“It is very possible that you are right, Madame,” said Poirot. It was clearly the only thing one could say to Mrs. Masterton.
“Of course I’m right,” said Mrs. Masterton; “but I must say, you know, it makes me very uneasy because the fellow is somewhere about. I’m calling in at the village when I leave here, telling the mothers to be very careful about their daughters—not let ’em go about alone. It’s not a nice thought, M. Poirot, to have a killer in our midst.”
“A little point, Madame. How could a strange man have obtained admission to the boathouse? That would need a key.”
“Oh, that,” said Mrs. Masterton, “that’s easy enough. She came out, of course.”
“Came out of the boathouse?”
“Yes. I expect she got bored, like girls do. Probably wandered out and looked about her. The most likely thing, I think, is that she actually saw Hattie Stubbs murdered. Heard a struggle or something, went to see and the man, having disposed of Lady Stubbs, naturally had to kill her too. Easy enough for him to take her back to the boathouse, dump her there and come out, pulling the door behind him. It was a Yale lock. It would pull to, and lock.”
Poirot nodded gently. It was not his purpose to argue with Mrs. Masterton or to point out to her the interesting fact which she had completely overlooked, that if Marlene Tucker had been killed away from the boathouse, somebody must have known enough about the murder game to put her back in the exact place and position which the victim was supposed to assume. Instead, he said gently:
“Sir George Stubbs is confident that his wife is still alive.”
“That’s what he says, man, because he wants to believe it. He was very devoted to her, you know.” She added, rather unexpectedly, “I like George Stubbs in spite of his origins and his city background and all that, he goes down very well in the county. The worst that can be said about him is that he’s a bit of a snob. And after all, social snobbery’s harmless enough.”
Poirot said somewhat cynically:
“In these days, Madame, surely money has become as acceptable as good birth.”
“My dear man, I couldn’t agree with you more. There’s no need for him to be a snob—only got to buy the place and throw his money about, and we’d all come and call! But actually, the man’s liked. It’s not only his money. Of course Amy Folliat’s had something to do with that. She has sponsored them, and mind you, she’s got a lot of influence in this part of the world. Why, there have been Folliats here since Tudor times.”
“There have always been Folliats at Nasse House,” Poirot murmured to himself.
“Yes.” Mrs. Masterton sighed. “It’s sad, the toll taken by the war. Young men killed in battle—death duties and all that. Then whoever comes into a place can’t afford to keep it up and has to sell—”
“But Mrs. Folliat, although she has lost her home, still lives on the estate.”
“Yes. She’s made the Lodge quite charming too. Have you been inside it?”
“No, we parted at the door.”
“It wouldn’t be everybody’s cup of tea,” said Mrs. Masterton. “To live at the lodge of your old home and see strangers in possession. But to do Amy Folliat justice I don’t think she feels bitter about that. In fact, she engineered the whole thing. There’s no doubt she imbued Hattie with the idea of living down here, and got her to persuade George Stubbs into it. The thing, I think, that Amy Folliat couldn’t have borne was to see the place turned into a hostel or institution, or carved up for building.” She rose to her feet. “Well, I must be getting along. I’m a busy woman.”
“Of course. You have to talk to the Chief Constable about bloodhounds.”
Mrs. Masterton gave a sudden deep bay of laughter. “Used to breed ’em at one time,” she said. “People tell me I’m a bit like a bloodhound myself.”
Poirot was slightly taken aback and she was quick enough to see it.
“I bet you’ve been thinking so, M. Poirot,” she said.
Thirteen
After Mrs. Masterton had left, Poirot went out and strolled through the woods. His nerves were not quite what they should be. He felt an irresistible desire to look behind every bush and to consider every thicket of rhododendron as a possible hiding place for a body. He came at last to the Folly and, going inside it, he sat down on the stone bench there, to rest his feet which were, as was his custom, enclosed in tight, pointed patent leather shoes.
Through the trees he could catch faint glimmers of the river and of the wooded banks on the opposite side. He found himself agreeing with the young architect that this was no place to put an architectural fantasy of this kind. Gaps could be cut in the trees, of course, but even then there would be no proper view. Whereas, as Michael Weyman had said, on the grassy bank near the house a Folly could have been erected with a delightful vista right down the river to Helmmouth. Poirot’s thoughts flew off at a tangent. Helmmouth, the yacht Espérance, and Etienne de Sousa. The whole thing must tie up in some kind of pattern, but what the pattern was he could not visualize. Tempting strands of it showed here and there but that was all.
Something that glittered caught his eye and he bent to pick it up. It had come to rest in a small crack of the concrete base to the temple. He held it in the palm of his hand and looked at it with a faint stirring of recognition. It was a little gold aeroplane charm. As he frowned at it, a picture came into his mind. A bracelet. A gold bracelet hung over with dangling charms. He was sitting once more in the tent and the voice of Madame Zuleika, alias Sally Legge, was talking of dark women and journeys across the sea and good fortune in a letter. Yes, she had had on a bracelet from which depended a multiplicity of small gold objects. One of these modern fashions which repeated the fashions of Poirot’s early days. Probably that was why it had made an impression on him. Some time or other, presumably, Mrs. Legge had sat here in the Folly, and one of the charms had fallen from her bracelet. Perhaps she had not even noticed it. It might have been yesterday afternoon.
Poirot considered that latter point. Then he heard footsteps outside and looked up sharply. A figure came round to the front of the Folly and stopped, startled, at the sight of Poirot. Poirot looked with a considering eye on the slim, fair young man wearing a shirt on which a variety of tortoise and turtle was depicted. The shirt was unmistakable. He had observed it closely yesterday when its wearer was throwing coconuts.
He noticed that the young man was almost unusually perturbed. He said quickly in a foreign accent:
“I beg your pardon—I did not know—”
Poirot smiled gently at him but with a reproving air.
“I am afraid,” he said, “that you are trespassing.”
“Yes, I am sorry.”
“You come from the hostel?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. I thought perhaps one could get through the woods this way and so to the quay.”
“I am afraid,” said Poirot gently, “that you will have to go back the way you came. There is no through road.”
The young man said again, showing all his teeth in a would-be agreeable smile:
“I am sorry. I am very sorry.”
He bowed and turned away.
Poirot came out of the Folly and back on to the path, watching the boy retreat. When he got to the ending of the path, he looked over his shoulder. Then, seeing Poirot watching him, he quickened his pace and disappeared round the bend.
“Eh bien,” said Poirot to himself, “is this a murderer I have seen, or is it not?”
The young man had certainly been at the fête yesterday and had scowled when he had collided with Poirot, and just as certainly therefore he must know quite well that there was no through path by way of the woods to the ferry. If, indeed, he had been looking for a path to the ferry he would not have taken this path by the Folly, but would have kept on the lower level near the river. Moreover, he had arrived at the Folly with the air of one who has reached his rendezvous, and who is badly startled at finding the wrong person at the meeting place.
�
��So it is like this,” said Poirot to himself. “He came here to meet someone. Who did he come to meet?” He added as an afterthought, “And why?”
He strolled down to the bend of the path and looked at it where it wound away into the trees. There was no sign of the young man in the turtle shirt now. Presumably he had deemed it prudent to retreat as rapidly as possible. Poirot retraced his steps, shaking his head.
Lost in thought, he came quietly round the side of the Folly, and stopped on the threshold, startled in his turn. Sally Legge was there on her knees, her head bent down to the cracks in the flooring. She jumped up, startled.
“Oh, M. Poirot, you gave me such a shock. I didn’t hear you coming.”
“You were looking for something, Madame?”
“I—no, not exactly.”
“You had lost something, perhaps,” said Poirot. “Dropped something. Or perhaps…” He adopted a roguish, gallant air, “Or perhaps, Madame, it is a rendezvous. I am, most unfortunately, not the person you came to meet?”
She had recovered her aplomb by now.
“Does one ever have rendezvous in the middle of the morning?” she demanded, questioningly.
“Sometimes,” said Poirot, “one has to have a rendezvous at the only time one can. Husbands,” he added sententiously, “are sometimes jealous.”
“I doubt if mine is,” said Sally Legge.
She said the words lightly enough, but behind them Poirot heard an undertone of bitterness.
“He’s so completely engrossed in his own affairs.”
“All women complain of that in husbands,” said Poirot. “Especially in English husbands,” he added.
“You foreigners are more gallant.”
“We know,” said Poirot, “that it is necessary to tell a woman at least once a week, and preferably three or four times, that we love her; and that it is also wise to bring her a few flowers, to pay her a few compliments, to tell her that she looks well in her new dress or new hat.”
“Is that what you do?”
“I, Madame, am not a husband,” said Hercule Poirot. “Alas!” he added.
“I’m sure there’s no alas about it. I’m sure you’re quite delighted to be a carefree bachelor.”
“No, no, Madame, it is terrible all that I have missed in life.”
“I think one’s a fool to marry,” said Sally Legge.
“You regret the days when you painted in your studio in Chelsea?”
“You seem to know all about me, M. Poirot?”
“I am a gossip,” said Hercule Poirot. “I like to hear all about people.” He went on, “Do you really regret, Madame?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She sat down impatiently on the seat. Poirot sat beside her.
He witnessed once more the phenomenon to which he was becoming accustomed. This attractive, redhaired girl was about to say things to him that she would have thought twice about saying to an Englishman.
“I hoped,” she said, “that when we came down here for a holiday away from everything, that things would be the same again…But it hasn’t worked out like that.”
“No?”
“No. Alec’s just as moody and—oh, I don’t know—wrapped up in himself. I don’t know what’s the matter with him. He’s so nervy and on edge. People ring him up and leave queer messages for him and he won’t tell me anything. That’s what makes me mad. He won’t tell me anything! I thought at first it was some other woman, but I don’t think it is. Not really….”
But her voice held a certain doubt which Poirot was quick to notice.
“Did you enjoy your tea yesterday afternoon, Madame?” he asked.
“Enjoy my tea?” She frowned at him, her thoughts seeming to come back from a long way away. Then she said hastily, “Oh, yes. You’ve no idea how exhausting it was, sitting in that tent muffled up in all those veils. It was stifling.”
“The tea tent also must have been somewhat stifling?”
“Oh, yes, it was. However, there’s nothing like a cuppa, is there?”
“You were searching for something just now, were you not, Madame? Would it, by any possibility, be this?” He held out in his hand the little gold charm.
“I—oh, yes. Oh, thank you, M. Poirot. Where did you find it?”
“It was here, on the floor, in that crack over there.”
“I must have dropped it some time.”
“Yesterday?”
“Oh, no, not yesterday. It was before that.”
“But surely, Madame, I remember seeing that particular charm on your wrist when you were telling me my fortune.”
Nobody could tell a deliberate lie better than Hercule Poirot. He spoke with complete assurance and before that assurance Sally Legge’s eyelids dropped.
“I don’t really remember,” she said. “I only noticed this morning that it was missing.”
“Then I am happy,” said Poirot gallantly, “to be able to restore it to you.”
She was turning the little charm over nervously in her fingers. Now she rose.
“Well, thank you, M. Poirot, thank you very much,” she said. Her breath was coming rather unevenly and her eyes were nervous.
She hurried out of the Folly. Poirot leaned back in the seat and nodded his head slowly.
No, he said to himself, no, you did not go to the tea tent yesterday afternoon. It was not because you wanted your tea that you were so anxious to know if it was four o’clock. It was here you came yesterday afternoon. Here, to the Folly. Halfway to the boathouse. You came here to meet someone.
Once again he heard footsteps approaching. Rapid impatient footsteps. “And here perhaps,” said Poirot, smiling in anticipation, “comes whoever it was that Mrs. Legge came up here to meet.”
But then, as Alec Legge came round the corner of the Folly, Poirot ejaculated:
“Wrong again.”
“Eh? What’s that?” Alec Legge looked startled.
“I said,” explained Poirot, “that I was wrong again. I am not often wrong,” he explained, “and it exasperates me. It was not you I expected to see.”
“Whom did you expect to see?” asked Alec Legge.
Poirot replied promptly.
“A young man—a boy almost—in one of these gaily-patterned shirts with turtles on it.”
He was pleased at the effect of his words. Alec Legge took a step forward. He said rather incoherently:
“How do you know? How did—what d’you mean?”
“I am psychic,” said Hercule Poirot, and closed his eyes.
Alec Legge took another couple of steps forward. Poirot was conscious that a very angry man was standing in front of him.
“What the devil did you mean?” he demanded.
“Your friend has, I think,” said Poirot, “gone back to the Youth Hostel. If you want to see him you will have to go there to find him.”
“So that’s it,” muttered Alec Legge.
He dropped down at the other end of the stone bench.
“So that’s why you’re down here? It wasn’t a question of ‘giving away the prizes.’ I might have known better.” He turned towards Poirot. His face was haggard and unhappy. “I know what it must seem like,” he said. “I know what the whole thing looks like. But it isn’t as you think it is. I’m being victimized. I tell you that once you get into these people’s clutches, it isn’t so easy to get out of them. And I want to get out of them. That’s the point. I want to get out of them. You get desperate, you know. You feel like taking desperate measures. You feel you’re caught like a rat in a trap and there’s nothing you can do. Oh, well, what’s the good of talking! You know what you want to know now, I suppose. You’ve got your evidence.”
He got up, stumbled a little as though he could hardly see his way, then rushed off energetically without a backward look.
Hercule Poirot remained behind with his eyes very wide open and his eyebrows rising.
“All this is very curious,” he murmured. “Curious and interesting. I have the evidence I
need, have I? Evidence of what? Murder?”
Fourteen
I
Inspector Bland sat in Helmmouth Police Station. Superintendent Baldwin, a large comfortable-looking man, sat on the other side of the table. Between the two men, on the table, was a black sodden mass. Inspector Bland poked at it with a cautious forefinger.
“That’s her hat all right,” he said. “I’m sure of it, though I don’t suppose I could swear to it. She fancied that shape, it seems. So her maid told me. She’d got one or two of them. A pale pink and a sort of puce colour, but yesterday she was wearing the black one. Yes, this is it. And you fished it out of the river? That makes it look as though it’s the way we think it is.”
“No certainty yet,” said Baldwin. “After all,” he added, “anyone could throw a hat into the river.”
“Yes,” said Bland, “they could throw it in from the boathouse, or they could throw it in off a yacht.”
“The yacht’s sewed up, all right,” said Baldwin. “If she’s there, alive or dead, she’s still there.”
“He hasn’t been ashore today?”
“Not so far. He’s on board. He’s been sitting out in a deck chair smoking a cigar.”
Inspector Bland glanced at the clock.
“Almost time to go aboard,” he said.
“Think you’ll find her?” asked Baldwin.
“I wouldn’t bank on it,” said Bland. “I’ve got the feeling, you know, that he’s a clever devil.” He was lost in thought for a moment, poking again at the hat. Then he said, “What about the body—if there was a body? Any ideas about that?”
“Yes,” said Baldwin, “I talked to Otterweight this morning. Ex-coastguard man. I always consult him in anything to do with tides and currents. About the time the lady went into the Helm, if she did go into the Helm, the tide was just on the ebb. There is a full moon now and it would be flowing swiftly. Reckon she’d be carried out to sea and the current would take her towards the Cornish coast. There’s no certainty where the body would fetch up or if it would fetch up at all. One or two drownings we’ve had here, we’ve never recovered the body. It gets broken up, too, on the rocks. Here, by Start Point. On the other hand, it might fetch up any day.”
Dead Man's Folly Page 13
