“Well, we were well above high-water mark. Just under the cliff—so that I could be a little in the shade and Linda in the sun.”
Poirot said:
“Did Linda Marshall actually enter the sea before you left the beach?”
Christine frowned a little in the effort to remember. She said:
“Let me see. She ran down the beach—I fastened my box—Yes, I heard her splashing in the waves as I was on the path up the cliff.”
“You are sure of that, Madame? That she really entered the sea?”
“Oh yes.”
She stared at him in surprise.
Colonel Weston also stared at him.
Then he said:
“Go on, Mrs. Redfern.”
“I went back to the hotel, changed, and went to the tennis courts where I met the others.”
“Who were?”
“Captain Marshall, Mr. Gardener and Miss Darnley. We played two sets. We were just going in again when the news came about—about Mrs. Marshall.”
Hercule Poirot leant forward. He said:
“And what did you think, Madame, when you heard that news?”
“What did I think?”
Her face showed a faint distaste for the question.
“Yes.”
Christine Redfern said slowly:
“It was—a horrible thing to happen.”
“Ah, yes, your fastidiousness was revolted. I understand that. But what did it mean to you—personally?”
She gave him a quick look—a look of appeal. He responded to it. He said in a matter-of-fact voice.
“I am appealing to you, Madame, as a woman of intelligence with plenty of good sense and judgment. You had doubtless during your stay here formed an opinion of Mrs. Marshall, of the kind of woman she was?”
Christine said cautiously:
“I suppose one always does that more or less when one is staying in hotels.”
“Certainly, it is the natural thing to do. So I ask you, Madame, were you really very surprised at the manner of her death?”
Christine said slowly:
“I think I see what you mean. No, I was not, perhaps, surprised. Shocked, yes. But she was the kind of woman—”
Poirot finished the sentence for her.
“She was the kind of woman to whom such a thing might happen… Yes, Madame, that is the truest and most significant thing that has been said in this room this morning. Laying all—er (he stressed it carefully) personal feeling aside, what did you really think of the late Mrs. Marshall?”
Christine Redfern said calmly:
“Is it really worthwhile going into all that now?”
“I think it might be, yes.”
“Well, what shall I say?” Her fair skin was suddenly suffused with colour. The careful poise of her manner was relaxed. For a short space the natural raw woman looked out. “She’s the kind of woman that to my mind is absolutely worthless! She did nothing to justify her existence. She had no mind—no brains. She thought of nothing but men and clothes and admiration. Useless, a parasite! She was attractive to men, I suppose—Oh, of course, she was. And she lived for that kind of life. And so, I suppose, I wasn’t really surprised at her coming to a sticky end. She was the sort of woman who would be mixed up with everything sordid—blackmail—jealousy—violence—every kind of crude emotion. She—she appealed to the worst in people.”
She stopped, panting a little. Her rather short top lip lifted itself in a kind of fastidious disgust. It occurred to Colonel Weston that you could not have found a more complete contrast to Arlena Stuart than Christine Redfern. It also occurred to him that if you were married to Christine Redfern, the atmosphere might be so rarefied that the Arlena Stuarts of this world would hold a particular attraction for you.
And then, immediately following on these thoughts, a single word out of the words she had spoken fastened on his attention with particular intensity.
He leaned forward and said:
“Mrs. Redfern, why, in speaking of her, did you mention the word blackmail?”
Seven
Christine stared at him, not seeming at once to take in what he meant. She answered almost mechanically.
“I suppose—because she was being blackmailed. She was the sort of person who would be.”
Colonel Weston said earnestly:
“But—do you know she was being blackmailed?”
A faint colour rose in the girl’s cheeks. She said rather awkwardly:
“As a matter of fact I do happen to know it. I—I overheard something.”
“Will you explain, Mrs. Redfern?”
Flushing still more, Christine Redfern said:
“I—I didn’t mean to overhear. It was an accident. It was two—no, three nights ago. We were playing bridge.” She turned towards Poirot. “You remember? My husband and I, M. Poirot and Miss Darnley. I was dummy. It was very stuffy in the card room, and I slipped out of the window for a breath of fresh air. I went down towards the beach and I suddenly heard voices. One—it was Arlena Marshall’s—I knew it at once—said: ‘It’s no good pressing me. I can’t get any more money now. My husband will suspect something.” And then a man’s voice said: ‘I’m not taking any excuses. You’ve got to cough up.’ And then Arlena Marshall said: ‘You blackmailing brute!’ And the man said: ‘Brute or not, you’ll pay up, my lady.’”
Christine paused.
“I’d turned back and a minute after Arlena Marshall rushed past me. She looked—well, frightfully upset.”
Weston said:
“And the man? Do you know who he was?”
Christine Redfern shook her head.
She said:
“He was keeping his voice low. I barely heard what he said.”
“It didn’t suggest the voice to you of anyone you knew?”
She thought again, but once more shook her head. She said:
“No, I don’t know. It was gruff and low. It—oh, it might have been anybody’s.”
Colonel Weston said:
“Thank you, Mrs. Redfern.”
II
When the door had closed behind Christine Redfern Inspector Colgate said:
“Now we are getting somewhere!”
Weston said:
“You think so, eh?”
“Well, it’s suggestive, sir, you can’t get away from it. Somebody in this hotel was blackmailing the lady.”
Poirot murmured:
“But it is not the wicked blackmailer who lies dead. It is the victim.”
“That’s a bit of a setback, I agree,” said the Inspector. “Blackmailers aren’t in the habit of bumping off their victims. But what it does give us is this, it suggests a reason for Mrs. Marshall’s curious behaviour this morning. She’d got a rendezvous with this fellow who was blackmailing her, and she didn’t want either her husband or Redfern to know about it.”
“It certainly explains that point,” agreed Poirot.
Inspector Colgate went on:
“And think of the place chosen. The very spot for the purpose. The lady goes off in her float. That’s natural enough. It’s what she does every day. She goes round to Pixy Cove where no one ever goes in the morning and which will be a nice quiet place for an interview.”
Poirot said:
“But yes, I too was struck by that point. It is as you say, an ideal spot for a rendezvous. It is deserted, it is only accessible from the land side by descending a vertical steel ladder which is not everybody’s money, bien entendu. Moreover most of the beach is invisible from above because of the overhanging cliff. And it has another advantage. Mr. Redfern told me of that one day. There is a cave on it, the entrance to which is not easy to find but where anyone could wait unseen.”
Weston said:
“Of course, the Pixy’s Cave—remember hearing about it.”
Inspector Colgate said:
“Haven’t heard it spoken of for years, though. We’d better have a look inside it. Never know, we might find a pointer of some
kind.”
Weston said:
“Yes, you’re right, Colgate, we’ve got the solution to part one of the puzzle. Why did Mrs. Marshall go to Pixy’s Cove? We want the other half of that solution, though. Who did she go there to meet? Presumably someone staying in this hotel. None of them fitted as a lover—but a blackmailer’s a different proposition.”
He drew the register towards him.
“Excluding the waiters, boots, etc., whom I don’t think likely, we’ve got the following. The American—Gardener, Major Barry, Mr. Horace Blatt, and the Reverend Stephen Lane.”
Inspector Colgate said:
“We can narrow it down a bit, sir. We might almost rule out the American, I think. He was on the beach all the morning. That’s so, isn’t it, M. Poirot?”
Poirot replied:
“He was absent for a short time when he fetched a skein of wool for his wife.”
Colgate said:
“Oh well, we needn’t count that.”
Weston said:
“And what about the other three?”
“Major Barry went out at ten o’clock this morning. He returned at one thirty. Mr. Lane was earlier still. He breakfasted at eight. Said he was going for a tramp. Mr. Blatt went off for a sail at nine thirty same as he does most days. Neither of them are back yet.”
“A sail, eh?” Colonel Weston’s voice was thoughtful.
Inspector Colgate’s voice was responsive. He said:
“Might fit in rather well, sir.”
Weston said:
“Well, we’ll have a word with this Major bloke—and let me see, who else is there? Rosamund Darnley. And there’s the Brewster woman who found the body with Redfern. What’s she like, Colgate?”
“Oh, a sensible party, sir. No nonsense about her.”
“She didn’t express any opinions on the death?”
The Inspector shook his head.
“I don’t think she’ll have anything more to tell us, sir, but we’ll have to make sure. Then there are the Americans.”
Colonel Weston nodded. He said: “Let’s have ’em all in and get it over as soon as possible. Never know, might learn something. About the blackmailing stunt if about nothing else.”
III
Mr. and Mrs. Gardener came into the presence of authority together.
Mrs. Gardener explained immediately.
“I hope you’ll understand how it is, Colonel Weston (that is the name, I think?).” Reassured on this point she went on: “But this has been a very bad shock to me and Mr. Gardener is always very, very careful of my health—”
Mr. Gardener here interpolated:
“Mrs. Gardener,” he said, “is very sensitive.”
“—and he said to me, ‘Why, Carrie,’ he said, ‘naturally I’m coming right along with you.’ It’s not that we haven’t the highest admiration for British police methods because we have. I’ve been told that British police procedure is most refined and delicate, and I’ve never doubted it, and certainly when I once had a bracelet missing at the Savoy Hotel nothing could have been more lovely and sympathetic than the young man who came to see me about it, and, of course, I hadn’t really lost the bracelet at all, but just mislaid it; that’s the worst of rushing about so much, it makes you kind of forgetful where you put things—” Mrs. Gardener paused, inhaled gently and started off again. “And what I say is, and I know Mr. Gardener agrees with me, that we’re only too anxious to do anything to help the British police in every way. So go right ahead and ask me anything at all you want to know—”
Colonel Weston opened his mouth to comply with this invitation, but had momentarily to postpone speech while Mrs. Gardener went on.
“That’s what I said, Odell, isn’t it? And that’s so, isn’t it?”
“Yes, darling,” said Mr. Gardener.
Colonel Weston spoke hastily.
“I understand, Mrs. Gardener, that you and your husband were on the beach all the morning?”
For once Mr. Gardener was able to get in first.
“That’s so,” he said.
“Why, certainly we were,” said Mrs. Gardener. “And a lovely peaceful morning it was, just like any other morning if you get me, perhaps even more so, and not the slightest idea in our minds of what was happening round the corner on that lonely beach.”
“Did you see Mrs. Marshall at all today?”
“We did not. And I said to Odell, why wherever can Mrs. Marshall have got to this morning? I said. And first her husband coming looking for her and then that good-looking young man, Mr. Redfern, and so impatient he was, just sitting there on the beach scowling at everyone and everything. And I said to myself why, when he has that nice pretty little wife of his own, must he go running after that dreadful woman? Because that’s just what I felt she was. I always felt that about her, didn’t I, Odell?”
“Yes, darling.”
“However that nice Captain Marshall came to marry such a woman I just cannot imagine and with that nice young daughter growing up, and it’s so important for girls to have the right influence. Mrs. Marshall was not at all the right person—no breeding at all—and I should say a very animal nature. Now if Captain Marshall had had any sense he’d have married Miss Darnley, who’s a very very charming woman and a very distinguished one. I must say I admire the way she’s gone straight ahead and built up a first-class business as she has. It takes brains to do a thing like that—and you’ve only got to look at Rosamund Darnley to see she’s just frantic with brains. She could plan and carry out any moral thing she liked. I just admire that woman more than I can say. And I said to Mr. Gardener the other day that any one could see she was very much in love with Captain Marshall—crazy about him was what I said, didn’t I, Odell?”
“Yes, darling.”
“It seems they knew each other as children, and why now, who knows, it may all come right after all with that woman out of the way. I’m not a narrow-minded woman, Colonel Weston, and it isn’t that I disapprove of the stage as such—why, quite a lot of my best friends are actresses—but I’ve said to Mr. Gardener all along that there was something evil about that woman. And you see, I’ve been proved right.”
She paused triumphantly.
The lips of Hercule Poirot quivered in a little smile. His eyes met for a minute the shrewd grey eyes of Mr. Gardener.
Colonel Weston said rather desperately:
“Well, thank you, Mrs. Gardener. I suppose there’s nothing that either of you has noticed since you’ve been here that might have a bearing upon the case?”
“Why no, I don’t think so.” Mr. Gardener spoke with a slow drawl. “Mrs. Marshall was around with young Redfern most of the time—but everybody can tell you that.”
“What about her husband? Did he mind, do you think?”
Mr. Gardener said cautiously:
“Captain Marshall is a very reserved man.”
Mrs. Gardener confirmed this by saying:
“Why, yes, he is a real Britisher!”
IV
On the slightly apoplectic countenance of Major Barry various emotions seemed contending for mastery. He was endeavouring to look properly horrified but could not subdue a kind of shamefaced gusto.
He was saying in his hoarse, slightly wheezy voice:
“Glad to help you any way I can. ’Course I don’t know anythin’ about it—nothin’ at all. Not acquainted with the parties. But I’ve knocked about a bit in my time. Lived a lot in the East, you know. And I can tell you that after being in an Indian hill station what you don’t know about human nature isn’t worth knowin’.”
He paused, took a breath and was off again.
“Matter of fact this business reminds me of a case in Simla. Fellow called Robinson, or was it Falconer? Anyway he was in the East Wilts, or was it the North Surreys? Can’t remember now, and anyway it doesn’t matter. Quiet chap, you know, great reader—mild as milk you’d have said. Went for his wife one evening in their bungalow. Got her by the throat. She’d been carryin
’ on with some feller or other and he’d got wise to it. By Jove, he nearly did for her! It was touch and go. Surprised us all! Didn’t think he had it in him.”
Hercule Poirot murmured:
“And you see there an analogy to the death of Mrs. Marshall?”
“Well, what I mean to say—strangled, you know. Same idea. Feller suddenly sees red!”
Poirot said:
“You think that Captain Marshall felt like that?”
“Oh, look here, I never said that.” Major Barry’s face went even redder. “Never said anything about Marshall. Thoroughly nice chap. Wouldn’t say a word against him for the world.”
Poirot murmured:
“Ah, pardon, but you did refer to the natural reactions of a husband.”
Major Barry said:
“Well, I mean to say, I should think she’d been pretty hot stuff. Eh? Got young Redfern on a string all right. And there were probably others before him. But the funny thing is, you know, that husbands are a dense lot. Amazin’. I’ve been surprised by it again and again. They see a feller sweet on their wife but they don’t see that she’s sweet on him! Remember a case like that in Poona. Very pretty woman, Jove, she led her husband a dance—”
Colonel Weston stirred a little restively. He said:
“Yes, yes, Major Barry. For the moment we’ve just got to establish the facts. You don’t know of anything personally—that you’ve seen or noticed that might help us in this case?”
“Well, really, Weston, I can’t say I do. Saw her and young Redfern one afternoon on Gull Cove”—here he winked knowingly and gave a deep hoarse chuckle—“very pretty it was, too. But it’s not evidence of that kind you’re wanting. Ha, ha!”
“You did not see Mrs. Marshall at all this morning?”
“Didn’t see anybody this morning. Went over to St. Loo. Just my luck. Sort of place here where nothin’ happens for months and when it does you miss it!”
The Major’s voice held a ghoulish regret.
Colonel Weston prompted him.
“You went to St. Loo, you say?”
“Yes, wanted to do some telephonin’. No telephone here and that post office place at Leathercombe Bay isn’t very private.”
“Were your telephone calls of a very private nature?”
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