"There are other members of the families?" asked Poirot.
"There's a sister - a typist in London. She's been communicated with. And there's a young man - in fact, she was supposed to be out with him last night, I gather."
"Any help from the A.B.C. guide?" asked Crome.
"It's there," the superintendent nodded towards the table. "No fingerprints. Open at the page for Bexhill. A new copy, I should say - doesn't seem to have been opened much. Not bought anywhere round here. I' we tried all the likely stationers!"
"Who discovered the body, sir?"
"One of these fresh-air, early-morning old colonels. Colonel Jerome. He was out with his dog about 6 A.M. Went along the front in the direction of Cooden, and down on to the beach. Dog went off and sniffed at something. Colonel called it. Dog didn't come. Colonel had a look and thought something queer was up. Went over and looked. Behaved very properly. Didn't touch her at all and rang us up immediately."
"And the time of death was round about midnight last night?"
"Between midnight and 1 A.M. - that's pretty certain. Our homicidal joker is a man of his word. If he says the 25th, it is the 25th - though it may have been only by a few minutes."
Crome nodded.
"Yes, that's his mentality all right. There's nothing else? Nobody saw anything helpful?"
"Not as far as we know. But it's early yet. Every one who saw a girl in white walking with a man last night will be along to tell us about it soon, and as I imagine there were about four or five hundred girls in white walking with young men last night, it ought to be a nice business."
"Well, sir, I'd better get down to it," said Crome. "There's the cafй and there's the girl's home. I'd better go to both of them. Kelsey can come with me."
"And Mr. Poirot?" asked the superintendent.
"I will accompany you," said Poirot to Crome with a little bow.
Crome, I thought, looked slightly annoyed. Kelsey, who had not seen Poirot before, grinned broadly.
It was an unfortunate circumstance that the first time people saw my friend they were always disposed to consider him as a joke of the first water.
"What about this belt she was strangled with?" asked Crome. "Poirot is inclined to think it's a valuable clue. I expect he'd like to see it."
"Du tout," said Poirot quickly. "You misunderstood me."
"You'll get nothing from that," said Carter. "It wasn't a leather belt - might have got fingerprints if it had been. Just a thick sort of knitted silk - ideal for the purpose."
I gave a shiver.
"Well," said Crome, "we'd better be getting along."
We set out forthwith.
Our first visit was to the Ginger Cat. Situated on the sea front, this was the usual type of small tea-room. It had little tables covered with orange-checked cloths and basket-work chairs of exceeding discomfort with orange cushions on them. It was the kind of place that specialized in morning coffee, five different kinds of teas (Devonshire, farmhouse, fruit, Carlton and plain), and a few sparing lunch dishes for females such as scrambled eggs and shrimps and macaroni au gratin.
The morning coffees were just getting under way. The manageress ushered us hastily into a very untidy back sanctum.
"Miss - er - Merrion?" inquired Crome.
Miss Merrion bleated out in a high, distressed gentlewoman voice:
"That is my name. This is a most distressing business. Most distressing. How it will affect our business I really cannot think!"
Miss Merrion was a very thin woman of forty with wispy orange hair (indeed she was astonishingly like a ginger cat herself). She played nervously with various fichus and frills that were part of her official costume.
"You'll have a boom," said Inspector Kelsey encouragingly. "You'll see! You won't be able to serve teas fast enough!"
"Disgusting," said Miss Men'ion. "Truly disgusting. It makes one despair of human nature."
But her eye brightened nevertheless.
"What can you tell me about the dead girl, Miss Merrion?"
"Nothing," said Miss Merrion positively. "Absolutely nothing!"
"How long had she been working here?"
"This was the second summer."
"You were satisfied with her?"
"She was a good waitress - quick and obliging."
"She was pretty, yes?" inquired Poirot.
Miss Merrion, in her turn, gave him an "Oh, these foreigners" look.
"She was a nice, clean-looking girl," she said distantly.
"What time did she go off duty last night?" asked Crome.
"Eight o'clock. We close at eight. We do not serve dinners. There is no demand for them. Scrambled eggs and tea (Poirot shuddered) people come in for up to seven o'clock and sometimes after, but our rush is over by 6:30."
"Did she mention to you how she proposed to spend her evening?"
"Certainly not," said Miss Merrion emphatically. "We were not on those terms."
"No one came in and called for her? Anything like that?"
"No."
"Did she seem quite her ordinary self? Not excited or depressed?"
"Really I could not say," said Miss Merrion aloofly.
"How many waitresses do you employ?"
"Two normally, and an extra two after the 20th of July until the end of August."
"But Elizabeth Barnard was not one of the extras?"
"Miss Barnard was one of the regulars."
"What about the other one?"
"Miss Higley? She is a very nice young lady."
"Were she and Miss Barnard friends?"
"Really I could not say."
"Perhaps we'd better have a word with her."
"Now?"
"If you please."
"I will send her to you," said Miss Merrion, rising. "Please keep her as short a time as possible. This is the morning coffee rush hour."
The feline and gingery Miss Merrion left the room.
"Very refined," remarked Inspector Kelsey. He mimicked the lady's mincing tone. "Really I could not say."
A plump girl, slightly out of breath, with dark hair, rosy cheeks and dark eyes goggling with excitement, bounced in.
"Miss Merrion sent me," she announced breathlessly.
"Miss Higley?"
"Yes, that's me."
"You knew Elizabeth Barnard?"
"Oh, yes, I knew Betty. Isn't it awful? It's just too awful! I can't believe it's true. I've been saying to the girls all the morning I just can't believe it! 'You know, girls,' I said, 'it just doesn't seem real.' Betty! I mean, Betty Barnard, who's been here all along, murdered! 'I just can't believe it,' I said. Five or six times I've pinched myself just to see if I wouldn't wake up. Betty murdered... It's - well, you know what I mean - it doesn't seem real."
"You knew the dead girl well?" asked Crome.
"Well, she's worked here longer than I have. I only came this March. She was here last year. She was rather quiet, if you know what I mean. She wasn't one to joke or laugh a lot. I don't mean that she was exactly quiet - she'd plenty of fun in her and all that - but she didn't - well, she was quiet and she wasn't quiet, if you know what I mean."
I will say for Inspector Crome that he was exceedingly patient. As a witness the buxom Miss Higley was persistently maddening. Every statement she made was repeated and qualified half a dozen times. The net result was meagre in the extreme.
She had not been on terms of intimacy with the dead girl. Elizabeth Barnard, it could be guessed, had considered herself a cut above Miss Higley. She had been friendly in working hours, but the gifts had not seen much of her out of them. Elizabeth Barnard had had a "friend" - worked in the estate agents near the station. Court & Brunskill. No, he wasn't Mr. Court nor Mr. Brunskill. He was a clerk there. She didn't know his name. But she knew him by sight well. Good-looking - oh, very good-looking, and always so nicely dressed. Clearly, there was a tinge of jealousy in Miss Higley's voice.
In the end it boiled down to this. Elizabeth Barnard had not confided in any one in the cafй as to her plans for the evening, but in Miss Higley's opinion she had been going to meet her "friend." She had had on a new white dress, "ever so sweet with one of the new necks."
We had a word with each of the other two girls but with no further results. Betty Barnard had not said anything as to her plans and no one had noticed her in Bexhill during the course of the evening.
Chapter 10
THE BARNARDS
Elizabeth Barnard's parents lived in a minute bungalow, one of fifty or so recently run up by a speculative builder on the confines of the town. The name of it was Llandudno.
Mr. Barnard, a stout, bewildered-looking man of fifty-five or so, had noticed our approach and was standing waiting in the doorway.
"Come in, gentlemen," he said.
Inspector Kelsey took the initiative.
"This is Inspector Crome of Scotland Yard, sir," he said. "He's come down to help us over this business."
"Scotland Yard?" said Mr. Barnard hopefully. "That's good. This murdering villain's got to be laid by the heels. My poor little girl -"
His face was distorted by a spasm of grief.
"And this is Mr. Hercule Poirot, also from London, and er -"
"Captain Hastings," said Poirot.
"Pleased to meet you, gentlemen," said Mr. Barnard mechanically. "Come into the snuggery. I don't know that my poor wife's up to seeing you. All broken up, she is."
However, by the time that we were ensconced in the living-room of the bungalow, Mrs. Barnard had made her appearance. She had evidently been crying bitterly, her eyes were reddened and she walked with the uncertain gait of a person who had had a great shock.
"Why, Mother, that's fine," said Mr. Barnard. "You're sure you're all right - eh?"
He patted her shoulder and draw her down into a chain.
"The superintendent was very kind," said Mr. Barnard. "After he'd broken the news to us, he said he'd leave any questions till later when we'd got over the first shock."
"It is too cruel. Oh, it is too cruel," cried Mrs. Barnard tearfully. "The cruelest thing that ever was, it is."
Her voice had a faintly sing-song intonation that I thought for a moment was foreign till I remembered the name on the gate and realized that the "effer wass" of her speech was in reality proof of her Welsh origin.
"It's very painful, madam, I know," said Inspector Crome. "And we've every sympathy for you, but we want to know all the facts we can so as to get to work as quick as possible."
"That's sense, that is," said Mr. Barnard, nodding approval.
"Your daughter was twenty-three, I understand. She lived here with you and worked at the Ginger Cat cafй, is that right?"
"That's it."
"This is a new place, isn't it? Where did you live before?"
"I was in the ironmongery business in Kennington. Retired two years ago. Always meant to live near the sea."
"You have two daughters?"
"Yes. My elder daughter works in an office in London in the City."
"Weren't you alarmed when your daughter didn't come home last night?"
"We didn't know she hadn't," said Mrs. Barnard tearfully. "Dad and I always go to bed early. Nine o'clock's our time. We never knew Betty hadn't come home till the police officer came and said - and said -"
She broke down.
"Was your daughter in the habit of - er - returning home late?"
"You know what girls are nowadays, inspector," said Barnard. "Independent, that's what they are. These summer evenings they're not going to rush home. All the same, Betty was usually in by eleven."
"How did she get in? Was the door open?"
"Left the key under the mat - that's what we always did."
"There is some rumour, I believe, that your daughter was engaged to be married?"
"They don't put it as formally as that nowadays," said Mr. Barnard.
"Donald Fraser his name is, and I liked him. I liked him very much," said Mrs. Barnard. "Poor fellow, it'll be terrible for him - this news. Does he know yet, I wonder?"
"He works in Court & Brunskill's, I understand?"
"Yes, they're the estate agents."
"Was he in the habit of meeting your daughter most evenings after her work?"
"Not every evening. Once or twice a week would be nearer."
"Do you know if she was going to meet him yesterday?"
"She didn't say. Betty never said much about what she was doing or where she was going. But she was a good girl, Betty was. Oh, I can't believe -"
Mrs. Barnard started sobbing again.
"Pull yourself together, old lady. Try to hold up, Mother," urged her husband. "We' we got to get to the bottom of this..."
"I'm sure Donald would never - would never -" sobbed Mrs. Barnard.
"Now just you pull yourself together," repeated Mr. Barnard.
He turned to the two inspectors.
"I wish to God I could give you some help - but the plain fact is I know nothing - nothing at all that can help you to the dastardly scoundrel who did this. Betty was just a merry, happy girl - with a decent young fellow that she was - well, we'd have called it walking out with in my young days. Why any one should want to murder her simply beats me - it doesn't make sense."
"You're very near the truth there, Mr. Barnard," said Crome. "I tell you what I'd like to do - have a look over Miss Barnard's room. There may be something - letters - or a diary."
"Look over it and welcome," said Mr. Barnard, rising.
He led the way. Crome followed him, then Poirot, then Kelsey, and I brought up the rear.
