‘Oh, it is no secret. At fifteen Hattie was mentally undeveloped. Feeble-minded, do you not call it? She is still the same?’
‘It would seem so – yes,’ said Poirot cautiously.
Lopez shrugged his shoulders.
‘Ah well! Why should one ask it of women – that they should be intelligent? It is not necessary.’
Sir George was back, fuming, Miss Brewis with him, speaking rather breathlessly.
‘I’ve no idea where she is, Sir George. I saw her over by the fortune teller’s tent last. But that was at least twenty minutes ago. She’s not in the house.’
‘Is it not possible,’ asked Poirot, ‘that she has gone to observe the progress of Mrs. Oliver’s Murder Hunt?’
Sir George’s brow cleared.
‘That’s probably it. Look here, I can’t leave the shows here. I’m in charge. Could you possibly have a look round, Poirot? You know the course.’
But Poirot did not know the course. However, an inquiry of Miss Brewis gave him rough guidance. Miss Brewis took charge of Paul Lopez and Poirot went off murmuring to himself, ‘Tennis Court, Camellia Garden, The Folly, Upper Nursery Garden, Boathouse …’
As he passed the Coconut Shy he was amused to notice Sir George proffering wooden balls with a dazzling smile of welcome to the same two young women whom he had driven off that morning and who were clearly puzzled at his change of attitude. The fact that this morning they had been trespassers and that this afternoon they were by reason of the payment of two shillings and sixpence legally entitled to the full enjoyment of the grounds of Greenshore House was quite beyond them. They resisted the coconuts and went on to the Bran Tub.
The Dutch girl recognised Poirot and greeted him politely. Both girls had their rucksacks strapped on their shoulders and were perspiring heavily.
‘My friend she goes by the 5 o’clock bus from the gate here to Torquay,’ explained the Dutch girl, ‘and I go across the Ferry and take the bus to Dartmouth at 6 o’clock.’
‘You lead a strenuous life,’ said Poirot.
‘There is much to see and our time is short here.’
Poirot bowed gratefully and went on his way to the Tennis Court. There he drew a blank. He went on to the Camellia Garden.
In the Camellia Garden Poirot found Mrs. Oliver dressed in purple splendour, sitting on a garden seat in a brooding attitude, looking rather like Mrs. Siddons. She beckoned him to the seat beside her.
‘This is only the second Clue,’ she hissed. ‘I think I’ve made them too difficult. Nobody’s come yet.’
At this moment a young man in shorts, with a prominent Adam’s apple, entered the garden. With a cry of satisfaction he hurried to a tree in one corner and a further satisfied cry announced his discovery of the next clue. Passing them, he felt impelled to communicate his satisfaction.
‘Lots of people don’t know about cork trees,’ he said, holding out a small cork. ‘There’s a whole box of them under the tennis net. Clever photograph, but I spotted what it was. This clue will make ’em go looking for a bottle of some kind. Very delicate, cork trees, only hardy in this part of the world. I’m interested in rare shrubs and trees. Now where does one go, I wonder?’
He frowned over the entry in the notebook he carried.
‘I’ve copied the next clue but it doesn’t seem to make sense.’ He eyed them suspiciously. ‘You competing?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Mrs. Oliver. ‘We’re just – looking on.’
‘Righty-ho … “When lovely woman stoops to folly” … I’ve an idea I’ve heard that somewhere.’
‘It is a well-known quotation,’ said Poirot.
‘A Folly can also be a building,’ said Mrs. Oliver, helpfully. ‘White – with pillars,’ she added.
‘That’s an idea! Thanks a lot. They say Mrs. Ariadne Oliver is down here herself somewhere about. I’d like to get her autograph. You haven’t seen her about, have you?’
‘No,’ said Mrs. Oliver firmly.
‘I’d like to meet her. Good yarns she writes.’ He lowered his voice. ‘But they say she drinks like a fish.’
He hurried off and Mrs. Oliver said indignantly, ‘Really! That’s most unfair when I only like lemonade!’
‘And have you not just perpetrated the greatest unfairness in helping that young man towards the next clue?’
‘Considering he’s the only one who’s got here so far, I thought he ought to be encouraged.’
‘But you wouldn’t give him your autograph.’
‘That’s different,’ said Mrs. Oliver. ‘Sh! Here come some more.’
But these were not clue hunters. They were two women who having paid for admittance were determined to get their money’s worth by seeing the grounds thoroughly.
They were hot and dissatisfied.
‘You’d think they’d have some nice flower beds,’ said one to the other. ‘Nothing but trees and more trees. It’s not what I call a garden.’
Mrs. Oliver nudged Poirot, and they slipped quietly away.
‘Supposing,’ said Mrs. Oliver distractedly, ‘that nobody ever finds my body?’
‘Patience, Madame, and courage,’ said Poirot. ‘The afternoon is still young.’
‘That’s true,’ said Mrs. Oliver, brightening. ‘And it’s half price admission after four-thirty, so probably lots of people will flock in. Let’s go and see how that Marlene child is getting on. I don’t really trust that girl, you know. No sense of responsibility. I wouldn’t put it past her to sneak away quietly, instead of being a corpse, and go and have tea. You know what people are like about their teas.’
They proceeded amicably along the woodland path and Poirot commented on the geography of the property.
‘I find it very confusing,’ he said. ‘So many paths, and one is never sure where they lead. And trees, trees everywhere.’
‘You sound like that disgruntled woman we’ve just left.’
They passed the Folly and zigzagged down the path to the river. The outlines of the boathouse showed beneath them.
Poirot remarked that it would be awkward if the Murder searchers were to light upon the boathouse and find the body by accident.
‘A sort of short cut? I thought of that. That’s why the last clue is just a key. You can’t unlock the door without it. It’s a Yale. You can only open it from the inside.’
A short steep slope led down to the door of the boathouse which was built out over the storage space for boats. Mrs. Oliver took a key from a pocket concealed amongst her purple folds and unlocked the door.
‘We’ve just come to cheer you up, Marlene,’ she said brightly as she entered.
She felt slightly remorseful at her unjust suspicions of Marlene’s loyalty, for Marlene, artistically arranged as ‘the body,’ was playing her part nobly, sprawled on the floor by the window.
Marlene made no response. She lay quite motionless. The wind blowing gently through the open window rustled a pile of ‘Comics’ spread out on the table.
‘It’s all right,’ said Mrs. Oliver impatiently. ‘It’s only me and M. Poirot. Nobody’s got any distance with the clues yet.’
Poirot was frowning. Very gently he pushed Mrs. Oliver aside and went and bent over the girl on the floor. A suppressed exclamation came from his lips. He looked up at Mrs. Oliver.
‘So –’ he said. ‘That which you expected has happened.’
‘You don’t mean – ’ Mrs. Oliver’s eyes widened in horror. She grasped for one of the basket chairs and sat down. ‘You can’t mean – She isn’t dead?’
Poirot nodded.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘She is dead. Though not very long dead.’
‘But how –?’
He lifted the corner of the gay scarf bound round the girl’s head, so that Mrs. Oliver could see the ends of the clothes line.
‘Just like my murder,’ said Mrs. Oliver unsteadily. ‘But who? And why?’
‘That is the question,’ said Poirot.
He forebore to add that those had also
been her questions.
And that the answers to them could not be her answers, since the victim was not the Yugoslavian first wife of an Atom Scientist, but Marlene Tucker, a fourteen-year-old village girl who, as far as was known, had not an enemy in the world.
VI
‘I can hardly bear to think of it, M. Poirot,’ said Mrs. Folliat.
She was sitting with him in the small morning room at Greenshore House some three hours later.
Sir George was with a couple of detective officers in the library.
‘A girl whom I’m sure had never done any harm to anybody,’ said Mrs. Folliat. ‘But why – that’s what I can’t understand. Why?’
Her nice smiling elderly face seemed to have aged ten years. Her fingers clasped and unclasped a small lace handkerchief.
Poirot had been struck by her appearance and authority earlier that day. He was struck now by the sudden collapse of this poise, by her very real and almost exaggerated distress. He wondered what it was that Mrs. Folliat knew and he did not.
‘As you said to me only yesterday, Madame, it is a very wicked world.’
‘Did I say that? It’s true – I’m only just beginning to know how true it is … But believe me, M. Poirot, I never dreamed that this would happen …’
He looked at her curiously.
‘Lady Stubbs, this morning –’
She interrupted him vehemently.
‘Don’t speak of her to me. Don’t speak of her, I don’t want to think of her.’
‘She too spoke of wickedness.’
Mrs. Folliat seemed startled.
‘What did she say?’
‘She said of her cousin Paul Lopez that he was wicked – that he was a bad man and that she was afraid of him.’
‘Paul Lopez? You mean that rather handsome dark young man who was here this afternoon?’
‘Yes.’
Mrs. Folliat said impatiently:
‘Pay no attention. Hattie is – like a child. Wicked and good – she uses those terms like a child does. Where can she be? What can have happened to her? I hope – oh! How I hope that she will never come back!’
Poirot was startled by her vehemence. The events of the afternoon made no sense whatever as far as he could see. From four o’clock no one had set eyes on Lady Stubbs. Since about then, the house and the grounds had been thoroughly searched. The police were now searching farther afield. Word had gone out to the railway stations, to the police cars patrolling the district to neighbouring towns, to hotels and guest houses in the vicinity –
Mrs. Folliat in a dry voice put the question that nobody had as yet asked in words.
‘Do they think,’ she said, ‘that Hattie did it? Killed that child? And then ran away?’
‘One does not know what they think.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Madame, in all things there must be a pattern. As yet I cannot see a pattern. What do you think yourself? You know her very well –’
As she did not answer, he added:
‘You are fond of her.’
‘I was very fond of Hattie – very fond indeed.’
‘You use the past tense, I notice.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘You believe, perhaps, that Lady Stubbs is dead?’
Mrs. Folliat stared straight in front of her. Then she said in a voice that was little more than a whisper.
‘It would be better if she were dead – so much better.’
‘I think perhaps I understand you. She was mentally subnormal. Her cousin mentioned it casually this afternoon. Such people are not always accountable for their actions. A sudden fit of rage –’
But Mrs. Folliat turned on him angrily.
‘Hattie was never like that. She was a gentle warm-hearted girl. She would never have killed anyone.’
Poirot looked at her in some perplexity. He patched together certain fragments in his mind. Hadn’t there been something a little theatrical about the sudden arrival of Lopez today? And Hattie’s reaction to it – the calculating glance, the strongly expressed words of fear and dislike. He thought that he would like to know a little more about Paul Lopez. What part did Lopez play in all this? If Hattie Stubbs was dead – if she had been killed – and if in some way Marlene Tucker had been a witness to the killing … Then Marlene too would have been silenced …
Sir George Stubbs came into the room.
‘Detective Inspector Bland would like to see you in the library, M. Poirot,’ he said.
Poirot got up and went across to the library.
Constable Hoskins who had been first on the scene, sat at a table by the wall. He had now been joined by Inspector Bland. The latter, speaking in soft pleasant Devon voice, greeted Poirot with a mention of mutual friend Superintendent Scott.
‘He’s an old buddy of mine, M. Poirot, and he’s often spoken to me about you. I feel I know you quite well.’
They spoke for a moment of the Superintendent and then Bland went on.
‘I hope you can give us some help over this business, M. Poirot. We’re very much in the dark. You’re staying in the house, I understand? Is there – forgive me for asking – any special reason for that?’
‘Not of the kind you mean. I am not here, that is to say professionally. Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, the detective novelist, was commissioned to devise a Murder Hunt for the Fête today, and being an old friend of mine, she suggested that I should be asked to present the prize for the best solution.’
‘I see. But since you’ve been staying in this house you’ve had the opportunity of observing people.’
‘For a very short time,’ Poirot pointed out.
‘Nevertheless you can perhaps tell us certain things we would be glad to know. To begin with, what were the relations between Sir George Stubbs and his wife?’
‘Excellent, I should say.’
‘No disagreements, quarrels? Signs of nervous strain?’
‘I shouldn’t say so. Sir George appeared to be devoted to his wife and she to him.’
‘No reason, therefore, for her to walk out on him?’
‘I should have said, no reason whatever.’
‘In fact, you think it unlikely?’ the Inspector pressed him.
‘I would never say that anything a woman does is unlikely, said Poirot cautiously. ‘Women have curious reasons for the things they do which cannot be appreciated by us. I will admit that it seems an odd time to choose – in the middle of a Fête. Lady Stubbs was wearing Ascot clothes and very high heels.’
‘There’s been no indication of – another man?’
Poirot hesitated for a moment before he spoke.
‘There is a young man here, Michael Weyman, an architect. He was attracted to her – definitely, I should say. And she knew it.’
‘Was she attracted by him?’
‘She may have been. I do not really think so.’
‘He’s still here, at any rate,’ said Bland. ‘And worried to death about what’s happened to her – unless he’s a better actor than I think. As far as that goes, they’re all worried – not unnaturally. Let’s have it frankly – was she homicidal, M. Poirot?’
‘I should not have said so – And Mrs. Folliat who knows her well stoutly denies it.’
Constable Hoskins spoke unexpectedly.
‘Tis well known hereabouts as she’s queer in the head – Not all there, is the way I’d put it. Funny kind of laugh she had.’
Bland rubbed his forehead in a worried manner.
‘These feeble-minded people,’ he said. ‘They seem all right – perfectly good natured – but some little thing may set them off. Supposing that she thought she saw the devil in Marlene Tucker’s eyes – oh! I know that sounds fantastic, but there was a case like that in North Devon not very long ago. A woman was convinced that it was her duty to destroy evil! Lady Stubbs may have killed this girl for some balmy reason of her own. Then when she came to herself, she may have realised what she’d done and gone down to the river and drow
ned herself.’
Poirot was silent. His mind had wandered away from the Inspector’s words. He was hearing again the voice in which Mrs. Folliat had said yesterday that it was a wicked world and that there were very wicked people in it. Supposing that it was Mrs. Folliat who had seen evil in Marlene Tucker … supposing that it was Mrs. Folliat who had felt divinely inspired to tighten a cord and choke the devil in Marlene Tucker … And Hattie Stubbs, seeking to avoid her unwanted cousin, came to the boathouse and found Mrs. Folliat with Marlene’s dead body. However fond Hattie had been of Mrs. Folliat, nobody with Hattie’s mentality could be relied upon to keep silence. So what then? Had Mrs. Folliat managed to silence Hattie too? But if so, where was Hattie’s body? Frail little Mrs. Folliat could hardly have disposed of it without help.
It came back to the same finding:
Where was Hattie Stubbs?
Inspector Bland said frowning:
‘It seems as though the two things have got to tie up – the murder and the disappearance. They can’t be two entirely unrelated happenings – especially as there seems no reason for Lady Stubbs suddenly going off like that –’
The lady might have just wandered away, seeing as she’s balmy,’ the Constable offered.
‘There would have to be some reason,’ said Bland obstinately.
He looked inquiringly at Poirot.
‘You can’t suggest anything, M. Poirot?’
‘She was startled and upset at breakfast this morning when she received a letter saying Mr. Lopez was coming here today.’
Bland raised his eyebrows.
‘But he’d written to her before he left the West Indies – saying that he was coming to England.’
‘Is that what he told you?’
‘That’s what he said, yes.’
Poirot shook his head.
‘Either he is lying – or else that letter of his was suppressed. Lady Stubbs did not receive it. Both she and Sir George appeared completely taken by surprise this morning.’
‘And was she upset?’
‘She was very upset. She told me that her cousin was a bad man and did bad things, and that she was afraid of him.’
‘She was afraid of him – eh?’
Bland considered the point.
‘Lopez has been thoroughly co-operative,’ he said. ‘He’s what I call the smarmy type – one doesn’t know what he’s really thinking, but he was most polite. We called upon him on his yacht and he went out of his way to insist we looked over it. He assured us that Lady Stubbs had not come to the yacht, and that he hadn’t seen her at all.’
Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly Page 5