A young man in flannel trousers and a bright blue aertex shirt who was sitting beside Mr. Cust remarked: 'Nasty business—eh?'
Mr. Cust jumped. 'Oh, very—very—'
His hands, the young man noticed, were trembling so that he could hardly hold the paper.
'You never know with lunatics,' said the young man chattily. 'They don't always look balmy, you know. Often they seem just the same as you or me . . . .'
'I suppose they do,' said Mr. Cust.
'It's a fact. Sometimes it's the war what unhinged them—never been right since.'
'I—I expect you're right.'
'I don't hold with wars,' said the young man.
His companion turned on him. 'I don't hold with plague and sleeping sickness and famine and cancer . . . but they happen all the same!'
'War's preventable,' said the young man with assurance.
Mr. Cust laughed. He laughed for some time. The young man was slightly alarmed.
'He's a bit batty himself,' he thought.
Aloud he said: 'Sorry, sir, I expect you were in the war.'
'I was,' said Mr. Cust. 'It—it—unsettled me. My head's never been right since. It aches, you know. Aches terribly.'
'Oh! I'm sorry about that,' said the young man awkwardly.
'Sometimes I hardly know what I'm doing . . . .'
'Really? Well, I must be getting along,' said the young man and removed himself hurriedly. He knew what people were once they began to talk about their health.
Mr. Cust remained with his paper.
He read and reread . . . .
People passed to and fro in front of him. Most of them were talking of the murder . . . .
'Awful . . . do you think it was anything to do with the Chinese? Wasn't the waitress in a Chinese café? . . .'
'Actually on the golf links . . .'
'I heard it was on the beach . . .'
'—but, darling, we took out tea to Elbury only yesterday . . .'
'—police are sure to get him . . .'
'—say he may be arrested any minute now . . .'
'—quite likely he's in Torquay . . . that other woman was who murdered the what do you call 'ems . . .'
Mr. Cust folded up the paper very neatly and laid it on the seat. Then he rose and walked sedately along towards the town.
Girls passed him, girls in white and pink and blue, in summery frocks and pyjamas and shorts. They laughed and giggled. Their eyes appraised the men they passed.
Not once did their eyes linger for a second on Mr. Cust . . . .
He sat down at a little table and ordered tea and Devonshire cream . . . .
XVII. Marking Time
With the murder of Sir Carmichael Clarke the A.B.C. mystery leaped into the fullest prominence.
The newspapers were full of nothing else. All sorts of 'clues' were reported to have been discovered. Arrests were announced to be imminent.
There were photographs of every person or place remotely connected with the murder. There were interviews with anyone who would give interviews. There were questions asked in Parliament.
The Andover murder was not bracketed with the other two.
It was the belief of Scotland Yard that the fullest publicity was the best chance of laying the murderer by the heels. The population of Great Britain turned itself into an army of amateur sleuths.
The Daily Flicker had the grand inspiration of using the caption:
Poirot, of course, was in the thick of things. The letters sent to him were published and facsimiled. He was abused wholesale for not having prevented the crimes and defended on the ground that he was on the point of naming the murderer.
Reporters incessantly badgered him for interviews.
Which was usually followed by a half-column of imbecilities.
'Poirot,' I would cry. 'Pray believe me. I never said anything of the kind.'
My friend would reply kindly: 'I know, Hastings—I know. The spoken word and the written—there is an astonishing gulf between them. There is a way of turning sentences that completely reverses the original meaning.'
'I wouldn't like you to think I'd said—'
'But do not worry yourself. All this is of no importance. These imbecilities, even, may help.'
'How?'
'Eh bien,' said Poirot grimly. 'If our madman reads what I am supposed to have said to the Daily Flicker today, he will lose all respect for me as an opponent!'
I am, perhaps, giving the impression that nothing practical was being done in the way of investigations. On the contrary, Scotland Yard and the local police of the various counties were indefatigable in following up the smallest clues.
Hotels, people who kept lodgings, boarding-houses—all those within a wide radius of the crimes were questioned minutely.
Hundreds of stories from imaginative people who had 'seen a man looking very queer and rolling his eyes,' or 'noticed a man with a sinister face slinking along,' were sifted to the last detail. No information, even of the vaguest character, was neglected. Trains, buses, trams, railway porters, conductors, bookstalls, stationers—there was an indefatigable round of questions and verifications.
At least a score of people were detained and questioned until they could satisfy the police as to their movements on the night in question.
The net result was not entirely a blank. Certain statements were borne in mind and noted down as of possible value, but without further evidence they led nowhere.
If Crome and his colleagues were indefatigable, Poirot seemed to me strangely supine. We argued now and again.
'But what is it that you would have me do, my friend? The routine inquiries, the police make them better than I do. Always—always you want me to run about like the dog.'
'Instead of which you sit at home like—like—'
'A sensible man! My force, Hastings, is in my brain, not in my feet! All the time, whilst I seem to you idle, I am reflecting.'
'Reflecting?' I cried. 'Is this a time for reflection?'
'Yes, a thousand times yes.'
'But what can you possibly gain by reflection? You know the facts of the three cases by heart.'
'It is not the facts I reflect upon—but the mind of the murderer.'
'The mind of a madman!'