Poirot nodded.
‘And that is what has been happening?’
‘Not quite … That sort of silly suggestion has been made, and then I’ve flared up, and they’ve given in, but have just slipped in some quite minor trivial suggestion and because I’ve made a stand over the other, I’ve accepted the triviality without noticing much.’
‘I see,’ said Poirot. ‘Yes – it is a method, that … Something rather crude and preposterous is put forward – but that is not really the point. The small minor alteration is really the objective. Is that what you mean?’
‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ said Mrs. Oliver. ‘And, of course, I may be imagining it, but I don’t think I am – and none of the things seem to matter anyway. But it’s got me worried – that, and a sort of – well – atmosphere.’
‘Who has made these suggestions of alterations to you?’
‘Different people,’ said Mrs. Oliver. ‘If it was just one person I’d be more sure of my ground. But it’s not just one person – although I think it is really. I mean it’s one person working through other quite unsuspecting people.’
‘Have you an idea as to who that one person is?’
Mrs. Oliver shook her head.
‘It’s somebody very clever and very careful,’ she said. ‘It might be anybody.’
‘Who is there?’ asked Poirot. ‘The cast of characters must be fairly limited?’
‘Well,’ began Mrs. Oliver. ‘There’s Sir George Stubbs who owns this place. Rich and plebeian and frightfully stupid outside business, I should think, but probably dead sharp in it. And there’s Lady Stubbs, Hattie, about twenty years younger than he is, rather beautiful, but dumb as a fish – in fact, I think she’s definitely half-witted. Married him for his money, of course, and doesn’t think about anything but clothes and jewels. Then there’s Michael Weyman – he’s an architect, quite young, and good looking in a craggy kind of artistic way. He’s designing a tennis pavilion for Sir George and repairing the Folly.’
‘Folly? What is that – a masquerade?’
‘No, it’s architectural. One of those little sort of temple things, white with columns. You’ve probably seen them at Kew. Then there’s Miss Brewis, she’s a sort of secretary housekeeper, who runs things and writes letters – very grim and efficient. And then there are the people round about who come in and help. A young married couple who have a cottage down by the river – Alec Legge and his wife Peggy. And Captain Warborough, who’s the Mastertons’ agent. And the Mastertons, of course, and old Mrs. Folliat who lives in what used to be the lodge. Her husband’s people owned Greenshore originally. But they’ve died out or been killed in wars and there were lots of death duties so the last heir sold the place.’
‘Whose idea was the Murder Hunt?’
‘Mrs. Masterton’s, I think. She’s the local Member of Parliament’s wife. She’s very good at organising. She persuaded Sir George to have the Fête here. You see the place has been empty for so many years that she thinks people will be keen to pay and come in to see it.’
‘That all seems straightforward enough,’ said Poirot.
‘It all seems straightforward,’ said Mrs. Oliver obstinately, ‘but it isn’t. I tell you, M. Poirot, there’s something wrong.’
Poirot looked at Mrs. Oliver and Mrs. Oliver looked back at Poirot.
‘How have you accounted for my presence here? For your summons to me?’ Poirot asked.
‘That was easy,’ said Mrs. Oliver. ‘You’re to give away the prizes. For the Murder Hunt. Everybody’s awfully thrilled. I said I knew you, and could probably persuade you to come and that I was sure your name would be a terrific draw – as, of course, it will be,’ Mrs. Oliver added tactfully.
‘And the suggestion was accepted – without demur?’
‘I tell you, everybody was thrilled.’
Mrs. Oliver thought it unnecessary to mention that amongst the younger generation one or two had asked ‘Who is Hercule Poirot?’
‘Everybody? Nobody spoke against the idea?’
Mrs. Oliver shook her head.
‘That is a pity,’ said Hercule Poirot.
‘You mean it might have given us a line?’
‘A would-be criminal could hardly be expected to welcome my presence.’
‘I suppose you think I’ve imagined the whole thing,’ said Mrs. Oliver ruefully. ‘I must admit that until I started talking to you I hadn’t realised how very little I’ve got to go upon.’
‘Calm yourself,’ said Poirot kindly. ‘I am intrigued and interested. Where do we begin?’
Mrs. Oliver glanced at her watch.
‘It’s just tea-time. We’ll go back to the house and then you can meet everybody.’
She took a different path from the one by which Poirot had come. This one seemed to lead in the opposite direction.
‘We pass by the boathouse this way,’ Mrs. Oliver explained.
As she spoke the boathouse came into view. It jutted out on to the river and was a picturesque thatched affair.
‘That’s where the Body’s going to be,’ said Mrs. Oliver. ‘The body for the Murder Hunt, I mean.’
‘And who is going to be killed?’
‘Oh, a girl hiker, who is really the Yugoslavian first wife of a young Atom Scientist,’ said Mrs. Oliver glibly.
Poirot blinked.
‘Of course it looks as though the Atom Scientist had killed her – but naturally it’s not as simple as that.’
‘Naturally not – since you are concerned –’
Mrs. Oliver accepted the compliment with a wave of the hand.
‘Actually,’ she said, ‘she’s killed by the Country Squire – and the motive is really rather ingenious – I don’t believe many people will get it – though there’s a perfectly clear pointer in the fifth clue.’
Poirot abandoned the subtleties of Mrs. Oliver’s plot to ask a practical question.
‘But how do you arrange for a suitable body?’
‘Girl Guide,’ said Mrs. Oliver. ‘Peggy Legge was going to be it – but now they want her to do the fortune teller – so it’s a Girl Guide called Marlene Tucker. Rather dumb and sniffs. It’s quite easy – just peasant scarves and a rucksack – and all she has to do when she hears someone coming is to flop down on the floor and arrange the cord round her neck. Rather dull for the poor kid – just sticking inside that boathouse until she’s found, but I’ve arranged for her to have a nice bundle of comics – there’s a clue to the murderer scribbled on one of them as a matter of fact – so it all works in.’
‘Your ingenuity leaves me spellbound! The things you think of!’
‘It’s never difficult to think of things,’ said Mrs. Oliver. ‘The trouble is that you think of too many, and then it all becomes too complicated, so you have to relinquish some of them and that is rather agony. We’ll go up this way now.’
They started up a steep zig-zagging path that led them back along the river at a higher level. At a twist through the trees they came out on a space surmounted by a small white plastered temple. Standing back and frowning at it was a young man wearing dilapidated flannel trousers and a shirt of rather virulent green. He spun round towards them.
‘Mr. Michael Weyman, M. Hercule Poirot,’ said Mrs. Oliver.
The young man acknowledged the introduction with a careless nod.
‘Extraordinary,’ he said bitterly, ‘the places people put things! This thing here, for instance. Put up only about a year ago – quite nice of its kind and quite in keeping with the period of the house. But why here? These things were meant to be seen – “situated on an eminence” – that’s how they phrased it – with a nice grassy approach and daffodils. But here’s this poor little devil, stuck away in the midst of trees – not visible from anywhere – you’d have to cut down about twenty trees before you’d even see it from the river.’
‘Perhaps there wasn’t any other place,’ said Mrs. Oliver.
Michael Weyman snorted.
‘To
p of that grassy bank by the house – perfect natural setting. But no, these tycoon fellows are all the same – no artistic sense. Has a fancy for a “Folly,” as he calls it, orders one. Looks round for somewhere to put it. Then, I understand, a big oak tree crashes down in a gale. Leaves a nasty scar. “Oh, we’ll tidy the place up by putting a Folly there,” says the silly ass. That’s all they ever think about, these rich city fellows, tidying up! I wonder he hasn’t put beds of red geraniums and calceolarias all round the house! A man like that shouldn’t be allowed to own a place like this!’
He sounded heated.
‘This young man,’ Poirot observed to himself, ‘assuredly does not like Sir George Stubbs.’
‘It’s bedded down in concrete,’ said Weyman. ‘And there’s loose soil underneath – so it’s subsided. Cracked all up here – it will be dangerous soon. Better pull the whole thing down and re-erect it on the top of the bank near the house. That’s my advice, but the obstinate old fool won’t hear of it.’
‘What about the tennis pavilion?’ asked Mrs. Oliver.
Gloom settled even more deeply on the young man.
‘He wants a kind of Chinese pagoda,’ he said with a groan. ‘Dragons if you please! Just because Lady Stubbs fancies herself in Chinese coolie hats. Who’d be an architect? Anyone who wants something decent built hasn’t got the money, and those who have the money want something too utterly goddam awful!’
‘You have my commiserations,’ said Poirot gravely.
Mrs. Oliver moved on towards the house and Poirot and the dispirited architect prepared to follow her.
‘These tycoons,’ said the latter, bitterly, ‘can’t understand first principles.’ He delivered a final kick to the lopsided Folly. ‘If the foundations are rotten – everything’s rotten.’
‘It is profound what you say there,’ said Poirot. ‘Yes, it is profound.’
The path they were following came out from the trees and the house showed white and beautiful before them in its setting of dark trees rising up behind it.
‘It is of a veritable beauty, yes,’ murmured Poirot.
‘He wants to build a billiard room on,’ said Mr. Weyman venomously.
On the bank below them a small elderly lady was busy with secateurs on a clump of shrubs. She climbed up to greet them, panting slightly.
‘Everything neglected for years,’ she said. ‘And so difficult nowadays to get a man who understands shrubs. This hillside should be a blaze of colour in March and April, but very disappointing this year – all this dead wood ought to have been cut away last autumn –’
‘M. Hercule Poirot, Mrs. Folliat,’ said Mrs. Oliver.
The elderly lady beamed.
‘So this is the great M. Poirot! It is kind of you to come and help us tomorrow. This clever lady here has thought out a most puzzling problem – it will be such a novelty.’
Poirot was faintly puzzled by the graciousness of the little lady’s manner. She might, he thought, have been his hostess.
He said politely, ‘Mrs. Oliver is an old friend of mine. I was delighted to be able to respond to her request. This is indeed a beautiful spot, and what a superb and noble mansion.’
Mrs. Folliat nodded in a matter-of-fact manner.
‘Yes. It was built by my husband’s great-grandfather in 1790. There was an Elizabethan house previously. It fell into disrepair and burned down in about 1700. Our family has lived here since 1598.’
Her voice was calm and matter of fact. Poirot looked at her with closer attention. He saw a very small and compact little person, dressed in shabby tweeds. The most noticeable feature about her was her clear china blue eyes. Her grey hair was closely confined by a hairnet. Though obviously careless of her appearance, she had that indefinable air of being someone, which is so hard to explain.
As they walked together towards the house, Poirot said diffidently, ‘It must be hard for you to have strangers living here.’
There was a moment’s pause before Mrs. Folliat answered. Her voice was clear and precise and curiously devoid of emotion.
‘So many things are hard, M. Poirot,’ she said.
III
Tea was in full swing in the drawing room. Mrs. Oliver performed introductions to Sir George Stubbs, Miss Brewis, Lady Stubbs, Mrs. Masterton, Captain Warborough, Mr. and Mrs. Legge. Sir George was a big red-faced bearded man of about fifty with a loud jovial voice and manner, and shrewd pale blue eyes that did not look jovial at all. Miss Brewis who presided behind the teatray, pouring out with rapid efficiency, was forty at a guess, plain, neat and ascetic in appearance. Beside her Mrs. Masterton, a somewhat monumental woman, bayed like a bloodhound in a deep voice. Poirot even thought she looked rather like a bloodhound, with her full rather underhung jaw and mournful, slightly bloodshot eyes.
‘You’ve got to settle this dispute about the tea tent, Jim,’ she was saying. ‘We can’t have the whole thing a fiasco because of these silly women and their local feuds.’
Captain Warborough, who wore a check coat and had a horsey appearance, showed a lot of very white teeth in a wolfish smile.
‘We’ll settle it,’ he said heartily. ‘I’ll go and talk to them like a Dutch uncle. Now about the fortune teller’s tent – do you think over by the magnolia? Or at the far end up against the rhododendrons?’
Shrill controversy arose – in which young Mrs. Legge took a prominent part. She was a slim attractive blonde – her husband, Alec, had a badly sunburnt face and untidy red hair. He was obviously not a talker and only contributed an occasional monosyllable.
Poirot, having received his cup of tea from Miss Brewis, found a place by his hostess and sat down carefully balancing a cream cake on the edge of his saucer.
Lady Stubbs was sitting a little way away from the others. She was leaning back in an armchair, clearly uninterested in the conversation, gazing down appreciatively at her outspread right hand which lay on the arm of her chair. The nails were very long and varnished a deep puce. On the third finger was a very beautifully set emerald. She was turning the hand a little from left to right, so that the stone caught the light.
When Poirot spoke, she looked up in a startled, almost childlike manner.
‘This is a beautiful room, Madame,’ he said appreciatively.
‘I suppose it is,’ said Lady Stubbs vaguely. Yes, it’s very nice.’
She was wearing a big coolie hat of vivid magenta straw. Beneath it her face showed the pinky reflection on its dead white surface. She was heavily made up in an exotic un-English style. Dead white matt skin, vivid almost purple lips, mascara round the eyes. Her black smooth hair fitted like a black velvet cap. It was an un-English face with all the languor of the sun behind it. But it was the eyes that startled Poirot. They seemed strangely vacant.
She said, ‘Do you like my ring? George gave it to me yesterday.’
‘It is a very lovely ring, Madame.’
She said: ‘George gives me lots of things. He’s very kind.’
She spoke with the satisfaction of a child.
Almost as though to a child, Poirot replied, ‘That must make you very happy.’
‘Oh yes, I’m very happy,’ said Lady Stubbs, warmly. ‘You like Devonshire?’
‘I think so. It’s nice in the day time. But there aren’t any nightclubs.’
‘Oh yes. I like the Casino, too. Why are there not any Casinos in England?’
‘I have often wondered – I do not think it would accord with the English character.’
She looked at him vacantly, then frowned in a puzzled way.
‘I won forty thousand francs at Monte Carlo once,’ she said. ‘I put it on number seven. My own money.’
‘That must have been a great thrill.’
‘Yes.’ She looked at him solemnly. ‘It wouldn’t matter so much now. George is very rich.’
‘Indeed, Madame?’
‘Yes.’ She sighed. ‘They never let me have enough money of my own. I wanted so many things.’ A smile curved up the pa
inted mouth. ‘George gives them all to me now.’
Then, once again, her head on one side, she watched her ring flash on her hand, and said in a confidential whisper, ‘D’you see? It’s winking at me.’
She burst out laughing and Poirot felt a slight sense of shock. It was a loud uncontrolled laugh.
‘Hattie!’
It was Sir George’s voice. It held very faint admonition. Lady Stubbs stopped laughing.
Poirot, turning his slightly embarrassed gaze away from his hostess, met the eyes of Captain Warborough. They were ironic and amused.
‘If you’ve finished your tea, M. Poirot,’ he said, ‘perhaps you’d like to come and vet the little show we’re putting on tomorrow.’
Poirot rose obediently. As he followed Captain Warborough out of the room, he saw out of the tail of his eye Mrs. Folliat cross to take the vacant chair by his hostess and saw Hattie turn eagerly towards her, with a child’s welcoming affection.
‘Beautiful creature, isn’t she?’ drawled Warborough. ‘Bowled over old George Stubbs all right. Nothing’s too good for her! Loads her with jewels and mink and all the rest of it. Whether he realises she’s a bit wanting in the upper storey I’ve never discovered. I suppose with a woman as beautiful as that it doesn’t really matter.’
‘What nationality is she?’ Poirot asked curiously.
‘Comes from the West Indies or thereabouts I’ve always understood. A creole – I don’t mean a half-caste, but one of those old intermarried familes … Ah, here we are, it’s all set out in here.’
Poirot followed him into a room lined with book shelves. On a table by the window various impedimenta were set out.
A large pile of printed cards was at one side. Poirot took one and read:
Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly Page 2
