"Exit Roberts," murmured Poirot. "And the others?"
Battle made a gesture of impatience.
"I've pretty well drawn blank.
Mrs. Lorrimer's been a widow for twenty years now.
She's lived in London most of the time, occasionally going abroad in the winter.
Civilized places - the Riviera, Egypt, that sort of thing.
Can't find any mysterious deaths associated with her.
She seems to have led a perfectly normal respectable life, the life of a woman of the world.
Everyone seems to respect her and to have the highest opinion of her character.
The worst that they can say about her is that she doesn't suffer fools gladly!
I don't mind admitting I've been beaten all along the line there. And yet there must be something!
Shaitana thought there was." He sighed in a dispirited manner. "Then there's Miss Meredith.
I've got her history taped out quite clearly.
Usual sort of story.
Army officer's daughter.
Left with very little money.
Had to earn her living. Not properly trained for anything.
I've checked up on her early days at Cheltenham.
All quite straightforward.
Everyone very sorry for the poor little thing.
She went first to some people in the Isle of Wight - kind of nursery-governess and mother's help.
The woman she was with is out in Palestine, but I've talked with her sister and she says Mrs. Eldon liked the girl very much.
Certainly no mysterious deaths nor anything of that kind.
"When Mrs. Eldon went abroad, Miss Meredith went to Devonshire and took a post as companion to an aunt of a school friend.
The school friend is the girl she is living with now - Miss Rhoda Dawes.
She was there over two years until Mrs. Deering got too ill and had to have a regular trained nurse.
Cancer, I gather.
She's alive still, but very vague.
Kept under morphia a good deal, I imagine.
I had an interview with her.
She remembered Anne, said she was a nice child.
I also talked to a neighbor of hers who would be better able to remember the happenings of the last few years.
No deaths in the parish except one or two of the older villagers, with whom as far as I can make out Anne Meredith never came into contact.
"Since then there's been Switzerland.
Thought I might get on the track of some fatal accident there, but nothing doing.
And there's nothing in Wallingford either."
"So Anne Meredith is acquitted?" asked Poirot.
Battle hesitated.
"I wouldn't say that.
There's something. There's a scared look about her that can't quite be accounted for by panic over Shaitana.
She's too watchful. Too much on the alert.
I'd swear there was something. But there it is - she's led a perfectly blameless life."
Mrs. Oliver took a deep breath - a breath of pure enjoyment.
"And yet," she said. "Anne Meredith was in the house when a woman took poison by mistake and died."
She had nothing to complain of in the effect her words produced.
Superintendent Battle spun round in his chair and stared at her in amazement.
"Is this true, Mrs. Oliver?
How do you know?"
"I've been sleuthing," said Mrs. Oliver. "I get on with girls.
I went down to see those two and told them a cock-and-bull story about suspecting Doctor Roberts.