Bland sighed.
"Oh, well," he said, "I suppose I'd better see the mother now."
Mrs Tucker was a thin, hatchet-faced woman with stringy blonde hair and a sharp nose. Her eyes were reddened with crying, but she had herself in hand now, and was ready to answer the inspector's questions.
"Doesn't seem right that a thing like that should happen," she said. "You read of these things in the papers, but that it should happen to our Marlene -"
"I'm very, very sorry about it," said Inspector Bland gently. "What I want you to do is to think as hard as you can and tell me if there is anyone who could have had any reason to harm the girl?"
"I've been thinking about that already," said Mrs Tucker, with a sudden sniff. "Thought and thought, I have, but I can't get anywhere. Words with the teacher at school Marlene had now and again, and she'd have her quarrels now and again with one of the girls or boys, but nothing serious in any way. There's no one who had a real down on her, nobody who'd do her a mischief."
"She never talked to you about anyone who might have been an enemy of any kind?"
"She talked silly often, Marlene did, but nothing of that kind. It was all make-up and hair-dos, and what she'd like to do to her face and herself. You know what girls are. Far too young she was, to put on lipstick and all that muck, and her Dad told her so, and so did I. But that's what she'd do when she got hold of any money. Buy herself scent and lipsticks and hide them away."
Bland nodded. There was nothing here that could help him. An adolescent, rather silly girl, her head full of film stars and glamour – there were hundreds of Marlenes.
"What her Dad'll say, I don't know," said Mrs Tucker. "Coming here any minute he'll be, expecting to enjoy himself. He's a rare shot at the coconuts, he is."
She broke down suddenly and began to sob.
"If you ask me," she said, "it's one of them nasty foreigners up at the Hostel. You never know where you are with foreigners. Nice spoken as most of them are, some of the shirts they wear you wouldn't believe. Shirts with girls on them with these bikinis, as they call them. And all of them sunning themselves here and there with no shirts at all on – it all leads to trouble. That's what I say!"
Still weeping, Mrs Tucker was escorted from the room by Constable Hoskins. Bland reflected that the local verdict seemed to be the comfortable and probably age-long one of attributing every tragic occurrence to unspecified foreigners.
Chapter 8
"Got a sharp tongue, she has" Hoskins said when he returned. "Nags her husband and bullies her old father. I dare say she's spoke sharp to the girl once or twice and now she's feeling bad about it. Not that girls mind what their mothers say to them. Drops off 'em like water off a duck's back."
Inspector Bland cut short these general reflections and told Hoskins to fetch Mrs Oliver.
The inspector was slightly startled by the sight of Mrs Oliver. He had not expected anything so voluminous, so purple and in such a state of emotional disturbance.
"I feel awful," said Mrs Oliver, sinking down in the chair in front of him like a purple blancmange. "AWFUL," she added in what were clearly capital letters.
The inspector made a few ambiguous noises, and Mrs Oliver swept on.
"Because, you see, it's my murder. I did it!"
For a startled moment Inspector Bland thought that Mrs Oliver was accusing herself of the crime.
"Why I should ever have wanted the Yugoslavian wife of an Atom Scientist to be the victim, I can't imagine," said Mrs Oliver, sweeping her hands through her elaborate hair-do in a frenzied manner with the result that she looked slightly drunk. "Absolutely asinine of me. It might just as well have been the second gardener who wasn't what he seemed – and that wouldn't have mattered half as much because, after all, most men can look after themselves. If they can't look after themselves they ought to be able to look after themselves, and in that case I shouldn't have minded so much. Men get killed and nobody minds – I mean, nobody except their wives and sweethearts and children and things like that."
At this point the inspector entertained unworthy suspicions about Mrs Oliver. This was aided by the faint fragrance of brandy which was wafted towards him. On their return to the house Hercule Poirot had firmly administered to his friend this sovereign remedy for shocks.
"I'm not mad and I'm not drunk," said Mrs Oliver intuitively divining his thoughts, "though I dare say with that man about who thinks I drink like a fish and says everybody says so, you probably think so too."
"What man?" demanded the inspector, his mind switching from the unexpected introduction of the second gardener into the drama, to the further introduction of an unspecified man.
"Freckles and a Yorkshire accent," said Mrs Oliver. "But, as I say, I'm not drunk and I'm not mad. I'm just upset. Thoroughly UPSET," she repeated, once more resorting to capital letters.
"I'm sure, madam, it must have been most distressing," said the inspector.
"The awful thing is," said Mrs Oliver, "that she wanted to be a sex maniac's victim, and now I suppose she was – is – which should I mean?"
"There's no question of a sex maniac," said the inspector.
"Isn't there?" said Mrs Oliver. "Well, thank God for that. Or at least, I don't know. Perhaps she would rather have had it that way. But if he wasn't a sex maniac, why did anybody murder her, Inspector?"
"I was hoping," said the inspector, "that you could help me there."
Undoubtedly, he thought, Mrs Oliver had put her finger on the crucial point. Why should anyone murder Marlene?
"I can't help you," said Mrs Oliver. "I can't imagine who could have done it. At least, of course, I can, imagine – I can imagine anything! That's the trouble with me. I can imagine things now – this minute, I could even make them sound all right, but of course none of them would be true. I mean, she could have been murdered by someone who just likes murdering girls (but that's too easy) – and, anyway, too much of a coincidence that somebody should be at this fête who wanted to murder a girl. And how would he know that Marlene was in the boathouse? Or she might have known some secret about somebody's love affairs, or she may have seen someone bury a body at night, or she may have recognised somebody who was concealing his identity – or she may have known a secret about where some treasure was buried during the war. Or the man in the launch may have thrown somebody into the river and she saw it from the window of the boathouse – or she may even have got hold of some very important message in secret code and not known what it was herself."
"Please!" The inspector held up his hand. His head was whirling.
Mrs Oliver stopped obediently. It was clear that she could have gone on in this vein for some time, although it seemed to the inspector that she had already envisaged every possibility, likely or otherwise. Out of the richness of the material presented to him, he seized upon one phrase.
"What did you mean, Mrs Oliver, by the 'man in the launch'? Are you just imagining a man in a launch?"
"Somebody told me he'd come in a launch," said Mrs Oliver. "I can't remember who. The one we were talking about at breakfast, I mean," she added.
"Please." The inspector's tone was now pleading. He had had no idea before what the writers of detective stories were like. He knew that Mrs Oliver had written forty-odd books. It seemed to him astonishing at the moment that she had not written a hundred and forty. He rapped out a peremptory inquiry. "What is all this about a man at breakfast who came in a launch?"
"He didn't come in the launch at breakfast time," said Mrs Oliver, "it was a yacht. At least, I don't mean that exactly. It was a letter."
"Well, what was it?" demanded Bland. "A yacht or a letter?"
"It was a letter," said Mrs Oliver, "to Lady Stubbs. From a cousin in a yacht. And she was frightened," she ended.
"Frightened? What of?"
"Of him, I suppose," said Mrs Oliver. "Anybody could see it. She was terrified of him and she didn't want him to come, and I think that's why she's hiding now."
"Hidin
g?" said the inspector.
"Well, she isn't about anywhere," said Mrs Oliver. "Everyone's been looking for her. And I think she's hiding because she's afraid of him and doesn't want to meet him."
"Who is this man?" demanded the inspector.
"You'd better ask M. Poirot," said Mrs Oliver. "Because he spoke to him and I haven't. His name's Estaban – no, it isn't, that was in my plot. De Sousa, that's what his name is, Etienne de Sousa."
But another name had caught the inspector's attention.
"Who did you say?" he asked. "Mr Poirot?"
"Yes. Hercule Poirot. He was with me when we found the body."
"Hercule Poirot… I wonder now. Can it be the same man? A Belgian, a small man with a very big moustache."
"An enormous moustache," agreed Mrs Oliver. "Yes. Do you know him?"
"It's a good many years since I met him. I was a young sergeant at the time."
"You met him on a murder case?"
"Yes, I did. What's he doing down here?"
"He was to give away the prizes," said Mrs Oliver.
There was a momentary hesitation before she gave this answer, but it went unperceived by the inspector.
"And he was with you when you discovered the body," said Bland. "H'm, I'd like to talk to him."
"Shall I get him for you?" Mrs Oliver gathered up her purple draperies hopefully.
"There's nothing more that you can add, madam? Nothing more that you think could help us in any way?"
"I don't think so," said Mrs Oliver. "I don't know anything. As I say, I could imagine reasons -"
The inspector cut her short. He had no wish to hear any more of Mrs Oliver's imagined solutions. They were far too confusing.
"Thank you very much, madam," he said briskly. "If you'll ask M. Poirot to come and speak to me here I shall be very much obliged to you."
Mrs Oliver left the room. P.O. Hoskins inquired with interest:
"Who's this Monsieur Poirot, sir?"
"You'd describe him probably as a scream," said Inspector Bland. "Kind of music hall parody of a Frenchman, but actually he's a Belgian. But in spite of his absurdities, he's got brains. He must be a fair age now."
"What about this De Sousa?" asked the constable. "Think there's anything in that, sir?"
Inspector Bland did not hear the question. He was struck by a fact which, though he had been told it several times, was only now beginning to register.
First it had been Sir George, irritated and alarmed. "My wife seems to have disappeared. I can't think where she has got to." Then Miss Brewis, contemptuous: "Lady Stubbs was not to be found. She'd got bored with the show." And now Mrs Oliver with her theory that Lady Stubbs was hiding.
"Eh? What?" he said absently.
Constable Hoskins cleared his throat.
"I was asking you, sir, if you thought there was anything in this business of De Sousa – whoever he is."
Constable Hoskins was clearly delighted at having a specific foreigner rather than foreigners in the mass, introduced into the case. But Inspector Bland's mind was running on a different course.
"I want Lady Stubbs," he said curtly. "Get hold of her for me. If she isn't about, look for her."
Hoskins looked slightly puzzled but he left the room obediently. In the doorway he paused and fell back a little to allow Hercule Poirot to enter. He looked back over his shoulder with some interest before closing the door behind him.
"I don't suppose," said Bland, rising and holding out his hand, "that you remember me, M. Poirot."
"But assuredly," said Poirot. "It is – now give me a moment, just a little moment. It is the young sergeant – yes, Sergeant Bland whom I met fourteen – no, fifteen years ago."
"Quite right. What a memory!"
" ot at all. Since you remember me, why should I not remember you?"
It would be difficult, Bland thought, to forget Hercule Poirot, and this not entirely for complimentary reasons.
"So here you are, M. Poirot," he said. "Assisting at a murder once again."
"You are right," said Poirot. "I was called down here to assist."
"Called down to assist?" Bland looked puzzled.
Poirot said quickly:
"I mean, I was asked down here to give away the prizes of this murder hunt."
"So Mrs Oliver told me."
"She told you nothing else?" Poirot said it with apparent carelessness. He was anxious to discover whether Mrs Oliver had given the Inspector any hint of the real motives which had led her to insist on Poirot's journey to Devon.
"Told me nothing else? She never stopped telling me things. Every possible and impossible motive for the girl's murder. She set my head spinning. Phew! What an imagination!"
"She earns her living by her imagination, mon ami," said Poirot dryly.
"She mentioned a man called De Sousa – did she imagine that?"
"No, that is sober fact."
"There was something about a letter at breakfast and a yacht and coming up the river in a launch- I couldn't make head or tail of it."
Poirot embarked upon an explanation. He told of the scene at the breakfast table, the letter, Lady Stubbs's headache.
"Mrs Oliver said that Lady Stubbs was frightened. Did you think she as afraid, too?"
"That was the impression she gave me"
"Afraid of this cousin of hers? Why?"
Poirot shrugged shoulders.
"I have no idea. All she told me was that he was bad – a bad man. She is, you understand, a little simple. Subnormal."
"Yes, that seems to be pretty generally known round here. She didn't say she was afraid of this De Sousa?"
"No."
"But you think her fear was real?"
"If it was not, then she is a clever actress," said Poirot dryly.
"I'm beginning to have some odd ideas about this case," said Bland. He got up and walked restlessly to and fro. "It's that cursed woman's fault. I believe."
"Mrs Oliver's?"
"Yes. She's put a lot of melodramatic ideas into my head."
"And you think they may be true?"
"Not all of them – naturally – but one or two of them mightn't be as wild as they sounded. It all depends…" He broke off as the door opened to re-admit P.C. Hoskins.
"Don't seem able to find the lady, sir," he said. "She's not about anywhere."
"I know that already," said Bland irritably. "I told you to find her."
"Sergeant Farrell and P.C. Lorimer are searching the grounds, sir," said Hoskins. "She's not in the house," he added.
"Find out from the man who's taking admission tickets at the gate if she's left the place. Either, on foot or in a car."
"Yes, sir."
Hoskins departed.
"And find out when she was last seen and where," Bland shouted after him.
"So that is the way your mind is working," said Poirot.
"It isn't working anywhere yet," said Bland, "but I've just woken up to the fact that a lady who ought to be on the premises isn't on the premises! Any I want to know why. Tell me what more you know about what's-his-name De Sousa."
Poirot described his meeting with the young man who had come up the path from the quay.
"He is probably still here at the fête," he said. "Shall I tell Sir George that you want to see him?"
"Not for a moment or two," said Bland. "I'd like to find out a little more first. When did you yourself last see Lady Stubbs?"
Poirot cast his mind back. He found it difficult to remember exactly. He recalled vague glimpses of her tall, cyclamen-clad figure with the drooping black hat moving about the lawn talking to people, hovering here and there; occasionally he would hear that strange loud laugh of hers, distinctive amongst the many other confused sounds.
"I think," he said doubtfully, "it must have been not long before four o'clock."
"And where was she then, and who was she with?"
"She was in the middle of a group of people near the house."
"Was she th
ere when De Sousa arrived?"
"I don't remember. I don't think so, at least I did not see her. Sir George told De Sousa that his wife was somewhere about. He seemed surprised, I remember, that she was not judging the Children's Fancy Dress, as she was supposed to do."
"What time was it when De Sousa arrived?"
"It must have been about half-past four, I should think. I did not look at my watch so I cannot tell you exactly."
"And Lady Stubbs had disappeared before he arrived?"
"It seems so."
"Possibly she ran away so as not to meet him," suggested the inspector.
"Possibly," Poirot agreed.
"Well, she can't have gone far," said Bland. "We ought to be able to find her quite easily, and when we do…" He broke off.
"And supposing you don't?" Poirot put the question with a curious intonation in his voice.
"That's nonsense," said the inspector vigorously. "Why? What d'you think's happened to her?"
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
"What indeed! One does not know. All one does know is that she has – disappeared!"
"Dash it all, M. Poirot, you're making it sound quite sinister."
"Perhaps it is sinister."
"It's the murder of Marlene Tucker that we're investigating," said the inspector severely.
"But evidently. So – why this interest in De Sousa? Do you think he killed Marlene Tucker?"
Inspector Bland replied irrelevantly:
"It's that woman!"
Poirot smiled faintly.
"Mrs Oliver, you mean?"
"Yes. You see, M. Poirot, the murder of Marlene Tucker doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense at all. Here's a nondescript, rather moronic kid found strangled and not a hint of any possible motive."
"And Mrs Oliver supplied you with a motive?"
"With a dozen at least! Amongst them she suggested that Marlene might have a knowledge of somebody's secret love affair, or that Marlene might have witnessed somebody being murdered, or that she knew where a buried treasure was hidden, or that she might have seen from the window of the boathouse some action performed by De Sousa in his launch as he was going up the river."
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