lies just now?'
'It is always possible.'
'Did someone tell her to tell a pack of lies?'
'That too is possible.'
'Did someone pay her to tell me a pack of lies?'
'Continue,' said Poirot, 'continue. You are doing very nicely.'
'I suppose,' said Mrs. Oliver thoughtfully, 'that Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe, like many another rich woman, enjoyed making Wills.
I expect she made a good many during her life. You know; benefiting one person and then another.
Changing about. The Drakes were well off, anyway. I expect she always left them at least a handsome legacy, but I wonder if she ever left anyone else as much as she appears, according to Mrs. Leaman and according to the forged Will as well, to that girl Olga. I'd like to know a bit more about that girl, I must say. She certainly seems a very successful disappearess.'
'I hope to know more about her shortly,' said Hercule Poirot.
'How?'
'Information that I shall receive shortly.'
'I know you've been asking for information down here. '
'Not here only. I have an agent in London who obtains information for me both abroad and in this country. I should have some news possibly soon from Herzogovinia.'
'Will you find out if she ever arrived back there?'
'That might be one thing I should learn, but it seems more likely that I may get information of a different kind letters perhaps written during her sojourn in this country, mentioning friends she may have made here, and become intimate with.'
'What about the school-teacher?' said Mrs. Oliver.
'Which one do you mean?'
'I mean the one who was strangled the one Elizabeth Whittaker told you about?' she added, 'I don't like Elizabeth Whittaker much. Tiresome sort of woman, but clever, I should think.' She added dreamily, 'I wouldn't put it past her to have thought up a murder.'
'Strangle another teacher, do you mean?'
'One has to exhaust all the possibilities.'
'I shall rely, as so often, on your intuition, Madame.'
Mrs. Oliver ate another date thoughtfully.
WHEN he left Mrs. Butler's house, Poirot took the same way as had been shown him by Miranda. The aperture in the hedge, it seemed to him, had been slightly enlarged since last time. Somebody, perhaps, with slightly more bulk than Miranda, had used it also. He ascended the path in the quarry, noticing once more the beauty of the scene. A lovely spot, and yet in some way, Poirot felt as he had felt before, that it could be a haunted spot. There was a kind of pagan ruthlessness about it. It could be along these winding paths that the fairies hunted their victims down or a cold goddess decreed that sacrifices would have to be offered.
He could understand why it had not become a picnic spot. One would not want for some reason to bring your hard-boiled eggs and your lettuce and your oranges and sit down here and crack jokes and have a jollification. It was different, quite different. It would have been better, perhaps, he thought suddenly, if Mrs. Llewellyn- Smythe had not wanted this fairy-like transformation. Quite a modest sunk garden could have been made out of a quarry without the atmosphere, but she had been an ambitious woman, ambitious and a very rich woman. He thought for a moment or two about Wills, the kind of Wills made by rich women, the kind of lies told about Wills made by rich women, the places in which the Wills of rich widows were sometimes hidden, and he tried to put himself back into the mind of a forger.
Undoubtedly the Will offered for probate had been a forgery. Mr. Fullerton was a careful and competent lawyer. He was sure of that. The kind of lawyer, too, who would never advise a client to bring a case or to take legal proceedings unless there was very good evidence and justification for so doing.
He turned a corner of the pathway feeling for the moment that his feet were much more important than his speculations.
Was he taking a short cut to Superintendent Spence's dwelling or was he not? As the crow flies, perhaps, but the main road might have been more good to his feet. This path was not a grassy or mossy one, it had the quarry hardness of stone. Then he paused.
In front of him were two figures. Sitting on an outcrop of rock was Michael Garfield. He had a sketching block on his knees and he was drawing, his attention fully on what he was doing. A little way away from him, standing close beside a minute but musical stream that flowed down from above, Miranda Butler was standing. Hercule Poirot forgot his feet, forgot the pains and ills of the human body, and concentrated again on the beauty that human beings could attain.
There was no doubt that Michael Garfield was a very beautiful young man. He found it difficult to know whether he himself liked Michael Garfield or not. It is always difficult to know if you like anyone beautiful. You like beauty to look at, at the same time you dislike beauty almost on principle. Women could be beautiful, but Hercule Poirot was not at all sure that he liked beauty in men. He would not have liked to be a beautiful young man himself, not that there had ever been the least chance of that. There was only one thing about his own appearance which really pleased Hercule Poirot, and that was the profusion of his moustaches, and the way they responded to grooming and treatment and trimming. They were magnificent. He knew of nobody else who had any moustache half as good. He had never been handsome or good-looking. Certainly never beautiful.
And Miranda? He thought again, as he had thought before, that it was her gravity that was so attractive. He wondered what passed through her mind. It was the sort of thing one would never know. She would not say what she was thinking easily. He doubted if she would tell you what she was thinking, if you asked her. She had an original mind, he thought, a reflective mind. He thought too she was vulnerable.
Very vulnerable. There were other things about her that he knew, or thought he knew. It was only thinking so far, but yet he was almost sure.
Michael Garfield looked up and said.
'Ha! Senor Moustachios. A very good afternoon to you, sir.'
'Can I look at what you are doing or would it incommode you? I do not want to be intrusive.'
'You can look,' said Michael Garfield, 'it makes no difference to me.'
He added gently, 'I'm enjoying myself very much.'
Poirot came to stand behind his shoulder. He nodded. It was a very delicate pencil drawing, the lines almost invisible. The man could draw, Poirot thought. Not only design gardens. He said, almost under his breath:
'Exquisite!'
'I think so too,' said Michael Garfield.
He let it be left doubtful whether he referred to the drawing he was making, or to the sitter.
'Why? asked Poirot.
'Why am I doing it? Do you think I have a reason?'
'You might have.'
'You're quite right. If I go away from here, there are one or two things I want to remember. Miranda is one of them.'
'Would you forget her easily?'
'Very easily. I am like that. But to have forgotten something or someone, to be unable to bring a face, a turn of a shoulder, a gesture, a tree, a flower, a contour of landscape, to know what it was like to see it but not to be able to bring that image in front of one's eyes, that sometimes causes-what shall I say?-almost agony. You see, you record-and it all passes away.'
'Not the Quarry Garden or park. That has not passed away.'
'Don't you think so? It soon will. It soon will if no-one is here.
