"I will at least admit," said Poirot slowly, "that every one has their own particular sins. Yes, I will believe that."
Then he looked at her sharply.
"Do you know, Mrs Cloade, that Major Porter shot himself this afternoon?"
She shrank back, her eyes wide and horrified.
"Oh, no, M. Poirot - no!"
"Yes, Madame. Major Porter, you see, was au fond, an honest man. Financially he was in very low water, and when temptation came he, like many other men, failed to resist it. It may have seemed to him, he can have made himself feel, that his life was almost morally justified. He was already deeply prejudiced in his mind against the woman his friend Underhay had married. He considered that she had treated his friend disgracefully. And now this heartless little gold-digger had married a millionaire and had got away with her second husband's fortune to the detriment of his own flesh and blood. It must have seemed tempting to him to put a spoke in her wheel - no more than she deserved. And merely by identifying a dead man he himself would be made secure for the future. When the Cloades got their rights, he would get his cut... Yes - I can see the temptation... But like many men of his type he lacked imagination. He was unhappy, very unhappy, at the inquest. One could see that. In the near future he would have to repeat his lie upon oath. Not only that, a man was now arrested, charged with murder - and the identity of the dead man supplied a very potent motive for that charge.
"He went back home and faced things squarely. He took the way out that seemed best to him."
"He shot himself?"
"Yes."
Frances murmured: "He didn't say who - who -"
Slowly Poirot shook his head.
"He had his code. There was no reference whatever as to who had instigated him to commit perjury."
He watched her closely. Was there an instant flash of relief, of relaxed tension? Yes, but that might be natural enough in any case...
She got up and walked to the window.
She said:
"So we are back where we were."
Poirot wondered what was passing in her mind.
Chapter 11
Superintendent Spence, the following morning, used almost Frances' words:
"So we're back where we started," he said with a sigh. "We've got to find out who this fellow Enoch Arden really was."
"I can tell you that. Superintendent," said Poirot. "His name was Charles Trenton."
"Charles Trenton!" The Superintendent whistled. "H'm! One of the Trentons - I suppose she put him up to it - Mrs Jeremy, I mean... However, we shan't be able to prove her connection with it. Charles Trenton? I seem to remember -"
Poirot nodded.
"Yes. He has a record."
"Thought so. Swindling hotels if I remember rightly. Used to arrive at the Ritz, go out and buy a Rolls, subject to a morning's trial, go round in the Rolls to all the most expensive shops and buy stuff - and I can tell you a man who's got his Rolls outside waiting to take his purchases back to the Ritz doesn't get his cheques queried! Besides, he had the manner and the breeding. He'd stay a week or so and then, just when suspicions began to arise, he'd quietly disappear, selling the various items cheap to the pals he'd picked up. Charles Trenton. H'm -" He looked at Poirot. "You find out things, don't you?"
"How does your case progress against David Hunter?"
"We shall have to let him go. There was a woman there that night with Arden. It doesn't only depend on that old tartar's word. Jimmy Pierce was going home, got pushed out of the Load of Hay - he gets quarrelsome after a glass or two. He saw a woman come out of the Stag and go into the telephone box outside the post office - that was just after ten. Said it wasn't any one he knew, thought it was someone staying at the Stag. 'A tart from London,' is what he called her."
"He was not very near her?"
"No, right across the street. Who the devil was she, M. Poirot?"
"Did he say how she was dressed?"
"Tweed coat, he said, orange scarf round her head. Trousers and a lot of make-up. Fits with the old lady's description."
"Yes, it fits," Poirot was frowning.
Spence asked:
"Well, who was she, where did she come from, where did she go? You know our train service. The 9.20's the last train up to London - and the 10.30 the other way. Did that woman hang about all night and go up on the 6.18 in the morning? Had she got a car? Did she hitchhike? We've sent out all over the place - but no results."
"What about the 6.18?"
"It's always crowded - mostly men, though. I think they'd have noticed a woman - that type of woman, that's to say. I suppose she might have come and left by car, but a car's noticed in Warmsley Vale nowadays. We're off the main road, you see."
"No cars noticed out that night?"
"Only Dr Cloade's. He was out on a case - over Middlingham way. You'd think someone would have noticed a strange woman in a car."
"It need not have been a stranger," Poirot said slowly. "A man slightly drunk and a hundred yards away might not recognise a local person whom he did not know very well. Someone, perhaps, dressed in a different way from their usual way."
Spence looked at him questioningly.
"Would this young Pierce recognise, for instance, Lynn Marchmont? She has been away for some years."
"Lynn Marchmont was at the White House with her mother at that time," said Spence.
"Are you sure?"
"Mrs Lionel Cloade - that's the scatty one, the doctor's wife - says she telephoned to her there at ten minutes past ten. Rosaleen Cloade was in London. Mrs Jeremy - well I've never seen her in slacks and she doesn't use much make-up. Anyway, she isn't young."
"Oh, mon cher," Poirot leaned forward. "On a dim night, with feeble street lights, can one tell youth or age under a mask of make-up?"
"Look here, Poirot," said Spence, "what are you getting at?"
Poirot leaned back and half-closed his eyes.
"Slacks, a tweed coat, an orange scarf enveloping the head, a great deal of make-up, a dropped lipstick. It is suggestive."
"Think you're the oracle at Delphi," growled the Superintendent. "Not that I know what the oracle at Delphi was - sort of thing young Graves gives himself airs about knowing - doesn't help his police work any. Any more cryptic pronouncements, M. Poirot?"
"I told you," said Poirot, "that this case was the wrong shape. As an instance I said to you that the dead man was all wrong. So he was, as Underhay. Underhay was clearly an eccentric, chivalrous individual, old-fashioned and reactionary. The man at the Stag was a blackmailer, he was neither chivalrous, old-fashioned, nor reactionary, nor was he particularly eccentric - therefore he was not Underhay. He could not be Underhay, for people do not change. The interesting thing was that Porter said he was Underhay."
"Leading you to Mrs Jeremy?"
"The likeness led me to Mrs Jeremy. A very distinctive case of countenance, the Trenton profile. To permit myself a little play on words, as Charles Trenton the dead man is the right shape. But there are still questions to which we require answers. Why did David Hunter permit himself to be blackmailed so readily? Is he the kind of man who lets himself be blackmailed? One would say very decidedly, no. So he too acts out of character. Then there is Rosaleen Cloade. Her whole behaviour is incomprehensible - but there is one thing I should like to know very much. Why is she afraid? Why does she think that something will happen to her now that her brother is no longer there to protect her? Someone - or something has given her that fear. And it is not that she fears losing her fortune - no, it is more than that. It is for her life that she is afraid..."
"Good Lord, M. Poirot, you don't think -"
"Let us remember, Spence, that as you said just now, we are back where we started. That is to say, the Cloade family are back where they started. Robert Underhay died in Africa. And Rosaleen Cloade's life stands between them and the enjoyment of Gordon Cloade's money -"
"Do you honestly think that one of them would do that?"
"I think this. Rosaleen Cloade is twenty-six, and though mentally somewhat unstable, physically she is strong and healthy. She may live to be seventy, she may live longer still. Forty-four years, let us say. Don't you think. Superintendent, that forty-four years may be too long for someone to contemplate?"
Chapter 12
When Poirot left the police station he was almost at once accosted by Aunt Kathie. She had several shopping-bags with her and came up to him with a breathless eagerness of manner.
"So terrible about poor Major Porter," she said. "I can't help feeling that his outlook on life must have been very materialistic. Army life, you know. Very narrowing, and though he had spent a good deal of his life in India, I'm afraid he never took advantage of the spiritual opportunities. It would be all pukka and chota hazri and tiffin and pig-sticking - the narrow Army round. To think that he might have sat as a chela at the feet of some guru! Ah, the missed opportunities, M. Poirot, how sad they are!"
Aunt Kathie shook her head and relaxed her grip on one of the shopping-bags.
A depressed-looking bit of cod slipped out and slithered into the gutter. Poirot retrieved it and in her agitation Aunt Kathie let a second bag slip, whereupon a tin of golden syrup began a gay career rolling along the High Street.
"Thank you so much, M. Poirot," Aunt Kathie grasped the cod. He ran after the golden syrup. "Oh, thank you - so clumsy of me - but really I have been so upset. That unfortunate man - yes, it is sticky, but really I don't like to use your clean handkerchief. Well, it's very kind of you - as I was saying, in life we are in death - and in death we are in life - I should never be surprised to see the astral body of any of my dear friends who have passed over. One might, you know, just pass them in the street. Why - only the other night I -"
"You permit?" Poirot rammed the cod firmly into the depths of the bag. "You were saying - yes?"
"Astral bodies," said Aunt Kathie. "I asked, you know, for twopence - because I only had halfpennies. But I thought at the time the face was familiar - only I couldn't place it. I still can't - but I think now it must be someone who has Passed Over - perhaps some time ago - so that my remembrance was very uncertain. It is wonderful the way people are sent to one in one's need - even if it's only a matter of pennies for telephones. Oh, dear, quite a queue at Peacocks - they must have got either trifle or Swiss roll! I hope I'm not too late!"
Mrs Lionel Cloade plunged across the road and joined herself to the tail end of a queue of grim-faced women outside the confectioner's shop.
Poirot went on down the High Street. He did not turn in at the Stag. Instead he bent his steps towards the White House.
He wanted very much to have a talk with Lynn Marchmont, and he suspected that Lynn Marchmont would not be averse to having a talk with him.
It was a lovely morning - one of those summer mornings in spring that have a freshness denied to a real summer's day.
Poirot turned off from the main road. He saw the footpath leading up past Long Willows to the hillside above Furrowbank.
Charles Trenton had come that way from the station on the Friday before his death. On his way down the hill, he had met Rosaleen Cloade coming up. He had not recognised her, which was not surprising since he was not Robert Underhay, and she, naturally, had not recognised him for the same reason. But she had sworn when shown the body that she had never seen that man before. Did she say that for safety's sake? Or had she been, that day, so lost in thought, that she had not even glanced at the face of the man she had passed on the footpath? If so, what had she been thinking about? Had she, by any chance, been thinking of Rowley Cloade?
Poirot turned along the small side road which led to the White House. The garden of the White House was looking very lovely. It held many flowering shrubs, lilacs and laburnums, and in the centre of the lawn was a big old gnarled apple tree. Under it, stretched out in a deckchair, was Lynn Marchmont.
She jumped nervously when Poirot, in a formal voice, wished her "Good morning!"
"You did startle me, M. Poirot. I didn't hear you coming across the grass. So you are still here - in Warmsley Vale?"
"I am still here - yes."
"Why?"
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
"It is a pleasant out-of-the-world spot where one can relax. I relax."
"I'm glad you are here," said Lynn.
"You do not say to me like the rest of your family, 'When do you go back to London, M. Poirot?' and wait anxiously for the answer."
"Do they want you to go back to London?"
"It would seem so."
"I don't."
"No - I realise that. Why, Mademoiselle?"
"Because it means that you're not satisfied. Not satisfied, I mean, that David Hunter did it."
"And you want him so much - to be innocent?"
He saw a faint flush creep up under her bronzed skin.
"Naturally, I don't want to see a man hanged for what he didn't do."
"Naturally - oh, yes!"
"And the police are simply prejudiced against him because he's got their backs up. That's the worst of David - he likes antagonising people."
"The police are not so prejudiced as you think. Miss Marchmont. The prejudice against him was in the minds of the jury. They refused to follow the coroner's guidance. They gave a verdict against him and so the police had to arrest him. But I may tell you that they are very far from satisfied with the case against him."
She said eagerly:
"Then they may let him go?"
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
"Who do they think did it, M. Poirot?"
Poirot said slowly: "There was a woman at the Stag that night."
Lynn cried:
"I don't understand anything. When we thought the man was Robert Underhay it all seemed so simple. Why did Major Porter say it was Underhay if it wasn't? Why did he shoot himself? We're back now where we started."
