been the dead womans bedroom. After being searched by the police it had been left as it was. A couple of old worn blankets on the beda little stock of well-darned underwear in a drawercookery recipes in anothera paper-backed novel entitled The Green Oasisa pair of new stockingspathetic in their cheap shininessa couple of china ornamentsa Dresden shepherd[84] much broken, and a blue and yellow spotted doga black raincoat and a woolly jumper hanging on pegssuch were the worldly possessions of the late Alice Ascher.
If there had been any personal papers, the police had taken them.
Pauvre femme, murmured Poirot. Come, Hastings, there is nothing for us here.
When we were once more in the street, he hesitated for a minute or two, then crossed the road. Almost exactly opposite Mrs Aschers was a greengrocers shopof the type that has most of its stock outside rather than inside.
In a low voice Poirot gave me certain instructions. Then he himself entered the shop. After waiting a minute or two I followed him in. He was at the moment negotiating for a lettuce. I myself bought a pound of strawberries.
Poirot was talking animatedly to the stout lady who was serving him.
It was just opposite you, was it not, that this murder occurred? What an affair! What a sensation it must have caused you!
The stout lady was obviously tired of talking about the murder. She must have had a long day of it. She observed: