阳光下的罪恶38

Eight

They were standing in the bedroom that had been Arlena Marshall’s.

Two big bay windows gave on to a balcony that overlooked the bathing beach and the seabeyond. Sunshine poured into the room, flashing over the bewildering array of bottles and jars onArlena’s dressing table.

Here there was every kind of cosmetic and unguent known to beauty parlours. Amongst thispanoply of woman’s affairs three men moved purposefully. Inspector Colgate went about shuttingand opening drawers.

Presently he gave a grunt. He had come upon a packet of folded letters. He and Weston ranthrough them together.

Hercule Poirot had moved to the wardrobe. He opened the door of the hanging cupboard andlooked at the multiplicity of gowns and sports suits that hung there. He opened the other side.

Foamy lingerie lay in piles. On a wide shelf were hats. Two more beach cardboard hats in lacquerred and pale yellow—a Big Hawaiian straw hat—another of drooping dark-blue linen and three orfour little absurdities for which, no doubt, several guiness had been paid apiece—a kind of beret indark blue—a tuft, no more, of black velvet—a pale grey turban.

Hercule Poirot stood scanning them—a faintly indulgent smile came to his lips. He murmured:

“Les femmes!”

Colonel Weston was refolding the letters.

“Three from young Redfern,” he said. “Damned young ass. He’ll learn not to write letters towomen in a few more years. Women always keep letters and then swear they’ve burnt them.

There’s one other letter here. Same line of country.”

He held it out and Poirot took it.

Darling Arlena,—God, I feel blue. To be going out to China—and perhaps notseeing you again for years and years. I didn’t know any man could go on feelingcrazy about a woman like I feel about you. Thanks for the cheque. They won’tprosecute now. It was a near shave, though, and all because I wanted to make bigmoney for you. Can you forgive me? I wanted to set diamonds in your ears—yourlovely ears—and clasp great milk-white pearls round your throat, only they saypearls are no good nowadays. A fabulous emerald, then? Yes, that’s the thing. Agreat emerald, cool and green and full of hidden fire. Don’t forget me—but youwon’t, I know. You’re mine—always.

Goodbye—goodbye—goodbye.

J.N.

Inspector Colgate said:

“Might be worth while to find out if J.N. really did go to China. Otherwise—well, he might bethe person we’re looking for. Crazy about the woman, idealizing her, suddenly finding out he’dbeen played for a sucker. It sounds to me as though this is the boy Miss Brewster mentioned. Yes,I think this might be useful.”

Hercule Poirot nodded. He said: “Yes, that letter is important. I find it very important.”

He turned round and stared at the room—at the bottles on the dressing table—at the openwardrobe and at a big Pierrot doll that lolled insolently on the bed.

They went into Kenneth Marshall’s room.

It was next door to his wife’s but with no communicating door and no balcony. It faced thesame way and had two windows, but it was much smaller. Between the two windows a gilt mirrorhung on the wall. In the corner beyond the right-hand window was the dressing table. On it weretwo ivory brushes, a clothes brush and a bottle of hair lotion. In the corner by the left-handwindow was a writing table. An open typewriter stood on it and papers were ranged in a stackbeside it.

Colgate went through them rapidly.

He said:

“All seems straightforward enough. Ah, here’s the letter he mentioned this morning. Dated the24th—that’s yesterday. And here’s the envelope postmarked Leathercombe Bay this morning.

Seems all square. Now we’ll have an idea if he could have prepared that answer of his beforehand.

He sat down.

Colonel Weston said:

“We’ll leave you to it, for a moment. We’ll just glance through the rest of the rooms.

Everyone’s been kept out of this corridor until now, and they’re getting a bit restive about it.”

They went next into Linda Marshall’s room. It faced east, looking out over the rocks down tothe sea below.

Weston gave a glance round. He murmured:

“Don’t suppose there’s anything to see here. But it’s possible Marshall might have putsomething in his daughter’s room that he didn’t want us to find. Not likely, though. It isn’t asthough there had been a weapon or anything to get rid of.”

He went out again.

Hercule Poirot stayed behind. He found something that interested him in the grate. Somethinghad been burnt there recently. He knelt down, working patiently. He laid out his finds on a sheet ofpaper. A large irregular blob of candle grease—some fragments of green paper or cardboard,possibly a pull-off calendar for with it was an unburnt fragment bearing a large figure 5 and ascrap of printing…noble deeds… There was also an ordinary pin and some burnt animal matterwhich might have been hair.

Poirot arranged them neatly in a row and stared at them.

He murmured:

“Do noble deeds, not dream them all day long. C’est possible. But what is one to make of thiscollection? C’est fantastique!”

And then he picked up the pin and his eyes grew sharp and green.

He murmured:

“Pour l’amour de Dieu! Is it possible?”

Hercule Poirot got up from where he had been kneeling by the grate.

Slowly he looked round the room and this time there was an entirely new expression on hisface. It was grave and almost stern.

To the left of the mantelpiece there were some shelves with a row of books. Hercule Poirotlooked thoughtfully along the titles.

A Bible, a battered copy of Shakespeare’s plays, The Marriage of William Ashe, by Mrs.

Humphry Ward. The Young Stepmother, by Charlotte Yonge. The Shropshire Lad. Eliot’s Murderin the Cathedral. Bernard Shaw’s St. Joan. Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell. TheBurning Court, by Dickson Carr.

Poirot took out two books. The Young Stepmother and William Ashe, and glanced inside at theblurred stamp affixed to the title page. As he was about to replace them, his eye caught sight of abook that had been shoved behind the other books. It was a small dumpy volume bound in browncalf.

He took it out and opened it. Very slowly he nodded his head.

He murmured:

“So I was right… Yes, I was right. But for the other—is that possible too? No, it is not possible,unless…”

He stayed there, motionless, stroking his moustaches whilst his mind ranged busily over theproblem.

He said again, softly:

“Unless—”

 

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