"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 forbore 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.
Chapter 7
Detective Inspector Bland sat behind a table in the study. Sir George had met him on arrival, had taken him down to the boathouse and had now returned with him to the house. Down at the boathouse a photographic unit was now busy and the fingerprint men and the medical officer had just arrived.
"This do for you here all right?" asked Sir George.
"Very nicely, thank you, sir."
"What am I to do about this show that's going on, tell 'em about it, stop it, or what?"
Inspector Bland considered for a moment or two.
"What have you done so far, Sir George?" he asked.
"Haven't said anything. There's a sort of idea floating round that there's been an accident. Nothing more than that. I don't think anyone's suspected yet that it's – er – well, murder."
"Then leave things as they are just for the moment," decided Bland. "The news will get round fast enough, I dare say," he added cynically. He thought again for a moment or two before asking, "How many people do you think there are at this affair?"
"Couple of hundred I should say," answered Sir George, "and more pouring in every moment. People seem to have come from a good long way round. In fact the whole thing's being a roaring success. Damned unfortunate."
Inspector Bland inferred correctly that it was the murder an not the success of the fête to which Sir George was referring.
"A couple of hundred," he mused, "and any one of them I suppose could have done it."
He sighed.
"Tricky, said Sir George sympathetically. "But I don't see what reason any one of them could have had. The whole thing seems quite fantastic – don't see who would want to go murdering a girl like that."
"How much can you tell me about the girl? She was a local girl, I understand?"
"Yes. Her people live in one of the cottages down near the quay. Her father works at one of the local farms – Paterson's, I think." He added, "The mother is here at the fête this afternoon. Miss Brewis – that's my secretary, and se can tell you about everything much better than I can – Miss Brewis winkled the woman out and has got her somewhere, giving her cups of tea."
"Quite so," said the inspector, approvingly. "I'm not quite clear yet, Sir George, as to the circumstances of all this. What was the girl doing down there in the boathouse? I understand there's some kind of a murder hunt – or treasure hunt, going on."
Sir George nodded.
"Yes. We all thought it rather a bright idea. Doesn't seem quite so bright now. I think Miss Brewis can probably explain it all to you better than I can. I'll send her to you, shall I? Unless there's anything else you want to know about first."
"Not at the moment, Sir George. I may have more questions to ask you later. There are people I shall want to see. You, and Lady Stubbs, and the people who discovered the body. One of them, I gather, is the woman novelist who designed this murder hunt as you call it."
"That's right. Mrs Oliver. Mrs Ariadne Oliver."
The inspector's eyebrows went up slightly.
"Oh – her!" he said. "Quite a best-seller. I've read a lot of her books myself."
"She's a bit upset at present," said Sir George, "naturally, I suppose. I'll tell her you'll be wanting her, shall I? I don't know where my wife is. She seems to have disappeared completely from view. Somewhere among the two or three hundred, I suppose – not that she'll be able to tell you much. I mean about the girl or anything like that. Who would you like to see first?"
"I think perhaps your secretary, Miss Brewis, and after that the girl's mother."
Sir George nodded and left the room.
The local police constable Robert Hoskins, opened the door for him and shut it after he went out. He then volunteered a statement obviously intended as a commentary on some of Sir George's remarks.
"Lady Stubbs is a bit wanting," he said, "up here."
He tapped his forehead. "That's why he said she wouldn't be much help. Scatty, that's what she is."
"Did he marry a local girl?"
"No. Foreigner of some sort. Coloured, some say, but I don't think that's so myself."
Bland nodded. He was silent for a moment, doodling with a pencil on a sheet of paper in front of him. Then he asked a question which was clearly off the record.
"Who did it, Hoskins?" he said.
If anyone did have any ideas as to what had been going on, Bland thought, it would be P.C. Hoskins. Hoskins was a man of inquisitive mind with a great interest in everybody and everything. He had a gossiping wife and that, taken with his position as local constable, provided him with vast stores of information of a personal nature.
"Foreigner, if you ask me. 'Twouldn't be anyone local. The Tuckers is all right. Nice, respectable family. Nine of 'em all told. Two of the older girls is married, one boy in the Navy, the other one's doing his National Service, another girl's over to a hairdresser's at Torquay. There's three younger ones at home, two boys and a girl." He paused, considering. "None of 'em's what you'd call bright, but Mrs Tucker keeps her home nice, clean as a pin – youngest of eleven, she was. She's got her old father living with her."
Bland received this information in silence. Given in Hoskins's particular idiom, it was an outline of the Tuckers' social position and standing.
"That's why I say it was a foreigner" continued Hoskins. "One of those that stop up to the Hostel at Hoodown, likely as not. There's some queer ones among them – and a lot of goings-on. Be surprised, you would, at what I've seen 'em doing in the bushes and the woods! Every bit as bad as what goes on in parked cars along the Common."
P.C. Hoskins was by this time an absolute specialist on the subject of sexual "goings-on." They formed a large portion of his conversation when off duty and having his pint in the Bull and Bear. Bland said:
"I don't think there was anything – well, of that kind. The doctor will tell us, of course, as soon as he's finished his examination."
"Yes, sir, that'll be up to him, that will. But what I say is, you never know with foreigners. Turn nasty, they can, all in a moment."
Inspector Bland sighed as he thought to himself that it was not quite as easy as that. It was all very well for Constable Hoskins to put the blame conveniently on "foreigners." The door opened and the doctor walked in.
"Done my bit," he marked. "Shall they take her away now? The other outfits have packed up."
"Sergeant Cottrill will attend to that," said Bland. "Well, Doc, what's the finding?"
"Simple and straightforward as it can be," said the doctor. "No complications. Garrotted with a piece of clothes line. Nothing could be simpler or easier to do. No struggle of any kind beforehand. I'd say the kid didn't know what was happening to her until it had happened."
"Any signs of assault?"
"None. No assault, signs of rape, or interference of any kind."
"Not presumably a sexual crime, then?"
"I wouldn't say so, no." The doctor added, "I shouldn't say she'd been a particularly attractive girl."
"Was she fond of the boys?"
Bland addressed this question to Constable Hoskins.
"I wouldn't say they'd much use for her," said Constable Hoskins, "though maybe she'd have liked it if they had."
"Maybe," agreed Bland. His mind went back to the pile of comic papers in the boathouse and the idle scrawls on the margin. "Johnny goes with Kate," "Georgie Porgie kisses hikers in the wood." He thought the
re had been a little wishful thinking there. On the whole, though, it seemed unlikely that there was a sex angle to Marlene Tucker's death. Although, of course, one never knew… There were always those queer criminal individuals, men with a secret lust to kill, who specialised in immature female victims. One of these might be present in this part of the world during this holiday season. He almost believed that it must be so – for otherwise he could really see no reason for so pointless a crime. However, he thought, we're only at the beginning. I'd better see what all these people have to tell me.
"What about time of death?" he asked.
The doctor glanced over at the clock and his own watch.
"Just after half-past five now," he said. "say I saw her about twenty past five – she'd been dead about an hour. Roughly, that is to say. Put it between four o'clock and twenty to five. Let you know if there's anything more after the autopsy." He added: "You'll get the proper report with the long words in due course. I'll be off now. I've got some patients to see."
He left the room and Inspector Bland asked Hoskins to fetch Miss Brewis. His spirits rose a little when Miss Brewis came into the room. Here, as he recognised at once, was efficiency. He would get clear answers to his questions, definite times and no muddle-headedness.
"Mrs Tucker's in my sitting-room," Miss Brewis said as she sat down. "I've broken the news to her and given her some tea. She's very upset, naturally. She wanted to see the body but I told her it was much better not. Mr Tucker gets off work at six o'clock and was coming to join his wife here. I told them to look out for him and bring him along when he arrives. The younger children are at the fête still, and someone is keeping an eye on them."
"Excellent," said Inspector Bland, with approval. "I think before I see Mrs Tucker I would like to hear what you and Lady Stubbs can tell me."
"I don't know where Lady Stubbs is," said Miss Brewis acidly. "I rather imagine she got bored with the fête and has wandered off somewhere, but I don't expect she can tell you anything more than I can. What exactly is it that you want to know?"
"I want to know all the details of this murder hunt first and of how this girl, Marlene Tucker, came to be taking a part in it."
"That's quite easy."
Succinctly and clearly Miss Brewis explained the idea of the murder hunt as an original attraction for the fête, the engaging of Mrs Oliver, the well-known novelist, to arrange the matter, and a short outline of the plot.
"Originally," Miss Brewis explained, "Mrs Alec Legge was to have taken the part of the victim."
"Mrs Alec Legge?" queried the inspector.
Constable Hoskins put in an explanatory word.
"She and Mr Legge have the Lawders' cottage, the pink one down by Mill Creek. Came here a month ago, they did. Two or three months they got it for."
"I see. And Mrs Legge, you say, was to be the original victim? Why was that changed?"
"Well, one evening Mrs Legge told all our fortunes and was so good at it that it was decided we'd have a fortune teller's tent as one of the attractions and that Mrs Legge should put on Eastern dress and be Madame Zuleika and tell fortunes at half a crown a time. I don't think that's really illegal, is it, Inspector? I mean it's usually done at these kind of fêtes."
Inspector Bland smiled faintly.
"Fortune telling and raffles aren't always taken too seriously, Miss Brewis," he said. "Now and then we have to – er – make an example."
"But usually you're tactful? Well, that's how it was. Mrs Legge agreed to help us that way and so we had to find somebody else to do the body. The local Guides were helping us at the fête, and I think someone suggested that one of the Guides would do quite well."
"Just who was it who suggested that, Miss Brewis?"
"Really, I don't quite know… I think it may have been Mrs Masterton, the Member's wife. No, perhaps it was Captain Warburton… Really, I can't be sure. But, anyway, it was suggested."
"Is there any reason why this particular girl should have been chosen?"
"N-no, I don't think so. Her people are tenants on the estate, and her mother, Mrs Tucker, sometimes comes to help in the kitchen. I don't know quite why we settled on her. Probably her name came to mind first. We asked her and she seemed quite pleased to do it."
"She definitely wanted to do it?"
"Oh, yes, I think she was flattered. She was a very moronic kind of girl," continued Miss Brewis, "she couldn't have acted a part or anything like that. But this was all very simple, and she felt she'd been singled out from the others and was pleased about it."
"What exactly was it that she had to do?"
"She had to stay in the boathouse. When she heard anyone coming to the door she was to lie down on the floor, put the cord round her neck and sham dead." Miss Brewis's tones were calm and business-like. The fact that the girl who was to sham dead had actually been found dead did not at the moment appear to affect her emotionally.
"Rather a boring way for the girl to spend the afternoon when she might have been at the fête," suggested Inspector Bland.
"I suppose it was in a way," said Miss Brewis, "but one can't have everything, can one? And Marlene did enjoy the idea of being the body. It made her feel important. She had a pile of papers and things to read to keep her amused."
"And something to eat as well?" said the inspector. "I noticed there was a tray down there with a plate and glass."
"Oh, yes, she had a big plate of sweet cakes, and a raspberry fruit drink. I took them down to her myself."
Bland looked up sharply.
"You took them down to her? When?"
"About the middle of the afternoon."
"What time exactly? Can you remember?"
Miss Brewis considered a moment.
"Let me see. Children's Fancy Dress was judged, there was a little delay – Lady Stubbs couldn't be found, but Mrs Folliat took her place, so that was all right… Yes, it must have been – I'm almost sure – about five minutes past four that I collected the cakes and the fruit drink."
"And you took them down to her at the boathouse yourself. What time did you reach there?"
"Oh, it takes about five minutes to go down to the boathouse – about quarter past four, I should think."
"And at quarter past four Marlene Tucker was alive and well?"
"Yes, of course," said Miss Brewis, "and very eager to know how people were getting on with the murder hunt, too. I'm afraid I couldn't tell her. I'd been too busy with the side shows on the lawn, but I did know that a lot of people had entered for it. Twenty or thirty to my own knowledge. Probably a good many more."
"How did you find Marlene when you arrived at the boathouse?"
"I've just told you."
"No, no, I don't mean that. I mean, was she lying on the floor shamming dead when you opened the door?"
"Oh, no," said Miss Brewis, "because I called out just before I got there. So she opened the door and I took the tray in and put it on the table."
"At a quarter past four," said Bland, writing it down, "Marlene Tucker was alive and well. You will understand, I'm sure, Miss Brewis, that that is a very important point. You are quite sure of your times?"
"I can't be exactly sure because I didn't look at my watch, but I had looked at it a short time previously and that's as near as I can get." She added, with a sudden dawning realisation of the inspector's point, "Do you mean that it was soon after -"
"It can't have been very long after, Miss Brewis."
"Oh, dear," said Miss Brewis.
It was a rather inadequate expression, but nevertheless it conveyed well enough Miss Brewis's dismay and concern.
"Now, Miss Brewis, on your way down to the boathouse and on your way back again to the house, did you meet anybody or see anyone near the boathouse?"
Miss Brewis considered.
"No," she said, "I didn't meet anyone. I might have, of course, because the grounds are open to everyone this afternoon. But on the whole, people tend to stay round the lawn and the side shows a
nd all that. They like to go round the kitchen gardens and the greenhouses, but they don't walk through the woodlands as much as I should have thought they would. People tend to herd together very much at these affairs, don't you think so, Inspector?"
The inspector said that that was probably so.
"Though, I think," said Miss Brewis, with sudden memory, "that there was someone in the Folly."
"The Folly?"
"Yes. A small white temple arrangement. It was put up just a year or two ago. It's to the right of the path as you go down to the boathouse. There was someone in there. A courting couple, I suspect. Someone was laughing and then someone said, 'Hush.'"
"You don't know who this courting couple was?"
"I've no idea. You can't see the front of the Folly from the path. The sides and back enclosed."
The inspector thought for a moment or two, but it did not seem likely to him that the couple – whoever they were – in the Folly were important. Better find out who they were, perhaps, because they in their turn might have seen someone coming up from or going down to the boathouse.
"And there was no one else on the path? No one at all?" he insisted.
"I see what you're driving at, of course," said Miss Brewis. "I can only assure you that I didn't meet anyone. But then, you see, I needn't have. I mean, if there had been anyone on the path who didn't want me to see them, it's the simplest thing in the world just to slip behind some of the rhododendron bushes. The path's bordered on both sides with shrubs and rhododendron bushes. If anyone who had no business to be there heard someone coming along the path, they could slip out of sight in a moment."
The inspector shifted on to another tack.
"Is there anything you know about this girl yourself, that could help us?" he asked.
"I really know nothing about her," said Miss Brewis. "I don't think I'd ever spoken to her until this affair. She's one of the girls I've seen about – I know her vaguely by sight, but that's all."
"And you know nothing about her – nothing that could be helpful?"
"I don't know of any reason why anyone should want to murder her," said Miss Brewis. "In fact it seems to me, if you know what I mean, quite impossible that such a thing should have happened. I can only think that to some unbalanced mind, the fact that she was to be the murdered victim might have induced the wish to make her a real victim. But even that sounds very far fetched and silly."
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