It was an unfortunate circumstance that the first time people saw my friend they were always disposed to consider him as a joke of the first water.
“What about this belt she was strangled with?” asked Crome. “Mr. Poirot is inclined to think it’s a valuable clue. I expect he’d like to see it.”
“Du tout,” said Poirot quickly. “You misunderstood me.”
“You’ll get nothing from that,” said Carter. “It wasn’t a leather belt—might have got fingerprints if it had been. Just a thick sort of knitted silk—ideal for the purpose.”
I gave a shiver.
“Well,” said Crome, “we’d better be getting along.”
We set out forthwith.
Our first visit was to the Ginger Cat. Situated on the sea front, this was the usual type of small tearoom. It had little tables covered with orange-checked cloths and basket-work chairs of exceeding discomfort with orange cushions on them. It was the kind of place that specialized in morning coffee, five different kinds of teas (Devonshire, Farmhouse, Fruit, Carlton and Plain), and a few sparing lunch dishes for females such as scrambled eggs and shrimps and macaroni au gratin.
The morning coffees were just getting under way. The manageress ushered us hastily into a very untidy back sanctum.
“Miss—eh—Merrion?” inquired Crome.
Miss Merrion bleated out in a high, distressed-gentlewoman voice:
“That is my name. This is a most distressing business. Most distressing. How it will affect our business I really cannot think!”
Miss Merrion was a very thin woman of forty with wispy orange hair (indeed she was astonishingly like a ginger cat herself). She played nervously with various fichus and frills that were part of her official costume.
“You’ll have a boom,” said Inspector Kelsey encouragingly. “You’ll see! You won’t be able to serve teas fast enough!”
“Disgusting,” said Miss Merrion. “Truly disgusting. It makes one despair of human nature.”
But her eyes brightened nevertheless.
“What can you tell me about the dead girl, Miss Merrion?”
“Nothing,” said Miss Merrion positively. “Absolutely nothing!”
“How long had she been working here?”
“This was the second summer.”
“You were satisfied with her?”
“She was a good waitress—quick and obliging.”
“She was pretty, yes?” inquired Poirot.
Miss Merrion, in her turn, gave him an “Oh, these foreigners” look.
“She was a nice, clean-looking girl,” she said distantly.
“What time did she go off duty last night?” asked Crome.
“Eight o’clock. We close at eight. We do not serve dinners. There is no demand for them. Scrambled eggs and tea (Poirot shuddered) people come in for up to seven o’clock and sometimes after, but our rush is over by 6:30.”
“Did she mention to you how she proposed to spend her evening?”
“Certainly not,” said Miss Merrion emphatically. “We were not on those terms.”
“No one came in and called for her? Anything like that?”
“No.”
“Did she seem quite her ordinary self? Not excited or depressed?”
“Really I could not say,” said Miss Merrion aloofly.
“How many waitresses do you employ?”
“Two normally, and an extra two after the 20th July until the end of August.”
“But Elizabeth Barnard was not one of the extras?”
“Miss Barnard was one of the regulars.”
“What about the other one?”
“Miss Higley? She is a very nice young lady.”
“Were she and Miss Barnard friends?”
“Really I could not say.”
“Perhaps we’d better have a word with her.”
“Now?”
“If you please.”
“I will send her to you,” said Miss Merrion, rising. “Please keep her as short a time as possible. This is the morning coffee rush hour.”
The feline and gingery Miss Merrion left the room.
“Very refined,” remarked Inspector Kelsey. He mimicked the lady’s mincing tone. “Really I could not say.”
A plump girl, slightly out of breath, with dark hair, rosy cheeks and dark eyes goggling with excitement, bounced in.
“Miss Merrion sent me,” she announced breathlessly.
“Miss Higley?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“You knew Elizabeth Barnard?”
“Oh, yes, I knew Betty. Isn’t it awful? It’s just too awful! I can’t believe it’s true. I’ve been saying to the girls all the morning I just can’t believe it! ‘You know, girls,’ I said, ‘it just doesn’t seem real. Betty! I mean, Betty Barnard, who’s been here all along, murdered! I just can’t believe it,’ I said. Five or six times I’ve pinched myself just to see if I wouldn’t wake up. Betty murdered…It’s—well, you know what I mean—it doesn’t seem real.”
“You knew the dead girl well?” asked Crome.
“Well, she’s worked here longer than I have. I only came this March. She was here last year. She was rather quiet, if you know what I mean. She wasn’t one to joke or laugh a lot. I don’t mean that she was exactly quiet—she’d plenty of fun in her and all that—but she didn’t—well, she was quiet and she wasn’t quiet, if you know what I mean.”
I will say for Inspector Crome that he was exceedingly patient. As a witness the buxom Miss Higley was persistently maddening. Every statement she made was repeated and qualified half a dozen times. The net result was meagre in the extreme.
She had not been on terms of intimacy with the dead girl. Elizabeth Barnard, it could be guessed, had considered herself a cut above Miss Higley. She had been friendly in working hours, but the girls had not seen much of her out of them. Elizabeth Barnard had had a “friend’ who worked at the estate agents near the station. Court & Brunskill. No, he wasn’t Mr. Court nor Mr. Brunskill. He was a clerk there. She didn’t know his name. But she knew him by sight well. Good-looking—oh, very good-looking, and always so nicely dressed. Clearly, there was a tinge of jealousy in Miss Higley’s heart.
In the end it boiled down to this. Elizabeth Barnard had not confided in anyone in the café as to her plans for the evening, but in Miss Higley’s opinion she had been going to meet her “friend.” She had had on a new white dress, “ever so sweet with one of the new necks.”
We had a word with each of the other two girls but with no further results. Betty Barnard had not said anything as to her plans and no one had noticed her in Bexhill during the course of the evening.
Ten
THE BARNARDS
Elizabeth Barnard’s parents lived in a minute bungalow, one of fifty or so recently run up by a speculative builder on the confines of the town. The name of it was Llandudno. Mr. Barnard, a stout, bewildered-looking man of fifty-five or so, had noticed our approach and was standing waiting in the doorway.
“Come in, gentlemen,” he said.
Inspector Kelsey took the initiative.
“This is Inspector Crome of Scotland Yard, sir,” he said. “He’s come down to help us over this business.”
“Scotland Yard?” said Mr. Barnard hopefully. “That’s good. This murdering villain’s got to be laid by the heels. My poor little girl—” His face was distorted by a spasm of grief.
“And this is Mr. Hercule Poirot, also from London, and er—”
“Captain Hastings,” said Poirot.
“Pleased to meet you, gentlemen,” said Mr. Barnard mechanically. “Come into the snuggery. I don’t know that my poor wife’s up to seeing you. All broken up, she is.”
However, by the time that we were ensconced in the living room of the bungalow, Mrs. Barnard had made her appearance. She had evidently been crying bitterly, her eyes were reddened and she walked with the uncertain gait of a person who had had a great shock.
“Why, mother, that’s fine,
” said Mr. Barnard. “You’re sure you’re all right—eh?”
He patted her shoulder and drew her down into a chair.
“The superintendent was very kind,” said Mr. Barnard. “After he’d broken the news to us, he said he’d leave any questions till later when we’d got over the first shock.”
“It is too cruel. Oh, it is too cruel,” cried Mrs. Barnard tearfully. “The cruellest thing that ever was, it is.”
Her voice had a faintly sing-song intonation that I thought for a moment was foreign till I remembered the name on the gate and realized that the “effer wass” of her speech was in reality proof of her Welsh origin.
“It’s very painful, madam, I know,” said Inspector Crome. “And we’ve every sympathy for you, but we want to know all the facts we can so as to get to work as quick as possible.”
“That’s sense, that is,” said Mr. Barnard, nodding approval.
“Your daughter was twenty-three, I understand. She lived here with you and worked at the Ginger Cat café, is that right?”
“That’s it.”
“This is a new place, isn’t it? Where did you live before?”
“I was in the ironmongery business in Kennington. Retired two years ago. Always meant to live near the sea.”
“You have two daughters?”
“Yes. My elder daughter works in an office in London.”
“Weren’t you alarmed when your daughter didn’t come home last night?”
“We didn’t know she hadn’t,” said Mrs. Barnard tearfully. “Dad and I always go to bed early. Nine o’clock’s our time. We never knew Betty hadn’t come home till the police officer came and said—and said—”
She broke down.
“Was your daughter in the habit of—er—returning home late?”
“You know what girls are nowadays, inspector,” said Barnard. “Independent, that’s what they are. These summer evenings they’re not going to rush home. All the same, Betty was usually in by eleven.”
“How did she get in? Was the door open?”
“Left the key under the mat—that’s what we always did.”
“There is some rumour, I believe, that your daughter was engaged to be married?”
“They don’t put it as formally as that nowadays,” said Mr. Barnard.
“Donald Fraser his name is, and I liked him. I liked him very much,” said Mrs. Barnard. “Poor fellow, it’ll be trouble for him—this news. Does he know yet, I wonder?”
“He works in Court & Brunskill’s, I understand?”
“Yes, they’re the estate agents.”
“Was he in the habit of meeting your daughter most evenings after her work?”
“Not every evening. Once or twice a week would be nearer.”
“Do you know if she was going to meet him yesterday?”
“She didn’t say. Betty never said much about what she was doing or where she was going. But she was a good girl, Betty was. Oh, I can’t believe—”
Mrs. Barnard started sobbing again.
“Pull yourself together, old lady. Try to hold up, mother,” urged her husband. “We’ve got to get to the bottom of this.”
“I’m sure Donald would never—would never—” sobbed Mrs. Barnard.
“Now just you pull yourself together,” repeated Mr Barnard.
“I wish to God I could give you some help—but the plain fact is I know nothing—nothing at all that can help you to find the dastardly scoundrel who did this. Betty was just a merry, happy girl—with a decent young fellow that she was—well, we’d have called it walking out with in my young days. Why anyone should want to murder her simply beats me—it doesn’t make sense.”
“You’re very near the truth there, Mr. Barnard,” said Crome. “I tell you what I’d like to do—have a look over Miss Barnard’s room. There may be something—letters—or a diary.”
“Look over it and welcome,” said Mr. Barnard, rising.
He led the way. Crome followed him, then Poirot, then Kelsey, and I brought up the rear.
I stopped for a minute to retie my shoelaces, and as I did so a taxi drew up outside and a girl jumped out of it. She paid the driver and hurried up the path to the house, carrying a small suitcase. As she entered the door she saw me and stopped dead.
There was something so arresting in her pose that it intrigued me.
“Who are you?” she said.
I came down a few steps. I felt embarrassed as to how exactly to reply. Should I give my name? Or mention that I had come here with the police? The girl, however, gave me no time to make a decision.
“Oh, well,” she said, “I can guess.”
She pulled off the little white woollen cap she was wearing and threw it on the ground. I could see her better now as she turned a little so that the light fell on her.
My first impression was of the Dutch dolls that my sisters used to play with in my childhood. Her hair was black and cut in a straight bob and a bang across the forehead. Her cheek-bones were high and her whole figure had a queer modern angularity that was not, somehow, unattractive. She was not good-looking—plain rather—but there was an intensity about her, a forcefulness that made her a person quite impossible to overlook.
“You are Miss Barnard?” I asked.
“I am Megan Barnard. You belong to the police, I suppose?”
“Well,” I said. “Not exactly—”
She interrupted me.
“I don’t think I’ve got anything to say to you. My sister was a nice bright girl with no men friends. Good morning.”
She gave me a short laugh as she spoke and regarded me challengingly.
“That’s the correct phrase, I believe?” she said.
“I’m not a reporter, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Well, what are you?” She looked around. “Where’s mum and dad?”
“Your father is showing the police your sister’s bedroom. Your mother’s in there. She’s very upset.”
The girl seemed to make a decision.
“Come in here,” she said.
She pulled open a door and passed through. I followed her and found myself in a small, neat kitchen.
I was about to shut the door behind me—but found an unexpected resistance. The next moment Poirot had slipped quietly into the room and shut the door behind him.
“Mademoiselle Barnard?” he said with a quick bow.
“This is M. Hercule Poirot,” I said.
Megan Barnard gave him a quick, appraising glance.
“I’ve heard of you,” she said. “You’re the fashionable private sleuth, aren’t you?”
“Not a pretty description—but it suffices,” said Poirot.
The girl sat down on the edge of the kitchen table. She felt in her bag for a cigarette. She placed it between her lips, lighted it, and then said in between two puffs of smoke:
“Somehow, I don’t see what M. Hercule Poirot is doing in our humble little crime.”
“Mademoiselle,” said Poirot. “What you do not see and what I do not see would probably fill a volume. But all that is of no practical importance. What is of practical importance is something that will not be easy to find.”
“What’s that?”
“Death, mademoiselle, unfortunately creates a prejudice. A prejudice in favour of the deceased. I heard what you said just now to my friend Hastings. ‘A nice bright girl with no men friends.’ You said that in mockery of the newspapers. And it is very true—when a young girl is dead, that is the kind of thing that is said. She was bright. She was happy. She was sweet-tempered. She had not a care in the world. She had no undesirable acquaintances. There is a great charity always to the dead. Do you know what I should like this minute? I should like to find someone who knew Elizabeth Barnard and who does not know she is dead! Then, perhaps, I should hear what is useful to me—the truth.”
Megan Barnard looked at him for a few minutes in silence whilst she smoked. Then, at last, she spoke. Her words made me jump.
“Betty,” she said, “was an unmitigated little ass!”
Eleven
MEGAN BARNARD
As I said, Megan Barnard’s words, and still more the crisp businesslike tone in which they were uttered, made me jump.
Poirot, however, merely bowed his head gravely.
“A la bonne heure,” he said. “You are intelligent, mademoiselle.”
Megan Barnard said, still in the same detached tone:
“I was extremely fond of Betty. But my fondness didn’t blind me from seeing exactly the kind of silly little fool she was—and even telling her so upon occasions! Sisters are like that.”
“And did she pay any attention to your advice?”
“Probably not,” said Megan cynically.
“Will you, mademoiselle, be precise.”
The girl hesitated for a minute or two.
Poirot said with a slight smile:
“I will help you. I heard what you said to Hastings. That your sister was a bright, happy girl with no men friends. It was—un peu—the opposite that was true, was it not?”
Megan said slowly:
“There wasn’t any harm in Betty. I want you to understand that. She’d always go straight. She’s not the weekending kind. Nothing of that sort. But she liked being taken out and dancing and—oh, cheap flattery and compliments and all that sort of thing.”
“And she was pretty—yes?”
This question, the third time I had heard it, met this time with a practical response.
Megan slipped off the table, went to her suitcase, snapped it open and extracted something which she handed to Poirot.
In a leather frame was a head and shoulders of a fair-haired, smiling girl. Her hair had evidently recently been permed, it stood out from her head in a mass of rather frizzy curls. The smile was arch and artificial. It was certainly not a face that you could call beautiful, but it had an obvious and cheap prettiness.
Poirot handed it back, saying:
“You and she do not resemble each other, mademoiselle.”
“Oh! I’m the plain one of the family. I’ve always known that.” She seemed to brush aside the fact as unimportant.
“In what way exactly do you consider your sister was behaving foolishly? Do you mean, perhaps, in relation to Mr. Donald Fraser?”