阳光下的罪恶33

III

Mr. and Mrs. Gardener came into the presence of authority together.

Mrs. Gardener explained immediately.

“I hope you’ll understand how it is, Colonel Weston (that is the name, I think?).” Reassured onthis point she went on: “But this has been a very bad shock to me and Mr. Gardener is alwaysvery, very careful of my health—”

Mr. Gardener here interpolated:

“Mrs. Gardener,” he said, “is very sensitive.”

“—and he said to me, ‘Why, Carrie,’ he said, ‘naturally I’m coming right along with you.’ It’snot that we haven’t the highest admiration for British police methods because we have. I’ve beentold that British police procedure is most refined and delicate, and I’ve never doubted it, andcertainly when I once had a bracelet missing at the Savoy Hotel nothing could have been morelovely and sympathetic than the young man who came to see me about it, and, of course, I hadn’treally lost the bracelet at all, but just mislaid it; that’s the worst of rushing about so much, it makesyou kind of forgetful where you put things—” Mrs. Gardener paused, inhaled gently and startedoff again. “And what I say is, and I know Mr. Gardener agrees with me, that we’re only tooanxious to do anything to help the British police in every way. So go right ahead and ask meanything at all you want to know—”

Colonel Weston opened his mouth to comply with this invitation, but had momentarily topostpone speech while Mrs. Gardener went on.

“That’s what I said, Odell, isn’t it? And that’s so, isn’t it?”

“Yes, darling,” said Mr. Gardener.

Colonel Weston spoke hastily.

“I understand, Mrs. Gardener, that you and your husband were on the beach all the morning?”

For once Mr. Gardener was able to get in first.

“That’s so,” he said.

“Why, certainly we were,” said Mrs. Gardener. “And a lovely peaceful morning it was, just likeany other morning if you get me, perhaps even more so, and not the slightest idea in our minds ofwhat was happening round the corner on that lonely beach.”

“Did you see Mrs. Marshall at all today?”

“We did not. And I said to Odell, why wherever can Mrs. Marshall have got to this morning? Isaid. And first her husband coming looking for her and then that good-looking young man, Mr.

Redfern, and so impatient he was, just sitting there on the beach scowling at everyone andeverything. And I said to myself why, when he has that nice pretty little wife of his own, must hego running after that dreadful woman? Because that’s just what I felt she was. I always felt thatabout her, didn’t I, Odell?”

“Yes, darling.”

“However that nice Captain Marshall came to marry such a woman I just cannot imagine andwith that nice young daughter growing up, and it’s so important for girls to have the rightinfluence. Mrs. Marshall was not at all the right person—no breeding at all—and I should say avery animal nature. Now if Captain Marshall had had any sense he’d have married Miss Darnley,who’s a very very charming woman and a very distinguished one. I must say I admire the wayshe’s gone straight ahead and built up a first-class business as she has. It takes brains to do a thinglike that—and you’ve only got to look at Rosamund Darnley to see she’s just frantic with brains.

She could plan and carry out any moral thing she liked. I just admire that woman more than I cansay. And I said to Mr. Gardener the other day that any one could see she was very much in lovewith Captain Marshall—crazy about him was what I said, didn’t I, Odell?”

“Yes, darling.”

“It seems they knew each other as children, and why now, who knows, it may all come rightafter all with that woman out of the way. I’m not a narrow-minded woman, Colonel Weston, and itisn’t that I disapprove of the stage as such—why, quite a lot of my best friends are actresses—butI’ve said to Mr. Gardener all along that there was something evil about that woman. And you see,I’ve been proved right.”

She paused triumphantly.

The lips of Hercule Poirot quivered in a little smile. His eyes met for a minute the shrewd greyeyes of Mr. Gardener.

Colonel Weston said rather desperately:

“Well, thank you, Mrs. Gardener. I suppose there’s nothing that either of you has noticed sinceyou’ve been here that might have a bearing upon the case?”

“Why no, I don’t think so.” Mr. Gardener spoke with a slow drawl. “Mrs. Marshall was aroundwith young Redfern most of the time—but everybody can tell you that.”

“What about her husband? Did he mind, do you think?”

Mr. Gardener said cautiously:

“Captain Marshall is a very reserved man.”

Mrs. Gardener confirmed this by saying:

“Why, yes, he is a real Britisher!”

 

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