"His wife has a headache and has gone to lie down."
"She'll be all right this afternoon," said Mrs Masterton confidently. "Likes functions, you know. She'll make a terrific toilet and be as pleased about it as a child. Just fetch me a bundle of those pegs over there, will you? I want to mark the places for the clock golf numbers."
Poirot, thus pressed into service, was worked by Mrs Masterton relentlessly, as a useful apprentice. She condescended to talk to him in the intervals of hard labour.
"Got to do everything yourself, I find. Only way... By the way, you're a friend of the Eliots, I believe?"
Poirot, after his long sojourn in England, comprehended that this was an indication of social recognition. Mrs Masterton was in fact saying: "Although a foreigner, I understand you are One of Us." She continued to chat in an intimate manner.
"Nice to have Nasse lived in again. We were all so afraid it was going to be a hotel. You know what it is nowadays; one drives through the country and passes place after place with the board up 'Guest House' or 'Private Hotel' or 'Hotel A.A. Fully Licensed.' All the houses one stayed in as a girl - or where one went to dances. Very sad. Yes, I'm glad about Nasse and so is poor dear Amy Folliat, of course. She's had such a hard life - but never complains, I will say. Sir George has done wonders for Nasse - and not vulgarised it. Don't know whether that's the result of Amy Folliat's influence - or whether it's his own natural good taste. He has got quite good taste, you know. Very surprising in a man like that."
"He is not, I understand, one of the landed gentry?" said Poirot cautiously.
"He isn't even really Sir George - was christened it, I understand. Took the idea from Lord George Sanger's Circus, I suspect. Very amusing really. Of course we never let on. Rich men must be allowed their little snobberies, don't you agree? The funny thing is that in spite of his origins George Stubbs would go down perfectly well anywhere. He's a throwback. Pure type of the eighteenth century country squire. Good blood in him, I'd say. Father a gent and mother a barmaid, is my guess."
Mrs Masterton interrupted herself to yell to a gardener. "Not by that rhododendron. You must leave room for the skittles over to the right. Right - not left!"
She went on: "Extraordinary how they can't tell their left from their right. The Brewis woman is efficient. Doesn't like poor Hattie, though. Looks at her sometimes as though she'd like to murder her. So many of these good secretaries are in love with their boss. Now where do you think Jim Warburton can have got to? Silly the way he sticks to calling himself 'Captain.' Not a regular soldier and never within miles of a German. One has to put up, of course, with what one can get these days - and he's a hard worker - but I feel there's something rather fishy about him. Ah! Here are the Legges."
Sally Legge, dressed in slacks and a yellow pullover, said brightly:
"We've come to help."
"Lots to do," boomed Mrs Masterton. "Now, let me see..."
Poirot, profiting by her inattention, slipped away. As he came round the corner of the house on to the front terrace he became a spectator of a new drama.
Two young women, in shorts, with bright blouses, had come out from the wood and were standing uncertainly looking up at the house. In one of them he thought he recognised the Italian girl of yesterday's lift in the car. From the window of Lady Stubbs's bedroom Sir George leaned out and addressed them wrathfully.
"You're trespassing," he shouted.
"Please?" said the young woman with the green head-scarf.
"You can't come through here. Private."
The other young woman, who had a royal blue head-scarf, said brightly:
"Please? Nassecombe Quay..." She pronounced it carefully. "It is this way? Please."
"You're trespassing," bellowed Sir George.
"Please?"
"Trespassing! No way through. You've got to go back. BACK! The way you came."
They stared as he gesticulated. Then they consulted together in a flood of foreign speech. Finally, doubtfully, blue-scarf said:
"Back? To Hostel?"
"That's right. And you take the road - road - round that way."
They retreated unwillingly. Sir George mopped his brow and looked down at Poirot.
"Spend my time turning people off," he said. "Used to come through the top gate. I've padlocked that. Now they come through the woods, having got over the fence. Think they can get down to the shore and the quay easily this way. Well, they can, of course, much quicker. But there's no right of way - never has been. And they're practically all foreigners - don't understand what you say, and just jabber back at you in Dutch or something."
"Of these, one is German and the other Italian, I think - I saw the Italian girl on her way from the station yesterday."
"Every kind of language they talk... Yes, Hattie? What did you say?" He drew back into the room.
Poirot turned to find Mrs Oliver and a well-developed girl of fourteen dressed in Guide uniform close behind him.
"This is Marlene," said Mrs Oliver.
Marlene acknowledged the introduction with a pronounced snuffle. Poirot bowed politely.
"She's the Victim," said Mrs Oliver.
Marlene giggled.
"I'm the horrible Corpse," she said. "But I'm not going to have any blood on me." Her tone expressed disappointment.
"No?"
"No. Just strangled with a cord, that's all. I'd of liked to be stabbed - and have lashings of red paint."
"Captain Warburton thought it might look too realistic," said Mrs Oliver.
"In a murder I think you ought to have blood," said Marlene sulkily. She looked at Poirot with hungry interest. "Seen lots of murders, haven't you? So she says."
"One or two," said Poirot modestly.
He observed with alarm that Mrs Oliver was leaving them.
"Any sex maniacs?" asked Marlene with avidity.
"Certainly not."
"I like sex maniacs," said Marlene with relish. "Reading about them, I mean."
"You would probably not like meeting one."
"Oh, I dunno. D'you know what? I believe we've got a sex maniac round here. My granddad saw a body in the woods once. He was scared and ran away, and when he come back it was gone. It was a woman's body. But of course he's batty, my granddad is, so no one listens to what he says."
Poirot managed to escape and regaining the house by a circuitous route, took refuge in his bedroom. He felt in need of repose.
Chapter 6
Lunch was an early and quickly snatched affair of a cold buffet. At two-thirty a minor film star was to open the fкte. The weather, after looking ominously like rain, began to improve. By three o'clock the fкte was in full swing. People were paying the admission charge of half a crown in large numbers, and cars were lining one side of the long drive. Students from the Youth Hostel arrived in batches conversing loudly in foreign tongues. True to Mrs Masterton's forecast, Lady Stubbs had emerged from her bedroom just before half-past two, dressed in a cyclamen dress with an enormous coolie-shaped hat of black straw. She wore large quantities of diamonds.
Miss Brewis murmured sardonically:
"Thinks it's the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, evidently!"
But Poirot complimented her gravely.
"It is a beautiful creation that you have on, Madame."
"It is nice, isn't it," said Hattie happily. "I wore it for Ascot."
The minor film star was arriving and Hattie moved forward to greet her.
Poirot retreated into the background. He wandered around disconsolately - everything seemed to be proceeding in the normal fashion of fкtes. There was a coconut shy, presided over by Sir George in his heartiest fahion, a skittle alley and a hoop-la. There were various "stalls" displaying local produce of fruit, vegetables, jams and cakes - and others displaying "fancy objects." There were "raffles" of cakes, of baskets of fruit; even, it seemed, of a pig; and a "Lucky Dip" for children at twopence a go.
There was a good crowd of people by now and an Exhibition of Children's Dancing began. Poirot saw no sign of Mrs Oliver, but Lady Stubbs's cyclamen pink figure showed up amongst the crowd as she drifted rather vaguely about. The focus of attention, however, seemed to be Mrs Folliat. She was quite transformed in appearance - wearing a hydrangea-blue foulard frock and a smart grey hat, she appeared to preside over the proceedings, greeting new arrivals, and directing people to the various side shows.
Poirot lingered near her and listened to some of the conversations.
"Amy, my dear, how are you?"
"Oh, Pamela, how nice of you and Edward to come. Such a long way from Tiverton."
"The weather's held for you. Remember the year before the war? Cloudburst came down about four o'clock. Ruined the whole show."
"But it's been a wonderful summer this year. Dorothy! It's ages since I've seen you."
"We felt we had to come and see Nasse in its glory. I see you've cut back the berberis on the bank."
"Yes, it shows the hydrangeas better, don't you think?"
"How wonderful they are. What a blue! But, my dear, you've done wonders in the last year. Nasse is really beginning to look like itself again."
Dorothy's husband boomed in a deep voice:
"Came over to see the commandant here during the war. Nearly broke my heart."
Mrs Folliat turned to greet a humbler visitor.
"Mrs Knapper, I am pleased to see you. Is this Lucy? How she's grown!"
"She'll be leaving school next year. Pleased to see you looking so well, ma'am."
"I'm very well, thank you. You must go and try your luck at hoop-la, Lucy. See you in the tea tent later, Mrs Knapper. I shall be helping with the teas."
An elderly man, presumably Mr Knapper, said diffidently:
"Pleased to have you back at Nasse, ma'am. Seems like old times."
Mrs Folliat's response was drowned as two women and a big beefy man rushed towards her.
"Amy, dear, such ages. This looks the greatest success! Do tell me what you've done about the rose garden. Muriel told me that you're restocking it with all the new floribundas."
The beefy man chipped in.
"Where's Marylin Gale -?"
"Reggie's just dying to meet her. He saw her last picture."
"That her in the big hat? My word, that's some get-up."
"Don't be stupid, darling. That's Hattie Stubbs. You know, Amy, you really shouldn't let her go round quite so like a mannequin."
"Amy?" Another friend claimed attention. "This is Roger, Edward's boy. My dear, so nice to have you back at Nasse."
Poirot moved slowly away and absent-mindedly invested a shilling on a ticket that might win him the pig.
He heard faintly still, the "So good of you to come" refrain from behind him. He wondered whether Mrs Folliat realised how completely she had slipped into the role of hostess or whether it was entirely unconscious. She was, very definitely this afternoon, Mrs Folliat of Nasse House.
He was standing by the tent labelled "Madame Zuleika will tell your fortune for 2s. 6d." Teas had just begun to be served and there was no longer a queue for the fortune telling. Poirot bowed his head, entered the tent and paid over his half-crown willingly for the privilege of sinking into a chair and resting his aching feet.
Madame Zuleika was wearing flowing black robes, a gold tinsel scarf wound round her head and a veil across the lower half of her face which slightly ruffled her remarks. A gold bracelet hung with lucky charms tinkled as she took Poirot's hand and gave him a rapid reading, agreeably full of money to come, success with a dark beauty and a miraculous escape from an accident.
"It is very agreeable all that you tell me, Madame Legge. I only wish that it could come true."
"Oh!" said Sally. "So you know me, do you?"
"I had advance information - Mrs Oliver told me that you were originally to be the 'victim' but that you had been snatched from her for the Occult."
"I wish I was being the 'body,'" said Sally. "Much more peaceful. All Jim Warburton's fault. Is it four o'clock yet? I want my tea. I'm off duty from four to half-past."
"Ten minutes to go, still," said Poirot, consulting his large old-fashioned watch. "Shall I bring a cup of tea here?"
"No, no. I want the break. This tent is stifling. Are there a lot of people waiting still?"
"No, I think they are lining up for tea."
"Good."
Poirot emerged from the tent and was immediately challenged by a determined woman and made to pay sixpence and guess the weight of a cake.
A hoop-la stall presided over by a fat motherly woman urged him to try his luck and, much to discomfiture, he immediately won a large Kewpie doll. Walking sheepishly along with this he encountered Michael Weyman who was standing gloomy on the outskirts near the top of a path that led down to the quay.
"You seem to have been enjoying yourself, M. Poirot," he said, with a sardonic grin.
Poirot contemplated his prize.
"It is truly horrible, is it not?" he said sadly.
A small child near him suddenly burst out crying. Poirot stooped swiftly and tucked the doll into the child's arm.
"Voilа, it is for you."
The tears ceased abruptly.
"There - Violet - isn't the gentleman kind? Say, Ta, ever so -"
"Children's Fancy Dress," called out Captain Warburton through a megaphone. "The first class - three to five. Form up, please."
Poirot moved towards the house, and was cannoned into by a young man who was stepping backwards to take a better aim at a coconut. The young man scowled and Poirot apologised, mechanically, his eye held fascinated by the varied pattern of the young man's shirt. He recognised it as the "turtle" shirt of Sir George's description. Every kind of turtle, tortoise and sea monster appeared to be writhing and crawling over it.
