“Well, they were and they weren’t. Wanted to get through to a pal of mine and get him to put somethin’ on a horse. Couldn’t get through to him, worse luck.”
“Where did you telephone from?”
“Call box in the G.P.O. at St. Loo. Then on the way back I got lost—these confounded lanes—twistin’ and turnin’ all over the place. Must have wasted an hour over that at least. Damned confusing part of the world. I only got back half an hour ago.”
Colonel Weston said:
“Speak to anyone or meet anyone in St. Loo?”
Major Barry said with a chuckle:
“Wantin’ me to prove an alibi? Can’t think of anythin’ useful. Saw about fifty thousand people in St. Loo—but that’s not to say they’ll remember seein’ me.”
The Chief Constable said:
“We have to ask these things, you know.”
“Right you are. Call on me at any time. Glad to help you. Very fetchin’ woman, the deceased. Like to help you catch the feller who did it. The Lonely Beach Murder—bet you that’s what the papers will call it. Reminds me of the time—”
It was Inspector Colgate who firmly nipped this latest reminiscence in the bud and manoeuvred the garrulous Major out of the door.
Coming back he said:
“Difficult to check up on anything in St. Loo. It’s the middle of the holiday season.”
The Chief Constable said:
“Yes, we can’t take him off the list. Not that I seriously believe he’s implicated. Dozens of old bores like him going about. Remember one or two of them in my army days. Still—he’s a possibility. I leave all that to you, Colgate. Check what time he took the car out—petrol—all that. It’s humanly possible that he parked the car somewhere in a lonely spot, walked back here and went to the cove. But it doesn’t seem feasible to me. He’d have run too much risk of being seen.”
Colgate nodded.
He said:
“Of course there are a good many charabancs here today. Fine day. They start arriving round about half past eleven. High tide was at seven. Low tide would be about one o’clock. People would be spread out over the sands and the causeway.”
Weston said:
“Yes. But he’d have to come up from the causeway past the hotel.”
“Not right past it. He could branch off on the path that leads up over the top of the island.”
Weston said doubtfully:
“I’m not saying that he mightn’t have done it without being seen. Practically all the hotel guests were on the bathing beach except for Mrs. Redfern and the Marshall girl who were down in Gull Cove, and the beginning of that path would only be overlooked by a few rooms of the hotel and there are plenty of chances against anyone looking out of those windows just at that moment. For the matter of that, I dare say it’s possible for a man to walk up to the hotel, through the lounge and out again without anyone happening to see him. But what I say is, he couldn’t count on no one seeing him.”
Colgate said:
“He could have gone round to the cove by boat.”
Weston nodded. He said:
“That’s much sounder. If he’d had a boat handy in one of the coves nearby, he could have left the car, rowed or sailed to Pixy Cove, done the murder, rowed back, picked up the car and arrived back with this tale about having been to St. Loo and lost his way—a story that he’d know would be pretty hard to disprove.”
“You’re right, sir.”
The Chief Constable said:
“Well, I leave it to you, Colgate. Comb the neighbourhood thoroughly. You know what to do. We’d better see Miss Brewster now.”
V
Emily Brewster was not able to add anything of material value to what they already knew.
Weston said after she had repeated her story:
“And there’s nothing you know of that could help us in any way?”
Emily Brewster said shortly:
“Afraid not. It’s a distressing business. However, I expect you’ll soon get to the bottom of it.”
Weston said:
“I hope so, I’m sure.”
Emily Brewster said dryly:
“Ought not to be difficult.”
“Now what do you mean by that, Miss Brewster?”
“Sorry. Wasn’t attempting to teach you your business. All I meant was that with a woman of that kind it ought to be easy enough.”
Hercule Poirot murmured:
“That is your opinion?”
Emily Brewster snapped out:
“Of course. De mortuis nil nisi bonum and all that, but you can’t get away from facts. That woman was a bad lot through and through. You’ve only got to hunt round a bit in her unsavoury past.”
Hercule Poirot said gently:
“You did not like her?”
“I know a bit too much about her.” In answer to the inquiring looks she went on: “My first cousin married one of the Erskines. You’ve probably heard that that woman induced old Sir Robert when he was in his dotage to leave most of his fortune to her away from his own family.”
Colonel Weston said:
“And the family—er—resented that?”
“Naturally. His association with her was a scandal anyway, and on top of that, to leave her a sum like fifty thousand pounds shows just the kind of woman she was. I dare say I sound hard, but in my opinion the Arlena Stuarts of this world deserve very little sympathy. I know of something else too—a young fellow who lost his head about her completely—he’d always been a bit wild, naturally his association with her pushed him over the edge. He did something rather fishy with some shares—solely to get money to spend on her—and only just managed to escape prosecution. That woman contaminated everyone she met. Look at the way she was ruining young Redfern. No, I’m afraid I can’t have any regret for her death—though of course it would have been better if she’d drowned herself, or fallen over a cliff. Strangling is rather unpleasant.”
“And you think the murderer was someone out of her past?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Someone who came from the mainland with no one seeing him?”
“Why should any one see him? We were all on the beach. I gather the Marshall child and Christine Redfern were down on Gull Cove out of the way. Captain Marshall was in his room in the hotel. Then who on earth was there to see him except possibly Miss Darnley.”
“Where was Miss Darnley?”
“Sitting up on the cutting at the top of the cliff. Sunny Ledge it’s called. We saw her there, Mr. Redfern and I, when we were rowing round the island.”
Colonel Weston said:
“You may be right, Miss Brewster.”
Emily Brewster said positively:
“I’m sure I’m right. When a woman’s neither more nor less than a nasty mess, then she herself will provide the best possible clue. Don’t you agree with me, M. Poirot?”
Hercule Poirot looked up. His eyes met her confident grey ones. He said:
“Oh, yes—I agree with that which you have just this minute said. Arlena Marshall herself is the best, the only clue, to her own death.”
Miss Brewster said sharply:
“Well, then!”
She stood there, an erect sturdy figure, her cool self-confident glance going from one man to the other.
Colonel Weston said:
“You may be sure, Miss Brewster, that any clue there may be in Mrs. Marshall’s past life will not be overlooked.”
Emily Brewster went out.
VI
Inspector Colgate shifted his position at the table. He said in a thoughtful voice:
“She’s a determined one, she is. And she’d got her knife into the dead lady, proper, she had.”
He stopped a minute and said reflectively:
“It’s a pity in a way that she’s got a cast-iron alibi for the whole morning. Did you notice her hands, sir? As big as a man’s. And she’s a hefty woman—as strong and stronger than many a man, I’d say….”
He p
aused again. His glance at Poirot was almost pleading.
“And you say she never left the beach this morning, M. Poirot?”
Slowly Poirot shook his head. He said:
“My dear Inspector, she came down to the beach before Mrs. Marshall could have reached Pixy Cove and she was within my sight until she set off with Mr. Redfern in the boat.”
Inspector Colgate said gloomily:
“Then that washes her out.”
He seemed upset about it.
VII
As always, Hercule Poirot felt a keen sense of pleasure at the sight of Rosamund Darnley.
Even to a bare police inquiry into the ugly facts of murder she brought a distinction of her own.
She sat down opposite Colonel Weston and turned a grave and intelligent face to him.
She said:
“You want my name and address? Rosamund Anne Darnley. I carry on a dressmaking business under the name of Rose Mond Ltd at 622 Brook Street.”
“Thank you, Miss Darnley. Now can you tell us anything that may help us?”
“I don’t really think I can.”
“Your own movements—”
“I had breakfast about nine thirty. Then I went up to my room and collected some books and my sunshade and went out to Sunny Ledge. That must have been about twenty-five past ten. I came back to the hotel about ten minutes to twelve, went up and got my tennis racquet and went out to the tennis courts, where I played tennis until lunchtime.”
“You were in the cliff recess, called by the hotel Sunny Ledge, from about half past ten until ten minutes to twelve?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see Mrs. Marshall at all this morning?”
“No.”
“Did you see her from the cliff as she paddled her float round to Pixy Cove?”
“No, she must have gone by before I got there.”
“Did you notice anyone on a float or in a boat at all this morning?”
“No, I don’t think I did. You see, I was reading. Of course I looked up from my book from time to time, but as it happened the sea was quite bare each time I did so.”
“You didn’t even notice Mr. Redfern and Miss Brewster when they went round?”
“No.”
“You were, I think, acquainted with Mr. Marshall?”
“Captain Marshall is an old family friend. His family and mine lived next door to each other. I had not seen him, however, for a good many years—it must be something like twelve years.”
“And Mrs. Marshall?”
“I’d never exchanged half a dozen words with her until I met her here.”
“Were Captain and Mrs. Marshall, as far as you knew, on good terms with each other?”
“On perfectly good terms, I should say.”
“Was Captain Marshall very devoted to his wife?”
Rosamund said:
“He may have been. I can’t really tell you anything about that. Captain Marshall is rather old-fashioned—he hasn’t got the modern habit of shouting matrimonial woes upon the housetop.”
“Did you like Mrs. Marshall, Miss Darnley?”
“No.”
The monosyllable came quietly and evenly. It sounded what it was—a simple statement of fact.
“Why was that?”
A half smile came to Rosamund’s lips. She said:
“Surely you’ve discovered that Arlena Marshall was not popular with her own sex? She was bored to death with women and showed it. Nevertheless I should like to have had the dressing of her. She had a great gift for clothes. Her clothes were always just right and she wore them well. I should like to have had her as a client.”
“She spent a good deal on clothes?”
“She must have done. But then she had money of her own and of course Captain Marshall is quite well off.”
“Did you ever hear or did it ever occur to you that Mrs. Marshall was being blackmailed, Miss Darnley?”
A look of intense astonishment came over Rosamund Darnley’s expressive face.
She said:
“Blackmailed? Arlena?”
“The idea seems to surprise you.”
“Well, yes, it does rather. It seems so incongruous.”
“But surely it is possible?”
“Everything’s possible, isn’t it? The world soon teaches one that. But I wondered what any one could blackmail Arlena about?”
“There are certain things, I suppose, that Mrs. Marshall might be anxious should not come to her husband’s ears?”
“We-ll, yes.”
She explained the doubt in her voice by saying with a half smile:
“I sound sceptical, but then, you see, Arlena was rather notorious in her conduct. She never made much of a pose of respectability.”
“You think, then, that her husband was aware of her—intimacies with other people?”
There was a pause. Rosamund was frowning. She spoke at last in a slow, reluctant voice. She said:
“You know, I don’t really know what to think. I’ve always assumed that Kenneth Marshall accepted his wife, quite frankly, for what she was. That he had no illusions about her. But it may not be so.”
“He may have believed in her absolutely?”
Rosamund said with semi-exasperation:
“Men are such fools. And Kenneth Marshall is unworldly under his sophisticated manner. He may have believed in her blindly. He may have thought she was just—admired.”
“And you know of no one—that is, you have heard of no one who was likely to have had a grudge against Mrs. Marshall?”
Rosamund Darnley smiled. She said:
“Only resentful wives. And I presume, since she was strangled, that it was a man who killed her.”
“Yes.”
Rosamund said thoughtfully:
“No, I can’t think of any one. But then I probably shouldn’t know. You’ll have to ask someone in her own intimate set.”
“Thank you, Miss Darnley.”
Rosamund turned a little in her chair. She said:
“Hasn’t M. Poirot any questions to ask?”
Her faintly ironic smile flashed out at him.
Hercule Poirot smiled and shook his head.
He said:
“I can think of nothing.”
Rosamund Darnley got up and went out.
Eight
They were standing in the bedroom that had been Arlena Marshall’s.
Two big bay windows gave on to a balcony that overlooked the bathing beach and the sea beyond. Sunshine poured into the room, flashing over the bewildering array of bottles and jars on Arlena’s dressing table.
Here there was every kind of cosmetic and unguent known to beauty parlours. Amongst this panoply of woman’s affairs three men moved purposefully. Inspector Colgate went about shutting and opening drawers.
Presently he gave a grunt. He had come upon a packet of folded letters. He and Weston ran through them together.
Hercule Poirot had moved to the wardrobe. He opened the door of the hanging cupboard and looked at the multiplicity of gowns and sports suits that hung there. He opened the other side. Foamy lingerie lay in piles. On a wide shelf were hats. Two more beach cardboard hats in lacquer red and pale yellow—a Big Hawaiian straw hat—another of drooping dark-blue linen and three or four little absurdities for which, no doubt, several guiness had been paid apiece—a kind of beret in dark blue—a tuft, no more, of black velvet—a pale grey turban.
Hercule Poirot stood scanning them—a faintly indulgent smile came to his lips. He murmured:
“Les femmes!”
Colonel Weston was refolding the letters.
“Three from young Redfern,” he said. “Damned young ass. He’ll learn not to write letters to women in a few more years. Women always keep letters and then swear they’ve burnt them. There’s one other letter here. Same line of country.”
He held it out and Poirot took it.
Darling Arlena,—God, I feel blue. To be going out to China—and perhaps no
t seeing you again for years and years. I didn’t know any man could go on feeling crazy about a woman like I feel about you. Thanks for the cheque. They won’t prosecute now. It was a near shave, though, and all because I wanted to make big money for you. Can you forgive me? I wanted to set diamonds in your ears—your lovely ears—and clasp great milk-white pearls round your throat, only they say pearls are no good nowadays. A fabulous emerald, then? Yes, that’s the thing. A great emerald, cool and green and full of hidden fire. Don’t forget me—but you won’t, I know. You’re mine—always.
Goodbye—goodbye—goodbye.
J.N.
Inspector Colgate said:
“Might be worth while to find out if J.N. really did go to China. Otherwise—well, he might be the person we’re looking for. Crazy about the woman, idealizing her, suddenly finding out he’d been played for a sucker. It sounds to me as though this is the boy Miss Brewster mentioned. Yes, I think this might be useful.”
Hercule Poirot nodded. He said: “Yes, that letter is important. I find it very important.”
He turned round and stared at the room—at the bottles on the dressing table—at the open wardrobe and at a big Pierrot doll that lolled insolently on the bed.
They went into Kenneth Marshall’s room.
It was next door to his wife’s but with no communicating door and no balcony. It faced the same way and had two windows, but it was much smaller. Between the two windows a gilt mirror hung on the wall. In the corner beyond the right-hand window was the dressing table. On it were two ivory brushes, a clothes brush and a bottle of hair lotion. In the corner by the left-hand window was a writing table. An open typewriter stood on it and papers were ranged in a stack beside it.
Colgate went through them rapidly.
He said:
“All seems straightforward enough. Ah, here’s the letter he mentioned this morning. Dated the 24th—that’s yesterday. And here’s the envelope postmarked Leathercombe Bay this morning. Seems all square. Now we’ll have an idea if he could have prepared that answer of his beforehand.
He sat down.
Colonel Weston said:
“We’ll leave you to it, for a moment. We’ll just glance through the rest of the rooms. Everyone’s been kept out of this corridor until now, and they’re getting a bit restive about it.”