阳光下的罪恶39

II

Colonel Weston looked in at the door.

“Hullo, Poirot, still there?”

“I arrive. I arrive,” cried Poirot.

He hurried out into the corridor.

The room next to Linda’s was that of the Redferns.

Poirot looked into it, noting automatically the trace of two different individualities—a neatnessand tidiness which he associated with Christine, and a picturesque disorder which wascharacteristic of Patrick. Apart from these sidelights on personality the room did not interest him.

Next to it again was Rosamund Darnley’s room, and here he lingered for a moment in the sheerpleasure of the owner’s personality.

He noted the few books that lay on the table next to the bed, the expensive simplicity of thetoilet set on the dressing table. And there came gently to his nostrils the elusive expensive perfumethat Rosamund Darnley used.

Next to Rosamund Darnley’s room at the northern end of the corridor was an open windowleading to a balcony from which an outside stair led down to the rocks below.

Weston said:

“That’s the way people go down to bathe before breakfast—that is, if they bathe off the rocks asmost of them do.”

Interest came into Hercule Poirot’s eyes. He stepped outside and looked down.

Below, a path led to steps cut zigzag leading down the rocks to the sea. There was also a paththat led round the hotel to the left. He said:

“One could go down these stairs, go to the left round the hotel and join the main path up fromthe causeway.”

Weston nodded. He amplified Poirot’s statement.

“One could go right across the island without going through the hotel at all.” He added: “Butone might still be seen from a window.”

“What window?”

“Two of the public bathrooms look out that way—north—and the staff bathroom, and thecloakrooms on the ground floor. Also the billiard room.”

Poirot nodded. He said:

“And all the former have frosted glass windows, and one does not play billiards on a finemorning.”

“Exactly.”

Weston paused and said:

“If he did it, that’s the way he went.”

“You mean Captain Marshall?”

“Yes. Blackmail, or no blackmail. I still feel it points to him. And his manner—well, his manneris unfortunate.”

Hercule Poirot said dryly:

“Perhaps—but a manner does not make a murderer!”

Weston said:

“Then you think he’s out of it?”

Poirot shook his head. He said:

“No, I would not say that.”

Weston said:

“We’ll see what Colgate can make out of the typewriting alibi. In the meantime I’ve got thechambermaid of this floor waiting to be interviewed. A good deal may depend on her evidence.”

The chambermaid was a woman of thirty, brisk, efficient and intelligent. Her answers camereadily.

Captain Marshall had come up to his room not long after ten-thirty. She was then finishing theroom. He had asked her to be as quick as possible. She had not seen him come back but she hadheard the sound of the typewriter a little later. She put it at about five minutes to eleven. She wasthen in Mr. and Mrs. Redfern’s room. After she had done that she moved on to Miss Darnley’sroom at the end of the corridor. She could not hear the typewriter from there. She went to MissDarnley’s room, as near as she could say, at just after eleven o’clock. She remembered hearingLeathercombe Church strike the hour as she went in. At a quarter past eleven she had gonedownstairs for her eleven o’clock cup of tea and “snack.” Afterwards she had gone to do therooms in the other wing of the hotel. In answer to the Chief Constable’s question she explainedthat she had done the rooms in this corridor in the following order:

Miss Linda Marshall’s, the two public bathrooms, Mrs. Marshall’s room and private bath,Captain Marshall’s room. Mr. and Mrs. Redfern’s room and private bath, Miss Darnley’s roomand private bath. Captain Marshall’s and Miss Marshall’s rooms had no adjoining bathrooms.

During the time she was in Miss Darnley’s room and bathroom she had not heard any one passthe door or go out by the staircase to the rocks, but it was quite likely she wouldn’t have heard ifany one went quietly.

Weston then directed his questions to the subject of Mrs. Marshall.

No, Mrs. Marshall wasn’t one for rising early as a rule. She, Gladys Narracott, had beensurprised to find the door open and Mrs. Marshall gone down at just after ten. Something quiteunusual, that was.

“Did Mrs. Marshall always have her breakfast in bed?”

“Oh yes, sir, always. Not very much of it either. Just tea and orange juice and one piece of toast.

Slimming like so many ladies.”

No, she hadn’t noticed anything unusual in Mrs. Marshall’s manner that morning. She’d seemedquite as usual.

Hercule Poirot murmured:

“What did you think of Mrs. Marshall, Mademoiselle?”

Gladys Narracott stared at him. She said:

“Well, that’s hardly for me to say, is it, sir?”

“But yes, it is for you to say. We are anxious—very anxious—to hear your impression.”

Gladys gave a slightly uneasy glance towards the Chief Constable, who endeavoured to makehis face sympathetic and approving, though actually he felt slightly embarrassed by his foreigncolleague’s methods of approach. He said:

“Er—yes, certainly. Go ahead.”

For the first time Gladys Narracott’s brisk efficiency deserted her. Her fingers fumbled with herprint dress. She said:

“Well, Mrs. Marshall—she wasn’t exactly a lady, as you might say. What I mean is she wasmore like an actress.”

Colonel Weston said:

“She was an actress.”

“Yes, sir, that’s what I’m saying. She just went on exactly as she felt like it. She didn’t—well,she didn’t trouble to be polite if she wasn’t feeling polite. And she’d be all smiles one minute andthen, if she couldn’t find something or the bell wasn’t answered at once or her laundry wasn’tback, well, be downright rude and nasty about it. None of us you might say liked her. But herclothes were beautiful, and, of course, she was a very handsome lady, so it was only natural sheshould be admired.”

Colonel Weston said:

“I am sorry to have to ask you what I am going to ask you, but it is a very vital matter. Can youtell me how things were between her and her husband?”

Gladys Narracott hesitated a minute.

She said:

“You don’t—it wasn’t—you don’t think as he did it?”

Hercule Poirot said quickly:

“Do you?”

“Oh! I wouldn’t like to think so. He’s such a nice gentleman, Captain Marshall. He couldn’t doa thing like that—I’m sure he couldn’t.”

“But you are not very sure—I hear it in your voice.”

Gladys Narracott said reluctantly:

“You do read such things in the papers! When there’s jealousy. If there’s been goings on—and,of course, everyone’s been talking about it — about her and Mr. Redfern, I mean. And Mrs.

Redfern such a nice quiet lady! It does seem a shame! And Mr. Redfern’s a nice gentleman too,but it seems men can’t help themselves when it’s a lady like Mrs. Marshall—one who’s used tohaving her own way. Wives have to put up with a lot, I’m sure.” She sighed and paused. “But ifCaptain Marshall found out about it—”

Colonel Weston said sharply:

“Well?”

Gladys Narracott said slowly:

“I did think sometimes that Mrs. Marshall was frightened of her husband knowing.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It wasn’t anything definite, sir. It was only I felt—that sometimes she was—afraid of him. Hewas a very quiet gentleman but he wasn’t—he wasn’t easy.”

Weston said:

“But you’ve nothing definite to go on? Nothing either of them ever said to each other.”

Slowly Gladys Narracott shook her head.

Weston sighed. He went on.

“Now, as to letters received by Mrs. Marshall this morning. Can you tell us anything aboutthose?”

“There were about six or seven, sir. I couldn’t say exactly.”

“Did you take them up to her?”

“Yes, sir. I got them from the office as usual and put them on her breakfast tray.”

“Do you remember anything about the look of them?”

The girl shook her head.

“They were just ordinary-looking letters. Some of them were bills and circulars, I think, becausethey were torn up on the tray.”

“What happened to them?”

“They went into the dustbin, sir. One of the police gentlemen is going through that now.”

Weston nodded.

“And the contents of the wastepaper baskets, where are they?”

“They’ll be in the dustbin too.”

Weston said: “H’m—well, I think that is all at present.” He looked inquiringly at Poirot.

Poirot leaned forward.

“When you did Miss Linda Marshall’s room this morning, did you do the fireplace?”

“There wasn’t anything to do, sir. There had been no fire lit.”

“And there was nothing in the fireplace itself?”

“No sir, it was perfectly all right.”

“What time did you do her room?”

“About a quarter past nine, sir, when she’d gone down to breakfast.”

“Did she come up to her room after breakfast, do you know?”

“Yes, sir. She came up about a quarter to ten.”

“Did she stay in her room?”

“I think so, sir. She came out, hurrying rather, just before half past ten.”

“You didn’t go into her room again?”

“No, sir. I had finished with it.”

Poirot nodded. He said:

“There is another thing I want to know. What people bathed before breakfast this morning?”

“I couldn’t say about the other wing and the floor above. Only about this one.”

“That is all I want to know.”

“Well, sir, Captain Marshall and Mr. Redfern were the only ones this morning, I think. Theyalways go down for an early dip.”

“Did you see them?”

“No, sir, but their wet bathing things were hanging over the balcony rail as usual.”

“Miss Linda Marshall did not bathe this morning?”

“No, sir. All her bathing dresses were quite dry.”

“Ah,” said Poirot. “That is what I wanted to know.”

Gladys Narracott volunteered:

“She does most mornings, sir.”

“And the other three, Miss Darnley, Mrs. Redfern and Mrs. Marshall?”

“Mrs. Marshall never, sir. Miss Darnley has once or twice, I think. Mrs. Redfern doesn’t oftenbathe before breakfast—only when it’s very hot, but she didn’t this morning.”

Again Poirot nodded. Then he asked:

“I wonder if you have noticed whether a bottle is missing from any of the rooms you look afterin this wing?”

“A bottle, sir? What kind of a bottle?”

“Unfortunately I do not know. But have you noticed—or would you be likely to notice—if onehad gone?”

Gladys said frankly:

“I shouldn’t from Mrs. Marshall’s room, sir, and that’s a fact. She has ever so many.”

“And the other rooms?”

“Well, I’m not sure about Miss Darnley. She has a good many creams and lotions. But from theother rooms, yes, I would, sir. I mean if I were to look special. If I were noticing, so to speak.”

“But you haven’t actually noticed?”

“No, because I wasn’t looking special, as I say.”

“Perhaps you would go and look now, then.”

“Certainly, sir.”

She left the room, her print dress rustling. Weston looked at Poirot. He said: “What’s all this?”

Poirot murmured:

“My orderly mind, that is vexed by trifles! Miss Brewster, this morning, was bathing off therocks before breakfast, and she says that a bottle was thrown from above and nearly hit her. Ehbien, I want to know who threw that bottle and why?”

“My dear man, any one may have chucked a bottle away.”

“Not at all. To begin with, it could only have been thrown from a window on the east side of thehotel—that is, one of the windows of the rooms we have just examined. Now I ask you, if youhave an empty bottle on your dressing table or in your bathroom what do you do with it? I will tellyou, you drop it into the wastepaper basket. You do not take the trouble to go out on your balconyand hurl it into the sea! For one thing you might hit someone, for another it would be too muchtrouble. No, you would only do that if you did not want anyone to see that particular bottle.”

Weston stared at him.

Weston said:

“I know that Chief Inspector Japp, whom I met over a case not long ago, always says you havea damned tortuous mind. You’re not going to tell me now that Arlena Marshall wasn’t strangled atall, but poisoned out of some mysterious bottle with a mysterious drug?”

“No, no, I do not think there was poison in that bottle.”

“Then what was there?”

“I do not know at all. That’s why I am interested.”

Gladys Narracott came back. She was a little breathless. She said:

“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t find anything missing. I’m sure there’s nothing gone from CaptainMarshall’s room, or Miss Linda Marshall’s room, or Mr. and Mrs. Redfern’s room, and I’m prettysure there’s nothing gone from Miss Darnley’s either. But I couldn’t say about Mrs. Marshall’s.

As I say, she’s got such a lot.”

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

He said:

“No matter. We will leave it.”

Gladys Narracott said:

“Is there anything more, sir?”

She looked from one to the other of them.

Weston said:

“Don’t think so. Thank you.”

Poirot said:

“I thank you, no. You are sure, are you not, that there is nothing—nothing at all, that you haveforgotten to tell us?”

“About Mrs. Marshall, sir?”

“About anything at all. Anything unusual, out of the way, unexplained, slightly peculiar, rathercurious—enfin, something that has made you say to yourself or to one of your colleagues: ‘That’sfunny!’?”

Gladys said doubtfully:

“Well, not the sort of thing that you would mean, sir.”

Hercule Poirot said:

“Never mind what I mean. You do not know what I mean. It is true, then, that you have said toyourself or to a colleague today, ‘that is funny!’?”

He brought out the three words with ironic detachment.

Gladys said:

“It was nothing really. Just a bath being run. And I did pass the remark to Elsie, downstairs, thatit was funny somebody having a bath round about twelve o’clock.”

“Whose bath, who had a bath?”

“That I couldn’t say, sir. We heard it going down the waste from this wing, that’s all, and that’swhen I said what I did to Elsie.”

“You’re sure it was a bath? Not one of the handbasins?”

“Oh! quite sure, sir. You can’t mistake bathwater running away.”

Poirot displaying no further desire to keep her, Gladys Narracott was permitted to depart.

Weston said:

“You don’t think this bath question is important, do you, Poirot? I mean, there’s no point to it.

No bloodstains or anything like that to wash off. That’s the—” He hesitated.

Poirot cut in:

“That, you would say, is the advantage of strangulation! No bloodstains, no weapon—nothingto get rid of or conceal! Nothing is needed but physical strength—and the soul of a killer!”

His voice was so fierce, so charged with feeling, that Weston recoiled a little.

Hercule Poirot smiled at him apologetically.

“No one,” he said, “the bath is probably of no importance. Anyone may have had a bath. Mrs.

Redfern before she went to play tennis, Captain Marshall, Miss Darnley. As I say, anyone. Thereis nothing in that.”

A police constable knocked at the door, and put in his head.

“It’s Miss Darnley, sir. She says she’d like to see you again for a minute. There’s something sheforgot to tell you, she says.”

Weston said:

“We’re coming down—now.”

 

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