Paperback. Publisher: HarperCollins UK An old widow is brutally killed in the parlour of her cottage ... Mrs McGinty died from a brutal blow to the back of her head Suspicion fell immediately on her shifty lodger. James Bentley. whose clothes revealed traces of the. . victim's blood and hair Yet something was amiss:. Bentley just didn't look like a murderer Poirot believed he could save the man from the gallows - what he didn't realise was that his own life was now in great danger ...