Агата Кристи - Зло под солнцем / Evil Under the Sun

Poirot replied: “He was absent for a short time when he fetched a skein of wool for his wife.”

Colgate said: “Oh, well, we needn’t count that.”

Weston said: “And what about the other three?”

“Major Barry went out at ten o’clock this morning. He returned at one-thirty. Mr Lane was earlier still. He breakfasted at eight. Said he was going for a tramp. Mr Blatt went off for a sail at nine-thirty same as he does most days. Neither of them is back yet?”

“A sail, eh?” Colonel Weston’s voice was thoughtful.

Inspector Colgate’s voice was responsive. He said: “Might fit in rather well, sir.”

Weston said: “Well, we’ll have a word with this Major bloke – and let me see, who else is there? Rosamund Darnley. And there’s the Brewster woman who found the body with Redfern. What’s she like, Colgate?”

“Oh, a sensible party, sir. No nonsense about her.”

“She didn’t express any opinions on the death?”

The inspector shook his head.

“I don’t think she’ll have anything more to tell us, sir, but we’ll have to make sure. Then there are the Americans.”

Colonel Weston nodded. He said:

“Let’s have ‘em all in and get it over as soon as possible. Never know, might learn something. About the blackmailing stunt if about nothing else.”

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 on this point she went on: “But this has been a very bad shock to me and Mr Gardener is always very, 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’s not that we haven’t the highest admiration for British police methods, because we have. I’ve been told that British police procedure is the most refined and delicate and I’ve never doubted it and certainly when I once had a bracelet missing at the Savoy Hotel nothing could have been more lovely and sympathetic than the young man who came to see me about it, and of course I hadn’t really lost the bracelet at all, but just mislaid it, that’s the worst of rushing about so much, it makes you kind of forgetful where you put things – ” Mrs Gardener paused, inhaled gently and started off again. “And what I say is, and I know Mr Gardener agrees with me, that we’re only too anxious to do anything to help the British police in every way. So go right ahead and ask me anything at all you want to know – ”

Colonel Weston opened his mouth to comply with this invitation but had momentarily to postpone 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 like any other morning, if you get me, perhaps even more so, and not the slightest idea in our minds of what 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?’ I said. 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 every one and everything. And I said to myself, ‘Why, when he has that nice pretty little wife of his own, must he go running after that dreadful woman?’ Because that’s just what I felt she was. I always felt that about her, didn’t I, Odell?”

“Yes, darling.”

“However that nice Captain Marshall came to marry such a woman I just cannot imagine – and with that nice young daughter growing up, and it’s so important for girls to have the right influence. Mrs Marshall was not at all the right person – no breeding at all – and I should say a very 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 way she’s gone straight ahead and built up a first-class business as she has. It takes brains to do a thing like that – and you’ve only to look at Rosamund Darnley to see she’s just frantic with brains. She could plan and carry out any mortal thing she liked. I just admire that woman more than I can say. And I said to Mr Gardener the other day that anyone could see she was very much in love with 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 right after all with that woman out of the way. I’m not a narrow-minded woman, Colonel Weston, and it isn’t that I disapprove of the stage as such – why, quite a lot of my best friends are actresses – but I’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 grey eyes of Mr Gardener. Colonel Weston said rather desperately:

“Well, thank you, Mrs Gardener. I suppose there’s nothing that either of you has noticed since you’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 around with 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!”

On the slightly apoplectic countenance of Major Barry various emotions seemed contending for mastery. He was endeavouring to look properly horrified but could not subdue a kind of shamefaced gusto. He was saying in his hoarse slightly wheezy voice:

“Glad to help you any way I can. ‘Course I don’t know anythin’ about it – nothin’ at all. Not acquainted with the parties. But I’ve knocked about a bit in my time. Lived a lot in the East, you know. And I can tell you that after being in an Indian hill station what you don’t know about human nature isn’t worth knowin’.” He paused, took a breath and was off again. “Matter of fact this business reminds me of a case in Simla. Fellow called Robinson or was it Falconer? Anyway he was in the East Wilts or was it the North Surreys? Can’t remember now and anyway it doesn’t matter. Quiet chap, you know, great reader – mild as milk you’d have said. Went for his wife one evening in their bungalow. Got her by the throat. She’d been carryin’ on with some feller or other and he’d got wise to it. By Jove, he nearly did for her! It was touch and go. Surprised us all! Didn’t think he had it in him.”

Hercule Poirot murmured: “And you see there an analogy to the death of Mrs Marshall?”

“Well, what I mean to say – strangled, you know. Same idea. Feller suddenly sees red!”

Poirot said: “You think that Captain Marshall felt like that?”

“Oh, look here, I never said that.” Major Barry’s face went even redder. “Never said anything about Marshall. Thoroughly nice chap. Wouldn’t say a word against him for the world.”

Poirot murmured: “Ah, pardon, but you did refer to the natural reactions of a husband.”

Major Barry said: “Well, I mean to say, I should think she’d been pretty hot stuff. Eh? Got young Redfern on a string all right. And there were probably others before him. But the funny thing is, you know, that husbands are a dense lot. Amazin’. I’ve been surprised by it again and again. They see a fellow sweet on their wife but they don’t see that she’s sweet on him! Remember a case like that in Poona. Very pretty woman. Jove, she led her husband a dance – ”

Colonel Weston stirred a little restively. He said:

“Yes, yes. Major Barry. For the moment we’ve just got to establish the facts. You don’t know of anything personally – that you’ve seen or noticed that might help us in this case?”

“Well, really, Weston, I can’t say I do. Saw her and young Redfern one afternoon on Gull Cove – ” Here he winked knowingly and gave a deep hoarse chuckle – “Very pretty it was, too. But it’s not evidence of that kind you’re wanting. Ha, ha.”

“You did not see Mrs Marshall at all this morning?”

“Didn’t see anybody this morning. Went over to St Loo. Just my luck. Sort of place here where nothin’ happens for months and when it does you miss it!”

The Major’s voice held a ghoulish regret.

Colonel Weston prompted him. “You went to St Loo, you say?”

“Yes, wanted to do some telephonin’. No telephone here and that post office place at Leathercombe Bay isn’t very private.”

“Were your telephone calls of a very private nature?”

The Major winked again cheerfully.

“Well, they were and they weren’t. Wanted to get through to a pal of mine and get him to put somethin’ on a horse. Couldn’t get through to him, worse luck.”

“Where did you telephone from?”

“Call box in the G.P.O. at St Loo. Then on the way back I got lost – these confounded lanes – twistin’ and turnin’ all over the place. Must have wasted an hour over that at least. Damned confusing part of the world. I only got back half an hour ago.”

Colonel Weston said: “Speak to any one or meet any one in St Loo?”

Major Barry said with a chuckle: “Wantin’ me to prove an alibi? Can’t think of anythin’ useful. Saw about fifty thousand people in St Loo – but that’s not to say they’ll remember seem’ me.”

The Chief Constable said: “We have to ask these things, you know.”

“Right you are. Call on me at any time. Glad to help you. Very fetchin’ woman, the deceased. Like to help you catch the feller who did it. The Lonely Beach Murder – bet you that’s what the papers will call it. Reminds me of the time – ”

It was Inspector Colgate who firmly nipped this latest reminiscence in the bud and manoeuvred the garrulous Major out of the door.

Coming back he said:

“Difficult to check up on anything in St Loo. It’s the middle of the holiday season.”

The Chief Constable said: “Yes, we can’t take him off the list. Not that I seriously believe he’s implicated. Dozens of old bores like him going about. Remember one or two of them in my Army days. Still – he’s a possibility. I leave all that to you, Colgate. Check what time he took the car out – petrol – all that. It’s humanly possible that he parked the car somewhere in a lonely spot, walked back here and went to the cove. But it doesn’t seem feasible to me. He’d have run too much risk of being seen.”

Colgate nodded.

He said: “Of course there are a good many charabancs here today. Fine day. They start arriving round about half past eleven. High tide was at seven. Low tide would be about one o’clock. People would be spread out over the sands and the causeway.”

Weston said: “Yes. But he’d have to come up from the causeway past the hotel.”

“Not right past it. He could branch off on the path that leads up over the top of the island.”