I was silent a moment considering. Was it true what she had just said? Did the fact that death by violence - by malice aforethought - had taken place in a certain spot leave its impression on that spot so strongly that it was perceptible after many years? Psychic people said so. Did Styles definitely bear traces of that event that had occurred so long ago? Here, within these walls, in these gardens, thoughts of murder had lingered and grown stronger and had at last come to fruition in the final act. Did they still taint the air?
Nurse Craven broke in on my thoughts by saying abruptly:
"I was in a house where there was a murder case once. I've never forgotten it. One doesn't, you know. One of my patients. I had to give evidence and everything. Made me feel quite queer. It's a nasty experience for a girl."
"It must be. I know myself -"
I broke off as Boyd Carrington came striding round the comer of the house.
As usual, his big buoyant personality seemed to sweep away shadows and intangible worries. He was so large, so sane, so out of doors - one of those lovable, forceful personalities that radiate cheerfulness and common sense.
"Morning, Hastings; morning, Nurse. Where's Mrs Franklin?"
"Good morning, Sir William. Mrs Franklin's down at the bottom of the garden under the beech tree near the laboratory."
"And Franklin, I suppose, is inside the laboratory?"
"Yes, Sir William - with Miss Hastings."
"Wretched girl. Fancy being cooped up doing stinks on a morning like this! You ought to protest, Hastings."
Nurse Craven said quickly:
"Oh, Miss Hastings is quite happy. She likes it, you know, and the doctor couldn't do without her, I'm sure."
"Miserable fellow," said Boyd Carrington. "If I had a pretty girl like your Judith as a secretary, I'd be looking at her instead of at guinea pigs, eh what?"
It was the kind of joke that Judith would particularly have disliked, but it went down quite well with Nurse Craven, who laughed a good deal.
"Oh, Sir William," she exclaimed. "You really mustn't say things like that. I'm sure we all know what you'd be like! But poor Dr Franklin is so serious - quite wrapped up in his work."
Boyd Carrington said cheerfully:
"Well, his wife seems to have taken up her position where she can keep her eye on her husband. I believe she's jealous."
"You know far too much, Sir William!"
Nurse Craven seemed delighted with this badinage. She said reluctantly:
"Well, I suppose I ought to be going to see about Mrs Franklin's malted milk."
She moved away slowly and Boyd Carrington stood looking after her.
"Good-looking girl," he remarked. "Lovely hair and teeth. Fine specimen of womanhood. Must be a dull life on the whole always looking after sick people. A girl like that deserves a better fate."
"Oh, well," I said. "I suppose she'll marry one day."
"I expect so."
He sighed - and it occurred to me that he was thinking of his dead wife. Then he said:
"Like to come over with me to Knatton and see the place?"
"Rather. I'd like to. I'll just see first if Poirot needs me."
I found Poirot sitting on the verandah, well muffled up. He encouraged me to go.
"But certainly go, Hastings, go. It is, I believe, a most handsome property. You should certainly see it."
"I'd like to. But I didn't want to desert you."
"My faithful friend! No, no, go with Sir William. A charming man, is he not?"
"First class," I said with enthusiasm,
Poirot smiled.
"Ah yes. I thought he was your type."
III
I enjoyed my expedition enormously.
Not only was the weather fine - a really lovely summer's day - but I enjoyed the companionship of the man.
Boyd Carrington had that personal magnetism, that wide experience of life and of places that made him excellent company. He told me stories of his administrative days in India, some intriguing details of East African tribal lore and was altogether so interesting that I was quite taken out of myself and forgot my worries about Judith and the deep anxieties that Poirot's revelations had given me.
I liked, too, the way Boyd Carrington spoke of my friend. He had a deep respect for him - both for his work and his character. Sad though Poirot's present condition of ill health was, Boyd Carrington uttered no facile words of pity. He seemed to think that a lifetime spent as Poirot's had been was in itself a rich reward and that in his memories my friend could find satisfaction and self-respect.
"Moreover," he said, "I'd wager his brain is as keen as ever it was."
"It is; indeed it is," I assented eagerly.
"No greater mistake than to think that because a man's tied by the leg it affects his brain pan. Not a bit of it. Anno Domini affects headwork much less than you'd think. By Jove, I wouldn't care to undertake to commit a murder under Hercule Poirot's nose - even at this time of day."
"He'd get you if you did," I said, grinning.
"I bet he would. Not," he added ruefully, "that I should be much good at doing a murder anyway. I can't plan things, you know. Too impatient. If I did a murder, it would be done on the spur of the moment."
"That might be the most difficult crime to spot."
"I hardly think so. I'd probably leave clues trailing along behind me in every direction. Well, it's lucky I haven't got a criminal mind. Only kind of man I can imagine myself killing is a blackmailer. That is a foul thing, if you like. I've always thought a blackmailer ought to be shot. What do you say?"
I confessed to some sympathy with his point of view.
Then we passed on to an examination of the work done on the house as a young architect came forward to meet us.
Knatton was mainly of Tudor date with a wing added later. It had not been modernized or altered since the installation of two primitive bathrooms in the eighteen-forties or thereabouts.
Boyd Carrington explained that his uncle had been more or less of a hermit, disliking people and living in a corner of the vast house. Boyd Carrington and his brother had been tolerated, and had spent their holidays there as schoolboys before Sir Everard had become as much of a recluse as he afterwards became.
The old man had never married, and had spent only a tenth of his large income, so that even after death duties had been paid, the present baronet had found himself a very rich man.
"But a very lonely one." he said, sighing.
I was silent. My sympathy was too acute to be put into words. For I, too, was a lonely man. Since Cinders had died, I felt myself to be only half a human being.
Presently, a little haltingly, I expressed a little of what I felt.
"Ah yes, Hastings, but you've had something I never had."
He paused a moment and then - rather jerkily he gave me an outline of his own tragedy.
Of the beautiful young wife, a lovely creature full of charm and accomplishments but with a tainted heritage. Her family had nearly all died of drink, and she herself fell a victim to the same curse. Barely a year after their marriage she had succumbed and had died a dipsomaniac's death. He did not blame her. He realized that heredity had been too strong for her.
After her death he had settled down to lead a lonely life. He had determined, saddened by his experience, not to marry again.
"One feels," he said simply, "safer alone."
"Yes, I can understand your feeling like that - at any rate at first."
"The whole thing was such a tragedy. It left me prematurely aged and embittered." He paused. "It's true - I was once very much tempted. But she was so young - I didn't feel it would be fair to tie her to a disillusioned man. I was too old for her - she was such a child - so pretty - so completely untouched."
He broke off, shaking his head.
"Wasn't that for her to judge?"
"I don't know, Hastings. I thought not. She - she seemed to like me. But then, as I say, she was so young. I shall always remember her as I saw her the last day of that leave. Her head a little on one side - that slightly bewildered look - her little hand -"
He stopped. The words conjured up a picture that seemed vaguely familiar, though I could not think why.
Boyd Carrington's voice, suddenly harsh, broke into my thoughts.
"I was a fool," he said. "Any man is a fool who lets opportunity slip by him. Anyway, here I am, with a great mansion of a house far too big for me, and no gracious presence to sit at the head of my table."
To me there was a charm in his slightly old-fashioned way of putting things. It conjured up a picture of old-world charm and ease.
"Where is the lady now?" I asked.
"Oh - married." He turned it off briefly. "Fact is, Hastings, I'm cut out now for a bachelor existence. I've got my little ways. Come and look at the gardens. They've been badly neglected, but they're very fine in their way."
We walked round the place and I was much impressed with all I saw. Knatton was undoubtedly a very fine estate and I did not wonder that Boyd Carrington was proud of it. He knew the neighbourhood well and most of the people roundabout, though of course there had been newcomers since his time.
He had known Colonel Luttrell in the old days and expressed his earnest hope that the Styles venture was going to pay.
"Poor old Toby Luttrell's very hard up, you know," he said. "Nice fellow. Good soldier too and a very fine shot. Went on safari with him in Africa once. Ah, those were the days! He was married then, of course, but his missus didn't come along, thank goodness. Pretty woman she was - but always a bit of a Tartar. Funny the things a man will stand from a woman. Old Toby Luttrell who used to make subalterns shake in their shoes, he was such a stern martinet! And there he is, henpecked and bullied and meek as they make 'em! No doubt about it, that woman's got a tongue like vinegar. Still, she's got a head on her. If anyone can make the place pay, she will. Luttrell never had much of a head for business - but Mrs Toby would skin her grandmother!"
"She's so gushing with it all," I complained.
Boyd Carrington looked amused.
"I know. All sweetness. But have you played bridge with them?"
I replied feelingly that I had.
"On the whole I steer clear of women bridge players," said Boyd Carrington. "And if you take my tip, you'll do the same."
I told him how uncomfortable Norton and myself had felt on the first evening of my arrival.
"Exactly. One doesn't know where to look!"
He added:
"Nice fellow, Norton. Very quiet though. Always looking at birds and things. Doesn't care for shooting them, he told me. Extraordinary! No feeling for sport. I told him he missed a lot. Can't see myself what excitement there can be stalking about through cold woods peering at birds through glasses."
How little we realized then that Norton's hobby might have an important part to play in the events that were to come.
Chapter 8
The days passed. It was an unsatisfactory time - with its uneasy feeling of waiting for something.
Nothing, if I may put it in such a way, actually happened. Yet there were incidents, scraps of odd conversations, sidelights upon the various inmates of Styles, elucidating remarks. They all mounted up and, if properly pieced together, could have done a lot towards enlightening me.
It was Poirot who, with a few forceful words showed me something to which I had been criminally blind.
I was complaining, for the umpteenth time, of his wilful refusal to admit me to his confidence. It was not fair, I told him. Always he and I had had equal knowledge - even if I had been dense and he had been astute in drawing the right conclusions from that knowledge.
He waved an impatient hand.
"Quite so, my friend. It is not fair! It is not sporting! It is not playing the game! Admit all that and pass from it. This is not a game - it is not le sport. For you, you occupy yourself in guessing wildly at the identity of X. It is not for that that I asked you to come here. Unnecessary for you to occupy yourself with that. I know the answer to that question. But what I do not know and what I must know is this: 'Who is going to die - very soon?' It is a question, mon vieux, not of you playing a guessing game, but of preventing a human being from dying."
I was startled.
"Of course," I said slowly. "I - well, I did know that you practically said so once, but I haven't quite realized it."
"Then realize it now - immediately."
"Yes, yes, I will - I mean, I do."
"Bien! Then tell me, Hastings, who is it who is going to die?"
I stared at him blankly.
"I have really no idea!"
"Then you should have an idea! What else are you here for?"
"Surely," I said, going back over my meditations on the subject, "there must be a connection between the victim and X so that if you told me who X was -"
Poirot shook his head with so much vigour that it was quite painful to watch.
"Have I not told you that that is the essence of X's technique? There will be nothing connecting X with the death. That is certain."
"The connection will be hidden, you mean?"
"It will be so well hidden that neither you nor I will find it."
"But surely by studying X's past -"
"I tell you, no. Certainly not in the time. Murder may happen any moment, you comprehend?"
"To someone in this house?"
"To someone in this house."
"And you really do not know who, or how?"
"Ah, if I did, I should not be urging you to find out for me!"
"You simply base your assumption on the presence of X?"
I sounded a little doubtful. Poirot, whose self-control had lessened as his limbs were perforce immobile, fairly howled at me.
"Ah, ma foi, how many times am I to go over all this? If a lot of war correspondents arrive suddenly in a certain spot of Europe, it means what? It means war! If doctors come from all over the world to a certain city - it shows what? That there is to be a medical conference. Where you see a vulture hovering, there will be a carcass. If you see beaters walking up a moor, there. will be a shoot. If you see a man stop suddenly, tear off his coat and plunge into the sea, it means that there, there will be a rescue from drowning.
