Dead Man's Folly (5 page)

“Naturally, Madame, I understand all that.”

“It suited me very well—I was going through a difficult time. My husband had died just before the outbreak of war. My elder son who was in the navy went down with his ship, my younger son, who had been out in Kenya, came back, joined the commandos and was killed in Italy. That meant three lots of death duties and this house had to be put up for sale. I myself was very badly off and I was glad of the distraction of having someone young to look after and travel about with. I became very fond of Hattie, all the more so, perhaps, because I soon realized that she was—shall we say—not fully capable of fending for herself? Understand me, M. Poirot, Hattie is
not
mentally deficient, but she
is
what country folk describe as ‘simple.' She is easily imposed upon, overdocile, completely open to suggestion. I think myself that it was a blessing that there was practically no money. If she had been an heiress her position might have been one of much greater difficulty. She was attractive to men and being of an affectionate nature was easily attracted and influenced—she
had definitely to be looked after. When, after the final winding up of her parents' estate, it was discovered that the plantation was destroyed and there were more debts than assets, I could only be thankful that a man such as Sir George Stubbs had fallen in love with her and wanted to marry her.”

“Possibly—yes—it was a solution.”

“Sir George,” said Mrs. Folliat, “though he is a self-made man and—let us face it—a complete vulgarian, is kindly and fundamentally decent, besides being extremely wealthy. I don't think he would ever ask for
mental
companionship from a wife, which is just as well. Hattie is everything he wants. She displays clothes and jewels to perfection, is affectionate and willing, and is completely happy with him. I confess that I am very thankful that that is so, for I admit that I deliberately influenced her to accept him. If it had turned out badly”—her voice faltered a little—“it would have been my fault for urging her to marry a man so many years older than herself. You see, as I told you, Hattie is completely suggestible. Anyone she is with at the time can dominate her.”

“It seems to me,” said Poirot approvingly, “that you made there a most prudent arrangement for her. I am not, like the English, romantic. To arrange a good marriage, one must take more than romance into consideration.”

He added:

“And as for this place here, Nasse House, it is a most beautiful spot. Quite, as the saying goes, out of this world.”

“Since Nasse had to be sold,” said Mrs. Folliat, with a faint tremor in her voice, “I am glad that Sir George bought it. It was requisitioned during the war by the Army and afterwards it might have been bought and made into a guest house or a school, the
rooms cut up and partitioned, distorted out of their natural beauty. Our neighbours, the Fletchers, at Hoodown, had to sell their place and it is now a Youth Hostel. One is glad that young people should enjoy themselves—and fortunately Hoodown is late-Victorian, and of no great architectural merit, so that the alterations do not matter. I'm afraid some of the young people trespass on our grounds. It makes Sir George very angry. It's true that they have occasionally damaged the rare shrubs by hacking them about—they come through here trying to get a shortcut to the ferry across the river.”

They were standing now by the front gate. The lodge, a small white one-storied building, lay a little back from the drive with a small railed garden round it.

Mrs. Folliat took back her basket from Poirot with a word of thanks.

“I was always very fond of the lodge,” she said, looking at it affectionately. “Merdle, our head gardener for thirty years, used to live there. I much prefer it to the top cottage, though that has been enlarged and modernized by Sir George. It had to be; we've got quite a young man now as head gardener, with a young wife—and these young women must have electric irons and modern cookers and television, and all that. One must go with the times…” She sighed. “There is hardly a person left now on the estate from the old days—all new faces.”

“I am glad, Madame,” said Poirot, “that you at least have found a haven.”

“You know those lines of Spenser's? ‘
Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, ease after war, death after life, doth greatly please….
'”

She paused and said without any change of tone: “It's a very wicked world, M. Poirot. And there are very wicked people in the
world. You probably know that as well as I do. I don't say so before the younger people, it might discourage them, but it's true…Yes, it's a very wicked world….”

She gave him a little nod, then turned and went into the lodge. Poirot stood still, staring at the shut door.

I

I
n a mood of exploration Poirot went through the front gates and down the steeply twisting road that presently emerged on a small quay. A large bell with a chain had a notice upon it: “Ring for the Ferry.” There were various boats moored by the side of the quay. A very old man with rheumy eyes, who had been leaning against a bollard, came shuffling towards Poirot.

“Du ee want the ferry, sir?”

“I thank you, no. I have just come down from Nasse House for a little walk.”

“Ah, 'tis up at Nasse yu are? Worked there as a boy, I did, and my son, he were head gardener there. But I did use to look after the boats. Old Squire Folliat, he was fair mazed about boats. Sail in all weathers, he would. The Major, now, his son, he didn't care for sailing. Horses, that's all he cared about. And a pretty packet went on 'em. That and the bottle—had a hard time with him, his wife did. Yu've seen her, maybe—lives at the Lodge now, she du.”

“Yes, I have just left her there now.”

“Her be a Folliat, tu, second cousin from over Tiverton way. A great one for the garden, she is, all them there flowering shrubs she had put in. Even when it was took over during the war, and the two young gentlemen was gone to the war, she still looked after they shrubs and kept 'em from being overrun.”

“It was hard on her, both her sons being killed.”

“Ah, she've had a hard life, she have, what with this and that. Trouble with her husband, and trouble with the young gentlemen, tu. Not Mr. Henry. He was as nice a young gentleman as yu could wish, took after his grandfather, fond of sailing and went into the Navy as a matter of course, but Mr. James, he caused her a lot of trouble. Debts and women it were, and then, tu, he were real wild in his temper. Born one of they as can't go straight. But the war suited him, as yu might say—give him his chance. Ah! There's many who can't go straight in peace who dies bravely in war.”

“So now,” said Poirot, “there are no more Folliats at Nasse.”

The old man's flow of talk died abruptly.

“Just as yu say, sir.”

Poirot looked curiously at the old man.

“Instead you have Sir George Stubbs. What is thought locally of him?”

“Us understands,” said the old man, “that he be powerful rich.”

His tone sounded dry and almost amused.

“And his wife?”

“Ah, she's a fine lady from London, she is. No use for gardens, not her. They du say, tu, as her du be wanting up here.”

He tapped his temple significantly.

“Not as her isn't always very nice spoken and friendly. Just over
a year they've been here. Bought the place and had it all done up like new. I remember as though 'twere yesterday them arriving. Arrived in the evening, they did, day after the worst gale as I ever remember. Trees down right and left—one down across the drive and us had to get it sawn away in a hurry to get the drive clear for the car. And the big oak up along, that come down and brought a lot of others down with it, made a rare mess, it did.”

“Ah, yes, where the Folly stands now?”

The old man turned aside and spat disgustedly.

“Folly 'tis called and Folly 'tis—newfangled nonsense. Never was no Folly in the old Folliats' time. Her ladyship's idea that Folly was. Put up not three weeks after they first come, and I've no doubt she talked Sir George into it. Rare silly it looks stuck up there among the trees, like a heathen temple. A nice summerhouse now, made rustic like with stained glass. I'd have nothing against
that.
”

Poirot smiled faintly.

“The London ladies,” he said, “they must have their fancies. It is sad that the day of the Folliats is over.”

“Don't ee never believe that, sir.” The old man gave a wheezy chuckle. “Always be Folliats at Nasse.”

“But the house belongs to Sir George Stubbs.”

“That's as may be—but there's still a Folliat here. Ah! Rare and cunning the Folliats are!”

“What do you mean?”

The old man gave him a sly sideways glance.

“Mrs. Folliat be living up tu Lodge, bain't she?” he demanded.

“Yes,” said Poirot slowly. “Mrs. Folliat is living at the Lodge and the world is very wicked, and all the people in it are very wicked.”

The old man stared at him.

“Ah,” he said. “Yu've got something there, maybe.”

He shuffled away again.

“But what have I got?” Poirot asked himself with irritation as he slowly walked up the hill back to the house.

II

Hercule Poirot made a meticulous toilet, applying a scented pomade to his moustaches and twirling them to a ferocious couple of points. He stood back from the mirror and was satisfied with what he saw.

The sound of a gong resounded through the house, and he descended the stairs.

The butler, having finished a most artistic performance, crescendo, forte, diminuendo, rallentando, was just replacing the gong stick on its hook. His dark melancholy face showed pleasure.

Poirot thought to himself: “
A blackmailing letter from the housekeeper—or it may be the butler
…” This butler looked as though blackmailing letters would be well within his scope. Poirot wondered if Mrs. Oliver took her characters from life.

Miss Brewis crossed the hall in an unbecoming flowered chiffon dress and he caught up with her, asking as he did so:

“You have a housekeeper here?”

“Oh, no, M. Poirot. I'm afraid one doesn't run to niceties of that kind nowadays, except in a really large establishment, of course. Oh, no, I'm the housekeeper—more housekeeper than secretary, sometimes, in this house.”

She gave a short acid laugh.

“So you are the housekeeper?” Poirot considered her thoughtfully.

He could not see Miss Brewis writing a blackmailing letter. Now, an anonymous letter—that would be a different thing. He had known anonymous letters written by women not unlike Miss Brewis—solid, dependable women, totally unsuspected by those around them.

“What is your butler's name?” he asked.

“Henden.” Miss Brewis looked a little astonished.

Poirot recollected himself and explained quickly:

“I ask because I had a fancy I had seen him somewhere before.”

“Very likely,” said Miss Brewis. “None of these people ever seem to stay in any place more than four months. They must soon have done the round of all the available situations in England. After all, it's not many people who can afford butlers and cooks nowadays.”

They came into the drawing room, where Sir George, looking somehow rather unnatural in a dinner jacket, was proffering sherry. Mrs. Oliver, in iron-grey satin, was looking like an obsolete battleship, and Lady Stubbs' smooth black head was bent down as she studied the fashions in
Vogue.

Alec and Sally Legge were dining and also Jim Warburton.

“We've a heavy evening ahead of us,” he warned them. “No bridge tonight. All hands to the pumps. There are any amount of notices to print, and the big card for the Fortune Telling. What name shall we have? Madame Zuleika? Esmeralda? Or Romany Leigh, the Gipsy Queen?”

“The Eastern touch,” said Sally. “Everyone in agricultural districts hates gipsies. Zuleika sounds all right. I brought my paint box
over and I thought Michael could do us a curling snake to ornament the notice.”

“Cleopatra rather than Zuleika, then?”

Henden appeared at the door.

“Dinner is served, my lady.”

They went in. There were candles on the long table. The room was full of shadows.

Warburton and Alec Legge sat on either side of their hostess. Poirot was between Mrs. Oliver and Miss Brewis. The latter was engaged in brisk general conversation about further details of preparation for tomorrow.

Mrs. Oliver sat in brooding abstraction and hardly spoke.

When she did at last break her silence, it was with a somewhat contradictory explanation.

“Don't bother about me,” she said to Poirot. “I'm just remembering if there's anything I've forgotten.”

Sir George laughed heartily.

“The fatal flaw, eh?” he remarked.

“That's just it,” said Mrs. Oliver. “There always is one. Sometimes one doesn't realize it until a book's actually in print. And then it's
agony!
” Her face reflected this emotion. She sighed. “The curious thing is that most people never notice it. I say to myself, ‘But of course the cook would have been bound to notice that two cutlets hadn't been eaten.' But nobody else thinks of it at all.”

“You fascinate me.” Michael Weyman leant across the table. “The Mystery of the Second Cutlet. Please, please never explain. I shall wonder about it in my bath.”

Mrs. Oliver gave him an abstracted smile and relapsed into her preoccupations.

Lady Stubbs was also silent. Now and again she yawned. Warburton, Alec Legge and Miss Brewis talked across her.

As they came out of the dining room, Lady Stubbs stopped by the stairs.

“I'm going to bed,” she announced. “I'm very sleepy.”

“Oh, Lady Stubbs,” exclaimed Miss Brewis, “there's so much to be done. We've been counting on you to help us.”

“Yes, I know,” said Lady Stubbs. “But I'm going to bed.”

She spoke with the satisfaction of a small child.

She turned her head as Sir George came out of the dining room.

“I'm tired, George. I'm going to bed. You don't mind?”

He came up to her and patted her on the shoulder affectionately.

“You go and get your beauty sleep, Hattie. Be fresh for tomorrow.”

He kissed her lightly and she went up the stairs, waving her hand and calling out:

“Goodnight, all.”

Sir George smiled up at her. Miss Brewis drew in her breath sharply and turned brusquely away.

“Come along, everybody,” she said, with a forced cheerfulness that did not ring true. “We've got to
work.
”

Presently everyone was set to their tasks. Since Miss Brewis could not be everywhere at once, there were soon some defaulters. Michael Weyman ornamented a placard with a ferociously magnificent serpent and the words,
Madame Zuleika will tell your Fortune,
and then vanished unobtrusively. Alec Legge did a few nondescript chores and then went out avowedly to measure for the hoopla and did not reappear. The women, as women do, worked energetically
and conscientiously. Hercule Poirot followed his hostess's example and went early to bed.

III

Poirot came down to breakfast on the following morning at nine-thirty. Breakfast was served in pre-war fashion. A row of hot dishes on an electric heater. Sir George was eating a full-sized Englishman's breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and kidneys. Mrs. Oliver and Miss Brewis had a modified version of the same. Michael Weyman was eating a plateful of cold ham. Only Lady Stubbs was unheedful of the fleshpots and was nibbling thin toast and sipping black coffee. She was wearing a large pale-pink hat which looked odd at the breakfast table.

The post had just arrived. Miss Brewis had an enormous pile of letters in front of her which she was rapidly sorting into piles. Any of Sir George's marked “Personal” she passed over to him. The others she opened herself and sorted into categories.

Lady Stubbs had three letters. She opened what were clearly a couple of bills and tossed them aside. Then she opened the third letter and said suddenly and clearly:

“Oh!”

The exclamation was so startled that all heads turned towards her.

“It's from Etienne,” she said. “My cousin Etienne. He's coming here in a yacht.”

“Let's see, Hattie.” Sir George held out his hand. She passed the letter down the table. He smoothed out the sheet and read.

“Who's this Etienne de Sousa? A cousin, you say?”

“I think so. A second cousin. I do not remember him very well—hardly at all. He was—”

“Yes, my dear?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“It does not matter. It is all a long time ago. I was a little girl.”

“I suppose you wouldn't remember him very well. But we must make him welcome, of course,” said Sir George heartily. “Pity in a way it's the fête today, but we'll ask him to dinner. Perhaps we could put him up for a night or two—show him something of the country?”

Sir George was being the hearty country squire.

Lady Stubbs said nothing. She stared down into her coffee cup.

Conversation on the inevitable subject of the fête became general. Only Poirot remained detached, watching the slim exotic figure at the head of the table. He wondered just what was going on in her mind. At that very moment her eyes came up and cast a swift glance along the table to where he sat. It was a look so shrewd and appraising that he was startled. As their eyes met, the shrewd expression vanished—emptiness returned. But that other look had been there, cold, calculating, watchful….

Or had he imagined it? In any case, wasn't it true that people who were slightly mentally deficient very often had a kind of sly native cunning that sometimes surprised even the people who knew them best?

He thought to himself that Lady Stubbs was certainly an enigma. People seemed to hold diametrically opposite ideas concerning her. Miss Brewis had intimated that Lady Stubbs knew very well what she was doing. Yet Mrs. Oliver definitely thought
her half-witted, and Mrs. Folliat who had known her long and intimately had spoken of her as someone not quite normal, who needed care and watchfulness.

Miss Brewis was probably prejudiced. She disliked Lady Stubbs for her indolence and her aloofness. Poirot wondered if Miss Brewis had been Sir George's secretary prior to his marriage. If so, she might easily resent the coming of the new régime.

Poirot himself would have agreed wholeheartedly with Mrs. Folliat and Mrs. Oliver—until this morning. And, after all, could he really rely on what had been only a fleeting impression?