"I dare say," she said; "but in the meantime there have been two murders."
"Three," Poirot corrected her.
"Three murders? Who's the third?"
"An old man called Merdell," said Hercule Poirot.
"I haven't heard of that one," said Mrs Oliver. "Will it be in the paper?"
"No," said Poirot, "up to now no one has suspected that it was anything but an accident."
"And it wasn't an accident?"
"No," said Poirot, "it was not an accident."
"Well, tell me who did it – did them, I mean – or can't you over the telephone?"
"One does not say these things over the telephone," said Poirot.
"Then I shall ring off," said Mrs Oliver. "I can't bear it."
"Wait a moment," said Poirot, "there is something else I wanted to ask you. Now, what was it?"
"That's a sign of age," said Mrs Oliver. "I do that, too. Forget things -"
"There was something, some little point – it worried me. I was in the boathouse…"
He cast his mind back. That pile of comics. Marlene's phrases scrawled on the margin. "Albert goes with Doreen." He had had a feeling that there was something lacking – that there was something he must ask Mrs Oliver.
"Are you still there, M. Poirot?" demanded Mrs Oliver. At the same time the operator requested more money.
These formalities completed, Poirot spoke once more.
"Are you still there, Madame?"
"I'm still here," said Mrs Oliver. "Don't let's waste any more money asking each other if we're there. What is it?"
"It is something very important. You remember your Murder Hunt?"
"Well, of course I remember it. It's practically what we've just been talking about, isn't it?"
"I made one grave mistake," said Poirot. "I never read your synopsis for competitors. In the gravity of discovering a murder it did not seem to matter. I was wrong. It did matter. You are a sensitive person, Madame. You are affected by your atmosphere, by the personalities of the people you meet. And these are translated into your work. Not recognisably so, but they are the inspiration from which your fertile brain draws its creations."
"That's very nice flowery language," said Mrs Oliver. "But what exactly do you mean?"
"That you have always known more about this crime than you have realised yourself. Now for the question I want to ask you – two questions actually; but the first is very important. Did you, when you first began to plan your Murder Hunt, mean the body to be discovered in the boathouse?"
"No, I didn't."
"Where did you intend it to be?"
"In that funny little summer-house tucked away in the rhododendrons near the house. I thought it was just the place. But then someone, I can't remember who exactly, began insisting that it should be found in the Folly. Well, that, of course, was an absurd idea! I mean, anyone could have strolled in there quite casually and come across it without having followed a single clue. People are so stupid. Of course I couldn't agree to that."
"So, instead, you accepted the boathouse?"
"Yes, that's just how it happened. There was really nothing against the boathouse though I still thought the little summer-house would have been better."
"Yes, that is the technique you outlined to me that first day. There is one thing more. Do you remember telling me that there was a final clue written on one of the 'comics' that Marlene was given to amuse her?"
"Yes, of course."
"Tell me, was it something like -" (he forced his memory back to a moment when he had stood reading various scrawled phrases): "Albert goes with Doreen; George Porgie kisses hikers in the wood; Peter pinches girls in the Cinema?"
"Good gracious me, no," said Mrs Oliver in a slightly shocked voice. "It wasn't anything silly like that. No, mine was a perfectly straightforward clue." She lowered her voice and spoke in mysterious tones. "Look in the hiker's rucksack."
"Épatant!" cried Poirot. "Épatant! Of course, the 'comic' with that on it would have to be taken away. It might have given someone ideas!"
"The rucksack, of course, was on the floor by the body and -"
"Ah, but it is another rucksack of which I am thinking."
"You're confusing me with all these rucksacks," Mrs Oliver complained. "There was only one in my murder story. Don't you want to know what was in it?"
"Not in the least," said Poirot. "That is to say," he added politely, "I should be enchanted to hear, of course, but -"
Mrs Oliver swept over the "but."
"Very ingenious, I think," she said, the pride of authorship in her voice. "You see, in Marlene's haversack, which was supposed to be the Yugoslavian's wife's haversack, if you understand what I mean -"
"Yes, yes," said Poirot, preparing himself to be lost in fog once more.
"Well, in it was the bottle of medicine containing poison with which the country squire poisoned his wife. You see, the Yugoslavian girl had been over here training as a nurse and she'd been in the house when Colonel Blunt poisoned his first wife for her money. And she, the nurse, had got hold of the bottle and taken it away, and then come back to blackmail him. That, of course, is why he killed her. Does that fit in, M. Poirot?"
"Fit in with what?"
"With your ideas," said Mrs Oliver.
"Not at all," said Poirot, but added hastily, "All the same, my felicitations, Madame. I am sure your Murder Hunt was so ingenious that nobody won the prize."
"But they did," said Mrs Oliver. "Quite late, about seven o'clock. A very dogged old lady supposed to be quite gaga. She got through all the clues and arrived at the boathouse triumphantly, but of course the police were there. So then she heard about the murder, and she was the last person at the whole fête to hear about it, I should imagine. Anyway, they gave her the prize." She added with satisfaction, "That horrid young man with the freckles who said I drank like a fish never got farther than the camellia garden."
"Some day, Madame," said Poirot, "you shall tell me this story of yours."
"Actually," said Mrs Oliver, "I'm thinking of turning it into a book. It would be a pity to waste it."
And it may here be mentioned that some three years later Hercule Poirot read The Woman in the Wood, by Ariadne Oliver, and wondered whilst he read it why some of the persons and incidents seemed to him vaguely familiar.
Chapter 18
The sun was setting when Poirot came to what was called officially Mill Cottage, and known locally as the Pink Cottage down by Lawder's Creek. He knocked on the door and it was flung open with such suddenness that he started back. The angry-looking young man in the doorway stared at him for a moment without recognising him. Then he gave a short laugh.
"Hallo," he said," it's the sleuth. Come in, M. Poirot. I'm packing up."
Poirot accepted the invitation and stepped into the cottage. It was plainly, rather badly furnished. And Alec Legge's personal possessions were at the moment taking up a disproportionate amount of room. Books, papers and articles of stray clothing were strewn all around, an open suitcase stood on the floor.
"The final break up of the ménage," said Alec Legge. "Sally has cleared out. I expect you know that."
"I did not know it, no."
Alec Legge gave a short laugh.
"I'm glad there's something you don't know. Yes, she's had enough of married life. Going to link up her life with that tame architect."
"I am sorry to hear it," said Poirot.
"I don't see why you should be sorry."
"I am sorry," said Poirot, clearing off two books and a shirt and sitting down on the corner of the sofa, "because I do not think she will be as happy with him as she would be with you."
"She hasn't been particularly happy with me this last six months."
"Six months is not a lifetime," said Poirot, "it is a very short space out of what might be a long happy married life."
"Talking rather like a parson, aren't you?"
"Possibly. May I say, Mr Legge, that if your wife has
not been happy with you it is probably more your fault than hers."
"She certainly thinks so. Everything's my fault, I suppose."
"Not everything, but some things."
"Oh, blame everything on me. I might as well drown myself in the damn river and have done with it."
Poirot looked at him thoughtfully.
"I am glad to observe," he remarked, "that you are now more perturbed with your own troubles than with those of the world."
"The world can go hang," said Mr- Legge. He added bitterly, "I seem to have made the most complete fool of myself all along the line."
"Yes," said Poirot, "I would say that you have been more unfortunate than reprehensible in your conduct."
Alec Legge stared at him.
"Who hired you to sleuth me?" he demanded. "Was it Sally?"
"Why should you think that?"
"Well, nothing's happened officially. So I concluded that you must have come down after me on a private job."
"You are in error," replied Poirot. "I have not at any time been sleuthing you. When I came down here I had no idea that you existed."
"Then how do you know whether I've been unfortunate or made a fool of myself or what?"
"From the result of observation and reflection," said Poirot. "Shall I make a little guess and will you tell me if I am right?"
"You can make as many little guesses as you like," said Alec Legge. "But don't expect me to play."
"I think," said Poirot, "that some years ago you had an interest and sympathy for a certain political party. Like many other young men of a scientific bent. In your profession such sympathies and tendencies are naturally regarded with suspicion. I do not think you were ever seriously compromised, but I do think that pressure was brought upon you to consolidate your position in a way you did not want to consolidate it. You tried to withdraw and you were faced with a threat. You were given a rendezvous with someone. I doubt if I shall ever know that young man's name. He will be for me always the young man in the turtle shirt."
Alec Legge gave a sudden explosion of laughter.
"I suppose that shirt was a bit of a joke. I wasn't seeing things were funny at the time."
Hercule Poirot continued.
"What with worry over the fate of the world, and the worry over your own predicament, you became, if I may say so, a man almost impossible for any woman to live with happily. You did not confide in your wife. That was unfortunate for you, as I should say that your wife was a woman of loyalty, and that if she had realised how unhappy and desperate you were, she would have been whole-heartedly on your side. Instead of that she merely began to compare you, unfavourably, with a former friend of hers, Michael Weyman."
He rose.
"I should advise you, Mr Legge, to complete your packing as soon as possible, to follow your wife to London, to ask her to forgive you and to tell her all that you have been through."
"So that's what you advise," said Alec Legge. "And what the hell business is it of yours?"
"None," said Hercule Poirot. He withdrew towards the door. "But I am always right."
There was a moment's silence. Then Alec Legge burst into a wild peal of laughter.
"Do you know," he said, "I think I'll take your advice. Divorce is damned expensive. Anyway, if you've got hold of the woman you want, and are then not able to keep her, it's a bit humiliating, don't you think? I shall go up to her flat in Chelsea, and if I find Michael there I shall take hold of him by that hand-knitted pansy tie he wears and throttle the life out of him. I'd enjoy that. Yes, I'd enjoy it a good deal."
His face suddenly lit up with a most attractive smile.
"Sorry for my filthy temper," he said, "and thanks a lot."
He clapped Poirot on the shoulder. With the force of the blow Poirot staggered and all but fell.
Mr Legge's friendship was certainly more painful than his animosity.
"And now," said Poirot, leaving Mill Cottage on painful feet and looking up at the darkening sky, "where do I go?"
Chapter 19
The chief constable and Inspector Bland looked up with keen curiosity as Hercule Poirot was ushered in. The chief constable was not in the best of tempers. Only Bland's quiet persistence had caused him to cancel his dinner appointment for that evening.
"I know, Bland, I know," he said fretfully. "Maybe he was a little Belgian wizard in his day – but surely, man, his day's over. He's what age?"
Bland slid tactfully over the answer to this question which, in any case, he did not know. Poirot himself was always reticent on the subject of his age.
"The point is, sir, he was there – on the spot. And we're not getting anywhere any other way. Up against a blank wall, that's where we are."
The chief constable blew his nose irritably.
"I know. I know. Makes me begin to believe in Mrs Masterton's homicidal pervert. I'd even use bloodhounds, if there were anywhere to use them."
"Bloodhounds can't follow a scent over water."
"Yes. I know what you've always thought, Bland. And I'm inclined to agree with you. But there's absolutely no motive, you know. Not an iota of motive."
"The motive may be out in the islands."
"Meaning that Hattie Stubbs knew something about De Sousa out there? I suppose that's reasonably possible, given her mentality. She was simple, everyone agrees on that. She might blurt out what she knew to anyone at any time. Is that the way you see it?"
"Something like that."
"If so, he waited a long time before crossing the sea and doing something about it."
"Well, sir, it's possible he didn't know what exactly had become of her. His own story was that he'd seen a piece in some society periodical about Nasse House, and its beautiful châtelaine. (Which I have always thought myself," added Bland parenthetically, "to be a silver thing with chains, and bits and pieces hung on it that people's grandmothers used to clip on their waistbands – and a good idea, too. Wouldn't be all these silly women for ever leaving their handbags around.) Seems, though, that in women's jargon châtelaine means mistress of a house. As I say, that's his story and maybe it's true enough, and he didn't know where she was or who she'd married until then."
"But once he did know, he came across post-haste in a yacht in order to murder her? It's far-fetched, Bland, very far-fetched."
"But it could be, sir."
"And what on earth could the woman know?"
"Remember what she said to her husband. 'He kills people.'"
"Murder remembered? From the time she was fifteen? And presumably only her word for it? Surely he'd be able to laugh that off?"
"We don't know the facts," said Bland stubbornly. "You know yourself, sir, how once one knows who did a thing, one can look for the evidence and find it."
"H'm. We've made inquiries about De Sousa – discreetly – through the usual channels – and got nowhere."
"That's just why, sir, this funny old Belgian boy might have stumbled on something. He was in the house – that's the important thing. Lady Stubbs talked to him. Some of the random things she said may have come together in his mind and made sense. However that may be, he's been down in Nassecombe most of today."
"And he rang you up to ask what kind of a yacht Etienne De Sousa had?"
"When he rang up the first time, yes. The second time was to ask me to arrange this meeting."
"Well," the chief constable looked at his watch, "if he doesn't come within five minutes…"
But it was at that very moment that Hercule Poirot was shown in.
His appearance was not as immaculate as usual. His moustache was limp, affected by the damp Devon air, his patent-leather shoes were heavily coated with mud, he limped, and his hair was ruffled.
"Well, so here you are, M. Poirot." The chief constable shook hands. "We're all keyed up, on our toes, waiting to hear what you have to tell us."
The words were faintly ironic, but Hercule Poirot, however damp physically, was in no mood to be damped mentally.
; "I cannot imagine," he said, "how it was I did not see the truth before."
The chief constable received this rather coldly.
"Are we to understand that you do see the truth now?"
"Yes, there are details – but the outline is clear."
"We want more than an outline," said the chief constable dryly. "We want evidence. Have you got evidence, M. Poirot?"
"I can tell you where to find the evidence."
Inspector Bland spoke. "Such as?"
Poirot turned to him and asked a question.
"Etienne De Sousa has, I suppose, left the country."
"Two weeks ago." Bland added bitterly, "It won't be easy to get him back."
"He might be persuaded."
"Persuaded? There's not sufficient evidence to warrant an extradition order, then?"
"It is not a question of an extradition order. If the facts are put to him -"
"But what facts, M. Poirot?" The chief constable spoke with some irritation. "What are these facts you talk about so glibly?"
"The fact that Etienne De Sousa came here in a lavishly appointed luxury yacht showing that his family is rich, the fact that old Merdell was Marlene Tucker's grandfather (which I did not know until today), the fact that Lady Stubbs was fond of wearing the coolie type of hat, the fact that Mrs Oliver, in spite of an unbridled and unreliable imagination, is, unrealised by herself, a very shrewd judge of character, the fact that Marlene Tucker had lipsticks and bottles of perfume hidden at the back of her bureau drawer, the fact that Miss Brewis maintains that it was Lady Stubbs who asked her to take a refreshment tray down to Marlene at the boathouse."
"Facts?" The chief constable stared. "You call those facts? But there's nothing new there."
"You prefer evidence – definite evidence – such as – Lady Stubbs's body?"
Now it was Bland who stared.
"You have found Lady Stubbs's body?"
"Not actually found it – but I know where it is hidden. You shall go to the spot, and when you have found it, then – then you will have evidence – all the evidence you need. For only one person could have hidden it there."
"And who's that?"
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