“What do you mean, Mr. Clarke?”
“Man alive, don’t you realize that on next Wednesday the St. Leger is being run at Doncaster?”
The inspector’s jaw dropped. For the life of him he could not bring out the familiar “Oh, yes?” Instead he said:
“That’s true. Yes, that complicates matters….”
“A B C is no fool, even if he is a madman.”
We were all silent for a minute or two, taking in the situation. The crowds on the race course—the passionate, sport-loving English public—the endless complications.
Poirot murmured:
“C’est ingénieux. Tout de même c’est bien imaginé, ça.”
“It’s my belief,” said Clarke, “that the murder will take place on the race course—perhaps actually while the Leger is being run.”
For the moment his sporting instincts took a momentary pleasure in the thought….
Inspector Crome rose, taking the letter with him.
“The St. Leger is a complication,” he allowed. “It’s unfortunate.”
He went out. We heard a murmur of voices in the hallway. A minute later Thora Grey entered.
She said anxiously:
“The inspector told me there is another letter. Where this time?”
It was raining outside. Thora Grey was wearing a black coat and skirt and furs. A little black hat just perched itself on the side of her golden head.
It was to Franklin Clarke that she spoke and she came right up to him and, with a hand on his arm, waited for his answer.
“Doncaster—and on the day of the St. Leger.”
We settled down to a discussion. It went without saying that we all intended to be present, but the race-meeting undoubtedly complicated the plans we had made tentatively beforehand.
A feeling of discouragement swept over me. What could this little band of six people do, after all, however strong their personal interest in the matter might be? There would be innumerable police, keen-eyed and alert, watching all likely spots. What could six more pairs of eyes do?
As though in answer to my thought, Poirot raised his voice. He spoke rather like a schoolmaster or a priest.
“Mes enfants,” he said. “We must not disperse the strength. We must approach this matter with method and order in our thoughts. We must look within and not without for the truth. We must say to ourselves—each one of us—what do I know about the murderer? And so we must build up a composite picture of the man we are going to seek.”
“We know nothing about him,” sighed Thora Grey helplessly.
“No, no, mademoiselle. That is not true. Each one of us knows something about him—if we only knew what it is we know. I am convinced that the knowledge is there if we could only get at it.”
Clarke shook his head.
“We don’t know anything—whether he’s old or young, fair or dark! None of us has ever seen him or spoken to him! We’ve gone over everything we all know again and again.”
“Not everything! For instance, Miss Grey here told us that she did not see or speak to any stranger on the day that Sir Carmichael Clarke was murdered.”
Thora Grey nodded.
“That’s quite right.”
“Is it? Lady Clarke told us, mademoiselle, that from her window she saw you standing on the front doorstep talking to a man.”
“She saw me talking to a strange man?” The girl seemed genuinely astonished. Surely that pure, limpid look could not be anything but genuine.
She shook her head.
“Lady Clarke must have made a mistake. I never—Oh!”
The exclamation came suddenly—jerked out of her. A crimson wave flooded her cheeks.
“I remember now! How stupid! I’d forgotten all about it. But it wasn’t important. Just one of those men who come round selling stockings—you know, ex-army people. They’re very persistent. I had to get rid of him. I was just crossing the hall when he came to the door. He spoke to me instead of ringing but he was quite a harmless sort of person. I suppose that’s why I forgot about him.”
Poirot was swaying to and fro, his hands clasped to his head. He was muttering to himself with such vehemence that nobody else said anything, but stared at him instead.
“Stockings,” he was murmuring. “Stockings…stockings…stockings…ça vient…stockings…stockings…it is the motif— yes…three months ago…and the other day…and now. Bon Dieu, I have it!”
He sat upright and fixed me with an imperious eye.
“You remember, Hastings? Andover. The shop. We go upstairs. The bedroom. On a chair. A pair of new silk stockings. And now I know what it was that roused my attention two days ago. It was you, mademoiselle—” He turned on Megan. “You spoke of your mother who wept because she had bought your sister some new stockings on the very day of the murder….”
He looked round on us all.
“You see? It is the same motif three times repeated. That cannot be coincidence. When mademoiselle spoke I had the feeling that what she said linked up with something. I know now with what. The words spoken by Mrs. Ascher’s next-door neighbour, Mrs. Fowler. About people who were always trying to sell you things—and she mentioned stockings. Tell me, mademoiselle, it is true, is it not, that your mother bought those stockings, not at a shop, but from someone who came to the door?”
“Yes—yes—she did…I remember now. She said something about being sorry for these wretched men who go round and try to get orders.”
“But what’s the connection?” cried Franklin. “That a man came selling stockings proves nothing!”
“I tell you, my friends, it cannot be coincidence. Three crimes—and every time a man selling stockings and spying out the land.”
He wheeled round on Thora.
“A vous la parole! Describe this man.”
She looked at him blankly.
“I can’t…I don’t know how…He had glasses, I think—and a shabby overcoat….”
“Mieux que ça, mademoiselle.”
“He stooped…I don’t know. I hardly looked at him. He wasn’t the sort of man you’d notice….”
Poirot said gravely:
“You are quite right, mademoiselle. The whole secret of the murders lies there in your description of the murderer—for without a doubt he was the murderer! ‘He wasn’t the sort of man you’d notice.’ Yes—there is no doubt about it…You have described the murderer!”
Twenty-two
NOT FROM CAPTAIN HASTINGS’ PERSONAL NARRATIVE
I
Mr. Alexander Bonaparte Cust sat very still. His breakfast lay cold and untasted on his plate. A newspaper was propped up against the teapot and it was this newspaper that Mr. Cust was reading with avid interest.
Suddenly he got up, paced to and fro for a minute, then sank back into a chair by the window. He buried his head in his hands with a stifled groan.
He did not hear the sound of the opening door. His landlady, Mrs. Marbury, stood in the doorway.
“I was wondering, Mr. Cust, if you’d fancy a nice—why, whatever is it? Aren’t you feeling well?”
Mr. Cust raised his head from his hands.
“Nothing. It’s nothing at all, Mrs. Marbury. I’m not—feeling very well this morning.”
Mrs. Marbury inspected the breakfast tray.
“So I see. You haven’t touched your breakfast. Is it your head troubling you again?”
“No. At least, yes…I—I just feel a bit out of sorts.”
“Well, I’m sorry, I’m sure. You’ll not be going away today, then?”
Mr. Cust sprang up abruptly.
“No, no. I have to go. It’s business. Important. Very important.”
His hands were shaking. Seeing him so agitated, Mrs. Marbury tried to soothe him.
“Well, if you must—you must. Going far this time?”
“No. I’m going to”—he hesitated for a minute or two—“Cheltenham.”
There was something so peculiar about the tentative way he said the wor
d that Mrs. Marbury looked at him in surprise.
“Cheltenham’s a nice place,” she said conversationally. “I went there from Bristol one year. The shops are ever so nice.”
“I suppose so—yes.”
Mrs. Marbury stooped rather stiffly—for stooping did not suit her figure—to pick up the paper that was lying crumpled on the floor.
“Nothing but this murdering business in the papers nowadays,” she said as she glanced at the headlines before putting it back on the table. “Gives me the creeps, it does. I don’t read it. It’s like Jack the Ripper all over again.”
Mr. Cust’s lips moved, but no sound came from them.
“Doncaster—that’s the place he’s going to do his next murder,” said Mrs. Marbury. “And tomorrow! Fairly makes your flesh creep, doesn’t it? If I lived in Doncaster and my name began with a D, I’d take the first train away, that I would. I’d run no risks. What did you say, Mr. Cust?”
“Nothing, Mrs. Marbury—nothing.”
“It’s the races and all. No doubt he thinks he’ll get his opportunity there. Hundreds of police, they say, they’re drafting in and—Why, Mr. Cust, you do look bad. Hadn’t you better have a little drop of something? Really, now, you oughtn’t to go travelling today.”
Mr. Cust drew himself up.
“It is necessary, Mrs. Marbury. I have always been punctual in my—engagements. People must have—must have confidence in you! When I have undertaken to do a thing, I carry it through. It is the only way to get on in—in—business.”
“But if you’re ill?”
“I am not ill, Mrs. Marbury. Just a little worried over—various personal matters. I slept badly. I am really quite all right.”
His manner was so firm that Mrs. Marbury gathered up the breakfast things and reluctantly left the room.
Mr. Cust dragged out a suitcase from under the bed and began to pack. Pyjamas, sponge bag, spare collar, leather slippers. Then unlocking a cupboard, he transferred a dozen or so flattish cardboard boxes about ten inches by seven from a shelf to the suitcase.
He just glanced at the railway guide on the table and then left the room, suitcase in hand.
Setting it down in the hall, he put on his hat and overcoat. As he did so he sighed deeply, so deeply that the girl who came out from a room at the side looked at him in concern.
“Anything the matter, Mr. Cust?”
“Nothing, Miss Lily.”
“You were sighing so!”
Mr. Cust said abruptly:
“Are you at all subject to premonitions, Miss Lily? To presentiments?”
“Well, I don’t know that I am, really…Of course, there are days when you just feel everything’s going wrong, and days when you feel everything’s going right.”
“Quite,” said Mr. Cust.
He sighed again.
“Well, goodbye, Miss Lily. Goodbye. I’m sure you’ve been very kind to me always here.”
“Well, don’t say goodbye as though you were going away for ever,” laughed Lily.
“No, no, of course not.”
“See you Friday,” laughed the girl. “Where are you going this time? Seaside again.”
“No, no—er—Cheltenham.”
“Well, that’s nice, too. But not quite as nice as Torquay. That must have been lovely. I want to go there for my holiday next year. By the way, you must have been quite near where the murder was—the A B C murder. It happened while you were down there, didn’t it?”
“Er—yes. But Churston’s six or seven miles away.”
“All the same, it must have been exciting! Why, you may have passed the murderer in the street! You may have been quite near to him!”
“Yes, I may, of course,” said Mr. Cust with such a ghastly and contorted smile that Lily Marbury noticed it.
“Oh, Mr. Cust, you don’t look well.”
“I’m quite all right, quite all right. Goodbye, Miss Marbury.”
He fumbled to raise his hat, caught up his suitcase and fairly hastened out of the front door.
“Funny old thing,” said Lily Marbury indulgently. “Looks half batty to my mind.”
II
Inspector Crome said to his subordinate:
“Get me out a list of all stocking manufacturing firms and circularize them. I want a list of all their agents—you know, fellows who sell on commission and tout for orders.”
“This the A B C case, sir?”
“Yes. One of Mr. Hercule Poirot’s ideas.” The inspector’s tone was disdainful. “Probably nothing in it, but it doesn’t do to neglect any chance, however faint.”
“Right, sir. Mr. Poirot’s done some good stuff in his time, but I think he’s a bit gaga now, sir.”
“He’s a mountebank,” said Inspector Crome. “Always posing. Takes in some people. It doesn’t take in me. Now then, about the arrangement for Doncaster….”
III
Tom Hartigan said to Lily Marbury:
“Saw your old dugout this morning.”
“Who? Mr. Cust?”
“Cust it was. At Euston. Looking like a lost hen, as usual. I think the fellow’s half loony. He needs someone to look after him. First he dropped his paper and then he dropped his ticket. I picked that up—he hadn’t the faintest idea he’d lost it. Thanked me in an agitated sort of manner, but I don’t think he recognized me.”
“Oh, well,” said Lily. “He’s only seen you passing in the hall, and not very often at that.”
They danced once round the floor.
“You dance something beautiful,” said Tom.
“Go on,” said Lily and wriggled yet a little closer.
They danced round again.
“Did you say Euston or Paddington?” asked Lily abruptly. “Where you saw old Cust, I mean?”
“Euston.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. What do you think?”
“Funny. I thought you went to Cheltenham from Paddington.”
“So you do. But old Cust wasn’t going to Cheltenham. He was going to Doncaster.”
“Cheltenham.”
“Doncaster. I know, my girl! After all, I picked up his ticket, didn’t I?”
“Well, he told me he was going to Cheltenham. I’m sure he did.”
“Oh, you’ve got it wrong. He was going to Doncaster all right. Some people have all the luck. I’ve got a bit on Firefly for the Leger and I’d love to see it run.”
“I shouldn’t think Mr. Cust went to race meetings, he doesn’t look the kind. Oh, Tom, I hope he won’t get murdered. It’s Doncaster the A B C murder’s going to be.”
“Cust’ll be all right. His name doesn’t begin with a D.”
“He might have been murdered last time. He was down near Churston at Torquay when the last murder happened.”
“Was he? That’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?”
He laughed.
“He wasn’t at Bexhill the time before, was he?”
Lily crinkled her brows.
“He was away…Yes, I remember he was away…because he forgot his bathing-dress. Mother was mending it for him. And she said: ‘There—Mr. Cust went away yesterday without his bathing-dress after all,’ and I said: ‘Oh, never mind the old bathing-dress—there’s been the most awful murder,’ I said, ‘a girl strangled at Bexhill.’”
“Well, if he wanted his bathing-dress, he must have been going to the seaside. I say, Lily”—his face crinkled up with amusement. “What price your old dugout being the murderer himself?”
“Poor Mr. Cust? He wouldn’t hurt a fly,” laughed Lily.
They danced on happily—in their conscious minds nothing but the pleasure of being together.
In their unconscious minds something stirred….
Twenty-three
SEPTEMBER 11TH. DONCASTER
Doncaster!
I shall, I think, remember that 11th of September all my life.
Indeed, whenever I see a mention of the St. Leger my mind flies au
tomatically not to horse racing but to murder.
When I recall my own sensations, the thing that stands out most is a sickening sense of insufficiency. We were here—on the spot—Poirot, myself, Clarke, Fraser, Megan Barnard, Thora Grey and Mary Drower, and in the last resort what could any of us do?
We were building on a forlorn hope—on the chance of recognizing amongst a crowd of thousands of people a face or figure imperfectly seen on an occasion one, two or three months back.
The odds were in reality greater than that. Of us all, the only person likely to make such a recognition was Thora Grey.
Some of her serenity had broken down under the strain. Her calm, efficient manner was gone. She sat twisting her hands together, almost weeping, appealing incoherently to Poirot.
“I never really looked at him…Why didn’t I? What a fool I was. You’re depending on me, all of you…and I shall let you down. Because even if I did see him again I mightn’t recognize him. I’ve got a bad memory for faces.”
Poirot, whatever he might say to me, and however harshly he might seem to criticize the girl, showed nothing but kindness now. His manner was tender in the extreme. It struck me that Poirot was no more indifferent to beauty in distress than I was.
He patted her shoulder kindly.
“Now then, petite, not the hysteria. We cannot have that. If you should see this man you would recognize him.”
“How do you know?”
“Oh, a great many reasons—for one, because the red succeeds the black.”
“What do you mean, Poirot?” I cried.
“I speak the language of the tables. At roulette there may be a long run on the black—but in the end red must turn up. It is the mathematical laws of chance.”
“You mean that luck turns?”
“Exactly, Hastings. And that is where the gambler (and the murderer, who is, after all, only a supreme kind of gambler since what he risks is not his money but his life) often lacks intelligent anticipation. Because he has won he thinks he will continue to win! He does not leave the tables in good time with his pocket full. So in crime the murderer who is successful cannot conceive the possibility of not being successful! He takes to himself all the credit for a successful performance—but I tell you, my friends, however carefully planned, no crime can be successful without luck!”