Dead Man's Folly (9 page)

“And where was she then, and who was she with?”

“She was in the middle of a group of people near the house.”

“Was she there when de Sousa arrived?”

“I don't remember. I don't think so, at least I did not see her. Sir George told de Sousa that his wife was somewhere about. He seemed surprised, I remember, that she was not judging the Children's Fancy Dress, as she was supposed to do.”

“What time was it when de Sousa arrived?”

“It must have been about half past four, I should think. I did not look at my watch so I cannot tell you exactly.”

“And Lady Stubbs had disappeared before he arrived?”

“It seems so.”

“Possibly she ran away so as not to meet him,” suggested the inspector.

“Possibly,” Poirot agreed.

“Well, she can't have gone far,” said Bland. “We ought to be able to find her quite easily, and when we do…” He broke off.

“And supposing you don't?” Poirot put the question with a curious intonation in his voice.

“That's nonsense,” said the inspector vigorously. “Why? What d'you think's happened to her?”

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

“What indeed! One does not know. All one does know is that she has—disappeared!”

“Dash it all, M. Poirot, you're making it sound quite sinister.”

“Perhaps it
is
sinister.”

“It's the murder of Marlene Tucker that we're investigating,” said the inspector severely.

“But evidently. So—why this interest in de Sousa? Do you think he killed Marlene Tucker?”

Inspector Bland replied irrelevantly:

“It's that woman!”

Poirot smiled faintly.

“Mrs. Oliver, you mean?”

“Yes. You see, M. Poirot, the murder of Marlene Tucker doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense at all. Here's a nondescript, rather moronic kid found strangled and not a hint of any possible motive.”

“And Mrs. Oliver supplied you with a motive?”

“With a dozen at least! Amongst them she suggested that Marlene might have a knowledge of somebody's secret love affair, or that Marlene might have witnessed somebody being murdered, or that she knew where a buried treasure was hidden, or that she might have seen from the window of the boathouse some
action performed by de Sousa in his launch as he was going up the river.”

“Ah. And which of those theories appeals to you,
mon cher?
”

“I don't know. But I can't help thinking about them. Listen, M. Poirot. Think back carefully. Would you say from your impression of what Lady Stubbs said to you this morning that she was afraid of her cousin's coming because he might, perhaps, know something about her which she did not want to come to the ears of her husband, or would you say that it was a direct personal fear of the man himself?”

Poirot had no hesitation in his reply.

“I should say it was a direct personal fear of the man himself.”

“H'm,” said Inspector Bland. “Well, I'd better have a little talk with this young man if he's still about the place.”

I

A
lthough he had none of Constable Hoskins' ingrained prejudice against foreigners, Inspector Bland took an instant dislike to Etienne de Sousa. The polished elegance of the young man, his sartorial perfection, the rich flowery smell of his brilliantined hair, all combined to annoy the inspector.

De Sousa was very sure of himself, very much at ease. He also displayed, decorously veiled, a certain aloof amusement.

“One must admit,” he said, “that life is full of surprises. I arrive here on a holiday cruise, I admire the beautiful scenery, I come to spend an afternoon with a little cousin that I have not seen for years—and what happens? First I am engulfed in a kind of carnival with coconuts whizzing past my head, and immediately afterwards, passing from comedy to tragedy, I am embroiled in a murder.”

He lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and said:

“Not that it concerns me in any way, this murder. Indeed, I am at a loss to know why you should want to interview me.”

“You arrived here as a stranger, Mr. de Sousa—”

De Sousa interrupted:

“And strangers are necessarily suspicious, is that it?”

“No, no, not at all, sir. No, you don't take my meaning. Your yacht, I understand, is moored in Helmmouth?”

“That is so, yes.”

“And you came up the river this afternoon in a motor launch?”

“Again—that is so.”

“As you came up the river, did you notice on your right a small boathouse jutting out into the river with a thatched roof and a little mooring quay underneath it?”

De Sousa threw back his handsome, dark head and frowned as he reflected.

“Let me see, there was a creek and a small grey tiled house.”

“Farther up the river than that, Mr. de Sousa. Set amongst trees.”

“Ah, yes, I remember now. A very picturesque spot. I did not know it was the boathouse attached to this house. If I had done so, I would have moored my boat there and come ashore. When I asked for directions I had been told to come up to the ferry itself and go ashore at the quay there.”

“Quite so. And that is what you did?”

“That is what I did.”

“You didn't land at, or near, the boathouse?”

De Sousa shook his head.

“Did you see anyone at the boathouse as you passed?”

“See anyone? No. Should I have seen anyone?”

“It was just a possibility. You see, Mr. de Sousa, the murdered girl was in the boathouse this afternoon. She was killed there, and
she must have been killed at a time not very distant from when you were passing.”

Again de Sousa raised his eyebrows.

“You think I might have been a witness to this murder?”

“The murder took place inside the boathouse, but you might have seen the girl—she might have looked out from the window or come out on to the balcony. If you had seen her it would, at any rate, have narrowed the time of death for us. If, when you'd passed, she'd been still alive—”

“Ah. I see. Yes, I see. But why ask
me
particularly? There are plenty of boats going up and down from Helmmouth. Pleasure steamers. They pass the whole time. Why not ask them?”

“We shall ask them,” said the inspector. “Never fear, we shall ask them. I am to take it, then, that you saw nothing unusual at the boathouse?”

“Nothing whatever. There was nothing to show there was anyone there. Of course I did not look at it with any special attention, and I did not pass very near. Somebody might have been looking out of the windows, as you suggest, but if so I should not have seen that person.” He added in a polite tone, “I am very sorry that I cannot assist you.”

“Oh, well,” said Inspector Bland in a friendly manner, “we can't hope for too much. There are just a few other things I would like to know, Mr. de Sousa.”

“Yes?”

“Are you alone down here or have you friends with you on this cruise?”

“I have had friends with me until quite recently, but for the last three days I have been on my own—with the crew, of course.”

“And the name of your yacht, Mr. de Sousa?”

“The
Espérance.
”

“Lady Stubbs is, I understand, a cousin of yours?”

De Sousa shrugged his shoulders.

“A distant cousin. Not very near. In the islands, you must understand, there is much intermarrying. We are all cousins of one another. Hattie is a second or third cousin. I have not seen her since she was practically a little girl, fourteen—fifteen.”

“And you thought you would pay her a surprise visit today?”

“Hardly a
surprise
visit, Inspector. I had already written to her.”

“I know that she received a letter from you this morning, but it was a surprise to her to know that you were in this country.”

“Oh, but you are wrong there, Inspector. I wrote to my cousin—let me see, three weeks ago. I wrote to her from France just before I came across to this country.”

The inspector was surprised.

“You wrote to her from France telling her you proposed to visit her?”

“Yes. I told her I was going on a yachting cruise and that we should probably arrive at Torquay or Helmmouth round about this date, and that I would let her know later exactly when I should arrive.”

Inspector Bland stared at him. This statement was at complete variance with what he had been told about the arrival of Etienne de Sousa's letter at the breakfast table. More than one witness had testified to Lady Stubbs having been alarmed and upset and very clearly startled at the contents of the letter. De Sousa returned his stare calmly. With a little smile he flicked a fragment of dust from his knee.

“Did Lady Stubbs reply to your first letter?” the inspector asked.

De Sousa hesitated for a moment or two before he answered, then he said:

“It is so difficult to remember…No, I do not think she did. But it was not necessary. I was travelling about, I had no fixed address. And besides, I do not think my cousin, Hattie, is very good at writing letters.” He added: “She is not, you know, very intelligent, though I understand that she has grown into a very beautiful woman.”

“You have not yet seen her?” Bland put it in the form of a question and de Sousa showed his teeth in an agreeable smile.

“She seems to be most unaccountably missing,” he said. “No doubt this
espèce de gala
bores her.”

Choosing his words carefully, Inspector Bland said:

“Have you any reason to believe, Mr. de Sousa, that your cousin might have some reason for wishing to avoid you?”

“Hattie wish to avoid me? Really, I do not see why. What reason could she have?”

“That is what I am asking you, Mr. de Sousa.”

“You think that Hattie has absented herself from this fête in order to avoid me? What an absurd idea.”

“She had no reason, as far as you know, to be—shall we say—afraid of you in any way?”

“Afraid—of
me?
” De Sousa's voice was sceptical and amused. “But if I may say so, Inspector, what a fantastic idea!”

“Your relations with her have always been quite amicable?”

“It is as I have told you. I have had no relations with her. I have not seen her since she was a child of fourteen.”

“Yet you look her up when you come to England?”

“Oh, as to that, I had seen a paragraph about her in one of your society papers. It mentions her maiden name and that she is married to this rich Englishman, and I think ‘I must see what the little Hattie has turned into. Whether her brains now work better than they used to do.'” He shrugged his shoulders again. “It was a mere cousinly politeness. A gentle curiosity—no more.”

Again the inspector stared hard at de Sousa. What, he wondered, was going on behind the mocking, smooth façade? He adopted a more confidential manner.

“I wonder if you can perhaps tell me a little more about your cousin? Her character, her reactions?”

De Sousa appeared politely surprised.

“Really—has this anything to do with the murder of the girl in the boathouse, which I understand is the real matter with which you occupy yourself?”

“It might have a connection,” said Inspector Bland.

De Sousa studied him for a moment or two in silence. Then he said with a slight shrug of the shoulders:

“I never knew my cousin at all well. She was a unit in a large family and not particularly interesting to me. But in answer to your question I would say to you that although mentally weak, she was not, as far as I know, ever possessed by any homicidal tendencies.”

“Really, Mr. de Sousa, I wasn't suggesting that!”

“Weren't you? I wonder. I can see no other reason for your question. No, unless Hattie has changed very much, she is not homicidal!” He rose. “I am sure that you cannot want to ask me anything further, Inspector. I can only wish you every possible success in tracking down the murderer.”

“You are not thinking of leaving Helmmouth for a day or two, I hope, Mr. de Sousa?”

“You speak very politely, Inspector. Is that an order?”

“Just a request, sir.”

“Thank you. I propose to stay in Helmmouth for two days. Sir George has very kindly asked me to come and stay in the house, but I prefer to remain on the
Espérance.
If you should want to ask me any further questions, that is where you will find me.”

He bowed politely. P.C. Hoskins opened the door for him, and he went out.

“Smarmy sort of fellow,” muttered the inspector to himself.

“Aah,” said P.C. Hoskins in complete agreement.

“Say she
is
homicidal if you like,” went on the inspector, to himself. “Why should she attack a nondescript girl? There'd be no sense in it.”

“You never know with the barmy ones,” said Hoskins.

“The question really is, how barmy is she?”

Hoskins shook his head sapiently.

“Got a low I.Q., I reckon,” he said.

The inspector looked at him with annoyance.

“Don't bring out these newfangled terms like a parrot. I don't care if she's got a high I.Q. or a low I.Q. All I care about is, is she the sort of woman who'd think it funny, or desirable, or necessary, to put a cord round a girl's neck and strangle her? And where the devil
is
the woman, anyway? Go out and see how Frank's getting on.”

Hoskins left obediently, and returned a moment or two later with Sergeant Cottrell, a brisk young man with a good opinion of himself, who always managed to annoy his superior officer. Inspec
tor Bland much preferred the rural wisdom of Hoskins to the smart know-all attitude of Frank Cottrell.

“Still searching the grounds, sir,” said Cottrell. “The lady hasn't passed out through the gate, we're quite sure of that. It's the second gardener who's there giving out the tickets and taking the admission money. He'll swear she hasn't left.”

“There are other ways of leaving than by the main gate, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, sir. There's the path down to the ferry, but the old boy down there—Merdell, his name is—is also quite positive that she hasn't left that way. He's about a hundred, but pretty reliable, I think. He described quite clearly how the foreign gentleman arrived in his launch and asked the way to Nasse House. The old man told him he must go up the road to the gate and pay for admission. But he said the gentleman seemed to know nothing about the fête and said he was a relation of the family. So the old man set him on the path up from the ferry through the woods. Merdell seems to have been hanging about the quay all the afternoon so he'd be pretty sure to have seen her ladyship if she'd come that way. Then there's the top gate that leads over the fields to Hoodown Park, but that's been wired up because of trespassers, so she didn't go through there. Seems as though she must be still here, doesn't it?”

“That may be so,” said the inspector, “but there's nothing to prevent her, is there, from slipping under a fence and going off across country? Sir George is still complaining of trespassing here from the hostel next door, I understand. If you can get in the way the trespassers get in, you can get out the same way, I suppose.”

“Oh, yes, sir, indubitably, sir. But I've talked to her maid, sir.
She's wearing”—Cottrell consulted a paper in his hand—“a dress of cyclamen crêpe georgette (whatever that is), a large black hat, black court shoes with four-inch french heels. Not the sort of things you'd wear for a cross-country run.”

“She didn't change her clothes?”

“No. I went into that with the maid. There's nothing missing—nothing whatever. She didn't pack a suitcase or anything of that kind. She didn't even change her shoes. Every pair's there and accounted for.”

Inspector Bland frowned. Unpleasant possibilities were rising in his mind. He said curtly:

“Get me that secretary woman again—Bruce—whatever her name is.”

II

Miss Brewis came in looking rather more ruffled than usual, and a little out of breath.

“Yes, Inspector?” she said. “You wanted me? If it isn't urgent, Sir George is in a terrible state and—”

“What's he in a state about?”

“He's only just realized that Lady Stubbs is—well, really missing. I told him she's probably only gone for a walk in the woods or something, but he's got it into his head that something's happened to her.
Quite
absurd.”

“It might not be so absurd, Miss Brewis. After all, we've had one—murder here this afternoon.”

“You surely don't think that Lady Stubbs—? But that's ridiculous! Lady Stubbs can look after herself.”

“Can she?”

“Of course she can! She's a grown woman, isn't she?”

“But rather a helpless one, by all accounts.”