"You have a housekeeper here?"
"Oh, no, M. Poirot. I'm afraid one doesn't run to niceties of that kind nowadays, except in a really large establishment, of course. Oh, no, I'm the housekeeper – more housekeeper than secretary, sometimes, in this house."
She gave a short acid laugh.
"So you are the housekeeper?" Poirot considered her thoughtfully.
He could not see Miss Brewis writing a blackmailing letter. Now, an anonymous letter – that would be a different thing. He had known anonymous letters written by women not unlike Miss Brewis – solid, dependable women, totally unsuspected by those around them.
"What is your butler's name?" he asked.
"Henden." Miss Brewis looked a little astonished.
Poirot recollected himself and explained quickly:
"I ask because I had a fancy I had seen him somewhere before."
"Very likely," said Miss Brewis. "None of these people ever seem to stay in any place more than four months. They must soon have done the round of all the available situations in England. After all, it's not many people who can afford butlers and cooks nowadays."
They came into the drawing-room, where Sir George, looking somehow rather unnatural in a dinner-jacket, was proffering sherry. Mrs Oliver, in iron-grey satin, was looking like an obsolete battleship, and Lady Stubbs's smooth black head was bent down as she studied the fashions in Vogue.
Alec and Sally Legge were dining and also Jim Warburton.
"We've a heavy evening ahead of us," he warned them. "No bridge tonight. All hands to the pump. There are any amount of notices to print, and the big card for the Fortune Telling. What name shall we have? Madame Zuleika? Esmeralda? Or Romany Leigh, the Gipsy Queen?"
"The Eastern touch," said Sally. "Everyone in agricultural districts hates gipsies. Zuleika sounds all right. I brought my paint box over and I thought Michael could do us a curling snake to ornament the notice."
"Cleopatra rather than Zuleika, then?"
Henden appeared at the door.
"Dinner is served, my lady."
They went in. There were candles on the long table. The room was full of shadows.
Warburton and Alec Legge sat on either side of their hostess. Poirot was between Mrs Oliver and Miss Brewis. The latter was engaged in brisk general conversation about further details of preparation for tomorrow.
Mrs Oliver sat in brooding abstraction and hardly spoke.
When she did at last break her silence, it was with a somewhat contradictory explanation.
"Don't bother about me," she said to Poirot. "I'm just remembering if there's anything I've forgotten."
Sir George laughed heartily.
"The fatal flaw, eh?" he remarked.
"That's just it," said Mrs Oliver. "There always is one. Sometimes one doesn't realise it until a book's actually in print. And then it's agony!" Her face reflected this emotion. She sighed. "The curious thing is that most people never notice it. I say to myself, 'But of course the cook would have been bound to notice that two cutlets hadn't been eaten.' But nobody else thinks of it at all."
"You fascinate me." Michael Weyman leant across the table. "The Mystery of the Second Cutlet. Please, please never explain. I shall wonder about it in my bath."
Mrs Oliver gave him an abstracted smile and relapsed into her preoccupations.
Lady Stubbs was also silent. Now and again she yawned. Warburton, Alec Legge and Miss Brewis talked across her.
As they came out of the dining-room, Lady Stubbs stopped by the stairs.
"I'm going to bed," she announced. "I'm very sleepy."
"Oh, Lady Stubbs," exclaimed Miss Brewis, "there's so much to be done. We've been counting on you to help us."
"Yes, I know," said Lady Stubbs. "But I'm going to bed."
She spoke with the satisfaction of a small child.
She turned her head as Sir George came out of the dining-room.
"I'm tired, George. I'm going to bed. You don't mind?"
He came up to her and patted her on the shoulder affectionately.
"You go and get your beauty sleep, Hattie. Be fresh for tomorrow."
He kissed her lightly and she went up the stairs, waving her hand and calling out:
"Good night, all."
Sir George smiled up at her. Miss Brewis drew in her breath sharply and turned brusquely away.
"Come along, everybody," she said, with a forced cheerfulness that did not ring true. "We've got to work."
Presently everyone was set to their tasks. Since Miss Brewis could not be everywhere at once, there were soon some defaulters. Michael Weyman ornamented a placard with a ferociously magnificent serpent and the words, Madame Zuleika will tell your Fortune, and then vanished unobtrusively. Alec Legge did a few nondescript chores and then went out avowedly to measure for the hoop-la and did not reappear. The women, as women do, worked energetically and conscientiously. Hercule Poirot followed his hostess's example and went early to bed.
III
Poirot came down to breakfast on the following morning at nine-thirty. Breakfast was served in pre-war fashion. A row of hot dishes on an electric heater. Sir George was eating a full-sized Englishman's breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and kidneys. Mrs Oliver and Miss Brewis had a modified version of the same. Michael Weyman was eating a plateful of cold ham. Only Lady Stubbs was unheedful of the fleshpots and was nibbling thin toast and sipping black coffee. She was wearing a large pale-pink hat which looked odd at the breakfast table.
The post had just arrived. Miss Brewis had an enormous pile of letters in front of her which she was rapidly sorting into piles. Any of Sir George's marked "Personal" she passed over to him. The others she opened herself and sorted into categories.
Lady Stubbs had three letters. She opened what were clearly a couple of bills and tossed them aside. Then she opened the third letter and said suddenly and clearly:
"Oh!"
The exclamation was so startled that all heads turned towards her.
"It's from Etienne," she said. "My cousin Etienne. He's coming here in a yacht."
"Let's see, Hattie." Sir George held out his hand.
She passed the letter down the table. He smoothed out the sheet and read.
"Who's this Etienne de Sousa? A cousin, you say?"
"I think so. A second cousin. I do not remember him very well – hardly at all. He was -"
"Yes, my dear?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"It does not matter. It is all a long time ago. I was a little girl."
"I suppose you wouldn't remember him very well. But we must make him welcome, of course," said Sir George heartily. "Pity in a way it's the fête today, but we'll ask him to dinner. Perhaps we could put him up for a night or two – show him something of the country?"
Sir George was being the hearty country squire.
Lady Stubbs said nothing. She stared down into her coffee-cup.
Conversation on the inevitable subject of the fête became general. Only Poirot remained detached, watching the slim exotic figure at the head of the table. He wondered just what was going oft in her mind. At that very moment her eyes came up and cast a swift glance along the table to where he sat. It was a look so shrewd and appraising that he was startled. As their eyes met, the shrewd expression vanished – emptiness returned. But that other look had been there, cold, calculating, watchful…
Or had he imagined it? In any case, wasn't it true that people who were slightly mentally deficient very often had a kind of sly native cunning that sometimes surprised even the people who knew them best.
He thought to himself that Lady Stubbs was certainly an enigma. People seemed to hold diametrically opposite ideas concerning her. Miss Brewis had intimated that Lady Stubbs knew very well what she was doing. Yet Mrs Oliver definitely thought her half-witted, and Mrs Folliat who had known her long and intimately had spoken of her as someone not quite normal, who needed care and watchfulness.
Miss Brewis was probably
prejudiced. She disliked Lady Stubbs for her indolence and her aloofness. Poirot wondered if Miss Brewis had been Sir George's secretary prior to his marriage. If so, she might easily resent the coming of the new régime.
Poirot himself would have agreed wholeheartedly with Mrs Folliat and Mrs Oliver – until this morning. And, after all, could he really rely on what had been only a fleeting impression?
Lady Stubbs got up abruptly from the table.
"I have a headache," she said. "I shall go and lie down in my room."
Sir George sprang up anxiously.
"My dear girl. You're all right, aren't you?"
"It's just a headache."
"You'll be fit enough for this afternoon, won't you?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Take some aspirin, Lady Stubbs," said Miss Brewis briskly. "Have you got some or shall I bring it to you?"
"I've got some."
She moved towards the door. As she went she dropped the handkerchief she had been squeezing between her fingers. Poirot, moving quietly forward, picked it up unobtrusively.
Sir George, about to follow his wife, was stopped by Miss Brewis.
"About the parking of cars this afternoon, Sir George. I'm just going to give Mitchell instructions. Do you think that the best plan would be, as you said -?"
Poirot, going out of the room, heard no more.
He caught up his hostess on the stairs.
"Madame, you dropped this."
He proffered the handkerchief with a bow.
She took it unheedingly.
"Did I? Thank you."
"I am most distressed, Madame, that you should be suffering. Particularly when your cousin is coming."
She answered quickly, almost violently.
"I don't want to see Etienne. I don't like him. He's bad. He was always bad. I'm afraid of him. He does bad things."
The door of the dining-room opened and Sir George came across the hall and up the stairs.
"Hattie, my poor darling. Let me come and tuck you up."
They went up the stairs together, his arm round her tenderly, his face worried and absorbed.
Poirot looked up after them, then turned to encounter Miss Brewis moving fast, and clasping papers.
"Lady Stubbs's headache -" he began.
"No more headache than my foot," said Miss Brewis crossly, and disappeared into her office, closing the door behind her.
Poirot sighed and went out through the front door on to the terrace. Mrs Masterton had just driven up in a small car and was directing the elevation of a tea marquee, baying out orders in rich full-blooded tones.
She turned to greet Poirot.
"Such a nuisance, these affairs," she observed. "And they will always put everything in the wrong place. No, Rogers! More to the left – left – not right! What do you think of the weather, M. Poirot? Looks doubtful to me. Rain, of course, would spoil everything. And we've had such a fine summer this year for a change. Where's Sir George? I want to talk to him about car parking."
"His wife has a headache and has gone to lie down."
"She'll be all right this afternoon," said Mrs Masterton confidently. "Likes functions, you know. She'll make a terrific toilet and be as pleased about it as a child. Just fetch me a bundle of those pegs over there, will you? I want to mark the places for the clock golf numbers."
Poirot, thus pressed into service, was worked by Mrs Masterton relentlessly, as a useful apprentice. She condescended to talk to him in the intervals of hard labour.
"Got to do everything yourself, I find. Only way… By the way, you're a friend of the Eliots, I believe?"
Poirot, after his long sojourn in England, comprehended that this was an indication of social recognition. Mrs Masterton was in fact saying: "Although a foreigner, I understand you are One of Us." She continued to chat in an intimate manner.
"Nice to have Nasse lived in again. We were all so afraid it was going to be a hotel. You know what it is nowadays; one drives through the country and passes place after place with the board up 'Guest House' or 'Private Hotel' or 'Hotel A.A. Fully Licensed.' All the houses one stayed in as a girl – or where one went to dances. Very sad. Yes, I'm glad about Nasse and so is poor dear Amy Folliat, of course. She's had such a hard life – but never complains, I will say. Sir George has done wonders for Nasse – and not vulgarised it. Don't know whether that's the result of Amy Folliat's influence – or whether it's his own natural good taste. He has got quite good taste, you know. Very surprising in a man like that."
"He is not, I understand, one of the landed gentry?" said Poirot cautiously.
"He isn't even really Sir George – was christened it, I understand. Took the idea from Lord George Sanger's Circus, I suspect. Very amusing really. Of course we never let on. Rich men must be allowed their little snobberies, don't you agree? The funny thing is that in spite of his origins George Stubbs would go down perfectly well anywhere. He's a throwback. Pure type of the eighteenth century country squire. Good blood in him, I'd say. Father a gent and mother a barmaid, is my guess."
Mrs Masterton interrupted herself to yell to a gardener. "Not by that rhododendron. You must leave room for the skittles over to the right. Right – not left!"
She went on: "Extraordinary how they can't tell their left from their right. The Brewis woman is efficient. Doesn't like poor Hattie, though. Looks at her sometimes as though she'd like to murder her. So many of these good secretaries are in love with their boss. Now where do you think Jim Warburton can have got to? Silly the way he sticks to calling himself 'Captain.' Not a regular soldier and never within miles of a German. One has to put up, of course, with what one can get these days – and he's a hard worker – but I feel there's something rather fishy about him. Ah! Here are the Legges."
Sally Legge, dressed in slacks and a yellow pullover, said brightly:
"We've come to help."
"Lots to do," boomed Mrs Masterton. "Now, let me see…"
Poirot, profiting by her inattention, slipped away. As he came round the corner of the house on to the front terrace he became a spectator of a new drama.
Two young women, in shorts, with bright blouses, had come out from the wood and were standing uncertainly looking up at the house. In one of them he thought he recognised the Italian girl of yesterday's lift in the car. From the window of Lady Stubbs's bedroom Sir George leaned out and addressed them wrathfully.
"You're trespassing," he shouted.
"Please?" said the young woman with the green head-scarf.
"You can't come through here. Private."
The other young woman, who had a royal blue head-scarf, said brightly:
"Please? Nassecombe Quay…" She pronounced it carefully. "It is this way? Please."
"You're trespassing," bellowed Sir George.
"Please?"
"Trespassing! No way through. You've got to go back. BACK! The way you came."
They stared as he gesticulated. Then they consulted together in a flood of foreign speech. Finally, doubtfully, blue-scarf said:
"Back? To Hostel?"
"That's right. And you take the road – road – round that way."
They retreated unwillingly. Sir George mopped his brow and looked down at Poirot.
"Spend my time turning people off," he said. "Used to come through the top gate. I've padlocked that. Now they come through the woods, having got over the fence. Think they can get down to the shore and the quay easily this way. Well, they can, of course, much quicker. But there's no right of way – never has been. And they're practically all foreigners – don't understand what you say, and just jabber back at you in Dutch or something."
"Of these, one is German and the other Italian, I think – I saw the Italian girl on her way from the station yesterday."
"Every kind of language they talk… Yes, Hattie? What did you say?" He drew back into the room.
Poirot turned to find Mrs Oliver and a well-developed girl of fourteen dressed in Guide uniform close behind him.
"This is Marlene," said Mrs Oliver.
Marlene acknowledged the introduction with a pronounced snuffle. Poirot bowed politely.
"She's the Victim," said Mrs Oliver.
Marlene giggled.
"I'm the horrible Corpse," she said. "But I'm not going to have any blood on me." Her tone expressed disappointment.
"No?"
"No. Just strangled with a cord, that's all. I'd of liked to be stabbed – and have lashings of red paint."
"Captain Warburton thought it might look too realistic," said Mrs Oliver.
"In a murder I think you ought to have blood," said Marlene sulkily. She looked at Poirot with hungry interest. "Seen lots of murders, haven't you? So she says."
"One or two," said Poirot modestly.
He observed with alarm that Mrs Oliver was leaving them.
"Any sex maniacs?" asked Marlene with avidity.
"Certainly not."
"I like sex maniacs," said Marlene with relish. " Reading about them, I mean."
"You would probably not like meeting one."
"Oh, I dunno. D'you know what? I believe we've got a sex maniac round here. My granddad saw a body in the woods once. He was scared and ran away, and when he come back it was gone. It was a woman's body. But of course he's batty, my granddad is, so no one listens to what he says."
Poirot managed to escape and regaining the house by a circuitous route, took refuge in his bedroom. He felt in need of repose.
Chapter 6
Lunch was an early and quickly snatched affair of a cold buffet. At two-thirty a minor film star was to open the fête. The weather, after looking ominously like rain, began to improve. By three o'clock the fête was in full swing. People were paying the admission charge of half a crown in large numbers, and cars were lining one side of the long drive. Students from the Youth Hostel arrived in batches conversing loudly in foreign tongues. True to Mrs Masterton's forecast, Lady Stubbs had emerged from her bedroom just before half-past two, dressed in a cyclamen dress with an enormous coolie-shaped hat of black straw. She wore large quantities of diamonds.
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