Cautiously, Hercule Poirot spread his handkerchief on the seat and sat down. He said thoughtfully:
“There is something in that.”
“That woman—” said Christine and stopped.
Poirot said gravely:
“Will you allow me to tell you something, Madame? Something that is as true as the stars above us? The Arlena Stuarts—or Arlena Marshalls—of this world—do not count.”
Christine Redfern said:
“Nonsense.”
“I assure you, it is true. Their Empire is of the moment and for the moment. To count—really and truly to count—a woman must have goodness or brains.”
Christine said scornfully:
“Do you think men care for goodness or brains?”
Poirot said gravely:
“Fundamentally, yes.”
Christine laughed shortly.
“I don’t agree with you.”
Poirot said:
“Your husband loves you, Madame. I know it.”
“You can’t know it.”
“Yes, yes. I know it. I have seen him looking at you.”
Suddenly she broke down. She wept stormily and bitterly against Poirot’s accommodating shoulder.
She said:
“I can’t bear it … I can’t bear it….”
Poirot patted her arm. He said soothingly:
“Patience—only patience.”
She sat up and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. She said in a stifled voice:
“It’s all right. I’m better now. Leave me. I’d—I’d rather be alone.”
He obeyed and left her sitting there while he himself followed the winding path down to the hotel.
He was nearly there when he heard the murmur of voices.
He turned a little aside from the path. There was a gap in the bushes.
He saw Arlena Marshall and Patrick Redfern beside her. He heard the man’s voice, with the throb in it of emotion.
“I’m crazy about you—crazy—you’ve driven me mad… You do care a little—you do care?”
He saw Arlena Marshall’s face—it was, he thought, like a sleek happy cat—it was animal, not human. She said softly:
“Of course, Patrick darling, I adore you. You know that….”
For once Hercule Poirot cut his eavesdropping short. He went back to the path and on down to the hotel.
A figure joined him suddenly. It was Captain Marshall.
Marshall said:
“Remarkable night, what? After that foul day.” He looked up at the sky. “Looks as though we should have fine weather tomorrow.”
Four
The morning of the 25th of August dawned bright and cloudless. It was a morning to tempt even an inveterate sluggard to rise early.
Several people rose early that morning at the Jolly Roger.
It was eight o’clock when Linda, sitting at her dressing table, turned a little thick calf-bound volume face downwards, sprawling it open and looked at her own face in the mirror.
Her lips were set tight together and the pupils of her eyes contracted.
She said below her breath:
“I’ll do it….”
She slipped out of her pyjamas and into her bathing dress. Over it she flung on a bathrobe and laced espadrilles on her feet.
She went out of her room and along the passage. At the end of it a door on to the balcony led to an outside staircase leading directly down to the rocks below the hotel. There was a small iron ladder clamped on to the rocks leading down into the water which was used by many of the hotel guests for a before-breakfast dip as taking up less time than going down to the main bathing beach.
As Linda started down from the balcony she met her father coming up. He said:
“You’re up early. Going to have a dip?”
Linda nodded.
They passed each other.
Instead of going on down the rocks, however, Linda skirted round the hotel to the left until she came to the path down to the causeway connecting the hotel with the mainland. The tide was high and the causeway under water, but the boat that took hotel guests across was tied to a little jetty. The man in charge of it was absent at the moment. Linda got in, untied it and rowed herself across.
She tied up the boat on the other side, walked up the slope, past the hotel garage and along until she reached the general shop.
The woman had just taken down the shutters and was engaged in sweeping out the floor. She looked amazed at the sight of Linda.
“Well, Miss, you are up early.”
Linda put her hand in the pocket of her bath wrap and brought out some money. She proceeded to make her purchases.
II
Christine Redfern was standing in Linda’s room when the girl returned.
“Oh, there you are,” Christine exclaimed. “I thought you couldn’t be really up yet.”
Linda said:
“No, I’ve been bathing.”
Noticing the parcel in her hand, Christine said with surprise:
“The post has come early today.”
Linda flushed. With her habitual nervous clumsiness the parcel slipped from her hand. The flimsy string broke and some of the contents rolled over the floor.
Christine exclaimed:
“What have you been buying candles for?”
But to Linda’s relief she did not wait for an answer, but went on, as she helped to pick the things up from the floor.
“I came in to ask whether you would like to come with me to Gull Cove this morning. I want to sketch there.”
Linda accepted with alacrity.
In the last few days she had accompanied Christine Redfern more than once on sketching expeditions. Christine was a most indifferent artist, but it is possible that she found the excuse of painting a help to her pride since her husband now spent most of his time with Arlena Marshall.
Linda Marshall had been increasingly morose and bad tempered. She liked being with Christine who, intent on her work, spoke very little. It was, Linda felt, nearly as good as being by oneself, and in a curious way she craved for company of some kind. There was a subtle kind of sympathy between her and the elder woman, probably based on the fact of their mutual dislike of the same person.
Christine said:
“I’m playing tennis at twelve, so we’d better start fairly early. Half past ten?”
“Right. I’ll be ready. Meet you in the hall.”
III
Rosamund Darnley, strolling out of the dining room after a very late breakfast, was cannoned into by Linda as the latter came tearing down the stairs.
“Oh! sorry, Miss Darnley.”
Rosamund said: “Lovely morning, isn’t it? One can hardly believe it after yesterday.”
“I know. I’m going with Mrs. Redfern to Gull Cove. I said I’d meet her at half past ten. I thought I was late.”
“No, it’s only twenty-five past.”
“Oh! good.”
She was panting a little and Rosamund looked at her curiously.
“You’re not feverish, are you, Linda?”
The girls’ eyes were very bright and she had a vivid patch of colour in each cheek.
“Oh! no. I’m never feverish.”
Rosamund smiled and said:
“It’s such a lovely day I got up for breakfast. Usually I have it in bed. But today I came down and faced eggs and bacon like a man.”
“I know—it’s heavenly after yesterday. Gull Cove is nice in the morning. I shall put a lot of oil on and get really brown.”
Rosamund said:
“Yes, Gull Cove is nice in the morning. And it’s more peaceful than the beach here.”
Linda said, rather shyly:
“Come too.”
Rosamund shook her head.
She said:
“Not this morning. I’ve other fish to fry.”
Christine Redfern came down the stairs.
She was wearing beach pyjamas of a loose floppy pattern with long sleeves and
wide legs. They were made of some green material with a yellow design. Rosamund’s tongue itched to tell her that yellow and green were the most unbecoming colours possible for her fair, slightly anaemic complexion. It always annoyed Rosamund when people had no clothes sense.
She thought: “If I dressed that girl, I’d soon make her husband sit up and take notice. However much of a fool Arlena is, she does know how to dress. This wretched girl looks just like a wilting lettuce.”
Aloud she said:
“Have a nice time. I’m going to Sunny Ledge with a book.”
IV
Hercule Poirot breakfasted in his room as usual off coffee and rolls.
The beauty of the morning, however, tempted him to leave the hotel earlier than usual. It was ten o’clock, at least half an hour before his usual appearance, when he descended to the bathing beach. The beach itself was empty save for one person.
That person was Arlena Marshall.
Clad in her white bathing dress, the green Chinese hat on her head, she was trying to launch a white wooden float. Poirot came gallantly to the rescue, completely immersing a pair of white suède shoes in doing so.
She thanked him with one of those sideways glances of hers.
Just as she was pushing off, she called him.
“M. Poirot?”
Poirot leaped to the water’s edge.
“Madame.”
Arlena Marshall said:
“Do something for me, will you?”
“Anything.”
She smiled at him. She murmured:
“Don’t tell any one where I am.” She made her glance appealing. “Every one will follow me about so. I just want for once to be alone.”
She paddled off vigorously.
Poirot walked up the beach. He murmured to himself:
“Ah ça, jamais! That, par exemple, I do not believe.”
He doubted if Arlena Stuart, to give her her stage name, had ever wanted to be alone in her life.
Hercule Poirot, that man of the world, knew better. Arlena Marshall was doubtless keeping a rendezvous, and Poirot had a very good idea with whom.
Or thought he had, but there he found himself proved wrong.
For just as she floated rounded the point of the bay and disappeared out of sight, Patrick Redfern closely followed by Kenneth Marshall, came striding down the beach from the hotel.
Marshall nodded to Poirot, “’Morning, Poirot. Seen my wife anywhere about?”
Poirot’s answer was diplomatic.
“Has Madame then risen so early?”
Marshall said:
“She’s not in her room.” He looked up at the sky. “Lovely day. I shall have a bathe right away. Got a lot of typing to do this morning.”
Patrick Redfern, less openly, was looking up and down the beach. He sat down near Poirot and prepared to wait for the arrival of his lady.
Poirot said:
“And Madame Redfern? Has she too risen early?”
Patrick Redfern said:
“Christine? Oh, she’s going off sketching. She’s rather keen on art just now.”
He spoke impatiently, his mind clearly elsewhere. As time passed he displayed his impatience for Arlena’s arrival only too crudely. At every footstep he turned an eager head to see who it was coming down from the hotel.
Disappointment followed disappointment.
First Mr. and Mrs. Gardener complete with knitting and book and then Miss Brewster arrived.
Mrs. Gardener, industrious as ever, settled herself in her chair, and began to knit vigorously and talk at the same time.
“Well. M. Poirot. The beach seems very deserted this morning. Where is everybody?”
Poirot replied that the Mastermans and the Cowans, two families with young people in them, had gone off on an all-day sailing excursion.
“Why that certainly does make all the difference, not having them about laughing and calling out. And only one person bathing, Captain Marshall.”
Marshall had just finished his swim. He came up the beach swinging his towel.
“Pretty good in the sea this morning,” he said. “Unfortunately I’ve got a lot of work to do. Must go and get on with it.”
“Why, if that isn’t too bad, Captain Marshall. On a beautiful day like this, too. My, wasn’t yesterday too terrible? I said to Mr. Gardener that if the weather was going to continue like that we’d just have to leave. It’s the melancholy, you know, with the mist right up around the island. Gives you a kind of ghostly feeling, but then I’ve always been very susceptible to atmosphere ever since I was a child. Sometimes, you know, I’d feel I just had to scream and scream. And that, of course, was very trying to my parents. But my mother was a lovely woman and she said to my father, ‘Sinclair, if the child feels like that, we must let her do it. Screaming is her way of expressing herself.’ And of course, my father agreed. He was devoted to my mother and just did everything she said. They were a perfectly lovely couple, as I’m sure Mr. Gardener will agree. They were a very remarkable couple, weren’t they, Odell?”
“Yes, darling,” said Mr. Gardener.
“And where’s your girl this morning, Captain Marshall?”
“Linda? I don’t know. I expect she’s mooning round the island somewhere.”
“You know, Captain Marshall, that girl looks kind of peaky to me. She needs feeding up and very very sympathetic treatment.”
Kenneth Marshall said curtly:
“Linda’s all right.”
He went up to the hotel.
Patrick Redfern did not go into the water. He sat about, frankly looking up towards the hotel. He was beginning to look a shade sulky.
Miss Brewster was brisk and cheerful when she arrived.
The conversation was much as it had been on a previous morning. Gentle yapping from Mrs. Gardener and short staccato barks from Miss Brewster.
She remarked at last: “Beach seems a bit empty. Everyone off on excursions?”
Mrs. Gardener said:
“I was saying to Mr. Gardener only this morning that we simply must make an excursion to Dartmoor. It’s quite near and the associations are all so romantic. And I’d like to see that convict prison—Princetown, isn’t it? I think we’d better fix up right away and go there tomorrow, Odell.”
Mr. Gardener said:
“Yes, darling.”
Hercule Poirot said to Miss Brewster.
“You are going to bathe, Mademoiselle?”
“Oh I’ve had my morning dip before breakfast. Somebody nearly brained me with a bottle, too. Chucked it out of one of the hotel windows.”
“Now that’s a very dangerous thing to do,” said Mrs. Gardener. “I had a very dear friend who got concussion by a toothpaste tin falling on him in the street—thrown out of a thirty-fifth storey window it was. A most dangerous thing to do. He got very substantial damages.” She began to hunt among her skeins of wool. “Why, Odell, I don’t believe I’ve got that second shade of purple wool. It’s in the second drawer of the bureau in our bedroom or it might be the third.”
“Yes, darling.”
Mr. Gardener rose obediently and departed on his search.
Mrs. Gardener went on:
“Sometimes, you know, I do think that maybe we’re going a little too far nowadays. What with all our great discoveries and all the electrical waves there must be in the atmosphere, I do think it leads to a great deal of mental unrest, and I just feel that maybe the time has come for a new message to humanity. I don’t know, M. Poirot, if you’ve ever interested yourself in the prophecies from the Pyramids.”
“I have not,” said Poirot.
“Well, I do assure you that they’re very, very interesting. What with Moscow being exactly a thousand miles due north of—now what was it?—would it be Nineveh?—but anyway you take a circle and it just shows the most surprising things—and one can just see that there must have been special guidance, and that those ancient Egyptians couldn’t have thought of what they did all by themselves. And wh
en you’ve gone into the theory of the numbers and their repetition, why it’s all just so clear that I can’t see how anyone can doubt the truth of it for a moment.”
Mrs. Gardener paused triumphantly but neither Poirot nor Miss Emily Brewster felt moved to argue the point.
Poirot studied his white suède shoes ruefully.
Emily Brewster said:
“You been paddling with your shoes on, M. Poirot?”
Poirot murmured:
“Alas! I was precipitate.”
Emily Brewster lowered her voice. She said:
“Where’s our vamp this morning? She’s late.”
Mrs. Gardener, raising her eyes from her knitting to study Patrick Redfern, murmured:
“He looks just like a thundercloud. Oh dear, I do feel the whole thing is such a pity. I wonder what Captain Marshall thinks about it all. He’s such a nice quiet man—very British and unassuming. You just never know what he’s thinking about things.”
Patrick Redfern rose and began to pace up and down the beach.
Mrs. Gardener murmured:
“Just like a tiger.”
Three pairs of eyes watched his pacing. Their scrutiny seemed to make Patrick Redfern uncomfortable. He looked more than sulky now. He looked in a flaming temper.
In the stillness a faint chime from the mainland came to their ears.
Emily Brewster murmured:
“Wind’s from the east again. That’s a good sign when you can hear the church clock strike.”
Nobody said any more until Mr. Gardener returned with a skein of brilliant magenta wool.
“Why, Odell, what a long time you have been?”
“Sorry darling, but you see it wasn’t in your bureau at all. I found it on your wardrobe shelf.”
“Why, isn’t that too extraordinary? I could have declared I put it in that bureau drawer. I do think it’s fortunate that I’ve never had to give evidence in a court case. I’d just worry myself to death in case I wasn’t remembering a thing just right.”
Mr. Gardener said:
“Mrs. Gardener is very conscientious.”
V
It was some five minutes later that Patrick Redfern said:
“Going for your row this morning, Miss Brewster? Mind if I come with you?”
Miss Brewster said heartily:
“Delighted.”