Dead Man's Folly (17 page)

“Maybe I can guess what you're thinking, M. Poirot, but I assure you there was nothing of that kind. It wasn't fitted up for smuggling if that's what you mean. There were no fancy hidden partitions or secret cubbyholes. We'd have found them if there had been. There was nowhere on it you could have stowed away a body.”

“You are wrong,
mon cher,
that is not what I mean. I only asked what kind of yacht, big or small?”

“Oh, it was very fancy. Must have cost the earth. All very smart, newly painted, luxury fittings.”

“Exactly,” said Poirot. He sounded so pleased that Inspector Bland felt quite surprised.

“What are you getting at, M. Poirot?” he asked.

“Etienne de Sousa,” said Poirot, “is a rich man. That, my friend, is very significant.”

“Why?” demanded Inspector Bland.

“It fits in with my latest idea,” said Poirot.

“You've got an idea, then?”

“Yes. At last I have an idea. Up to now I have been very stupid.”

“You mean we've all been very stupid.”

“No,” said Poirot, “I mean specially myself. I had the good fortune to have a perfectly clear trail presented to me, and I did not see it.”

“But now you're definitely on to something?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Look here, M. Poirot—”

But Poirot had rung off. After searching his pockets for available change, he put through a personal call to Mrs. Oliver at her London number.

“But do not,” he hastened to add, when he made his demand, “disturb the lady to answer the telephone if she is at work.”

He remembered how bitterly Mrs. Oliver had once reproached him for interrupting a train of creative thought and how the world in consequence had been deprived of an intriguing mystery centring round an old-fashioned long-sleeved woollen vest. The exchange, however, was unable to appreciate his scruples.

“Well,” it demanded, “do you want a personal call or don't you?”

“I do,” said Poirot, sacrificing Mrs. Oliver's creative genius upon the altar of his own impatience. He was relieved when Mrs. Oliver spoke. She interrupted his apologies.

“It's splendid that you've rung me up,” she said. “I was just going out to give a talk on
How I Write My Books.
Now I can get my secretary to ring up and say I am unavoidably detained.”

“But, Madame, you must not let me prevent—”

“It's not a case of preventing,” said Mrs. Oliver joyfully. “I'd have made the most awful fool of myself. I mean, what
can
you say about how you write books? What I mean is, first you've got
to think of something, and when you've thought of it you've got to force yourself to sit down and write it. That's all. It would have taken me just three minutes to explain that, and then the Talk would have been ended and everyone would have been very fed up. I can't imagine why everybody is always so keen for authors to
talk
about writing. I should have thought it was an author's business to
write,
not
talk.
”

“And yet it is about how you write that I want to ask you.”

“You can ask,” said Mrs. Oliver; “but I probably shan't know the answer. I mean one just sits down and writes. Half a minute, I've got a frightfully silly hat on for the Talk—and I
must
take it off. It scratches my forehead.” There was a momentary pause and then the voice of Mrs. Oliver resumed in a relieved voice, “Hats are really only a symbol, nowadays, aren't they? I mean, one doesn't wear them for sensible reasons anymore; to keep one's head warm, or shield one from the sun, or hide one's face from people one doesn't want to meet. I beg your pardon, M. Poirot, did you say something?”

“It was an ejaculation only. It is extraordinary,” said Poirot, and his voice was awed. “Always you give me ideas. So also did my friend Hastings whom I have not seen for many, many years. You have given me now the clue to yet another piece of my problem. But no more of all that. Let me ask you instead my question. Do you know an atom scientist, Madame?”

“Do I know an atom scientist?” said Mrs. Oliver in a surprised voice. “I don't know. I suppose I
may.
I mean, I know some professors and things. I'm never quite sure what they actually
do.
”

“Yet you made an atom scientist one of the suspects in your Murder Hunt?”

“Oh,
that!
That was just to be up to date. I mean, when I went to buy presents for my nephews last Christmas, there was nothing but science fiction and the stratosphere and supersonic toys, and so I thought when I started on the Murder Hunt, ‘Better have an atom scientist as the chief suspect and be modern.' After all, if I'd needed a little technical jargon for it I could always have got it from Alec Legge.”

“Alec Legge—the husband of Sally Legge? Is he an atom scientist?”

“Yes, he is. Not Harwell. Wales somewhere. Cardiff. Or Bristol, is it? It's just a holiday cottage they have on the Helm. Yes, so, of course, I
do
know an atom scientist after all.”

“And it was meeting him at Nasse House that probably put the idea of an atom scientist into your head? But his wife is not Yugoslavian.”

“Oh,
no,
” said Mrs. Oliver, “Sally is English as English. Surely you realize
that?
”

“Then what put the idea of the Yugoslavian wife into your head?”

“I really don't know…Refugees perhaps? Students? All those foreign girls at the hostel trespassing through the woods and speaking broken English.”

“I see…Yes, I see now a lot of things.”

“It's about time,” said Mrs. Oliver.

“Pardon?”

“I said it was about time,” said Mrs. Oliver. “That you did see things, I mean. Up to now you don't seem to have done
anything.
” Her voice held reproach.

“One cannot arrive at things all in a moment,” said Poirot,
defending himself. “The police,” he added, “have been completely baffled.”

“Oh, the police,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Now if a woman were the head of Scotland Yard….”

Recognizing this well-known phrase, Poirot hastened to interrupt.

“The matter has been complex,” he said. “Extremely complex. But now—I tell you this in confidence—but now I arrive!”

Mrs. Oliver remained unimpressed.

“I daresay,” 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 recognizably 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 realized 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 summerhouse 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 summerhouse 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; Georgie 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.
”

“
Epatant!
” cried Poirot. “
Epatant!
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 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.

T
he 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 recognizing 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 breakup 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 a 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 very 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 realized how unhappy and desperate you were, she would have been wholeheartedly 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?”