'Ah, well! Why should one ask it of women – that they should be intelligent? It is not necessary.'
Sir George was back, fuming. Miss Brewis was with him, speaking rather breathlessly.
'I've no idea where she is, Sir George. I saw her over by the fortune teller's tent last. But that was at least twenty minutes or half an hour ago. She's not in the house.'
'Is it not possible,' asked Poirot, 'that she has gone to observe the progress of Mrs Oliver's murder hunt?'
Sir George's brow cleared.
'That's probably it. Look here, I can't leave the shows here. I'm in charge. And Amanda's got her hands full. Could you possibly have a look round, Poirot? You know the course.'
But Poirot did not know the course. However, an inquiry of Miss Brewis gave him rough guidance. Miss Brewis took brisk charge of De Sousa and Poirot went off murmuring to himself, like an incantation:
' Tennis Court, Camellia Garden, The Folly, Upper Nursery Garden, Boathouse…'
As he passed the coconut shy he was amused to notice Sir George proffering wooden balls with a dazzling smile of welcome to the same young Italian woman whom he had driven off that morning and who was clearly puzzled at his change of attitude.
He went on his way to the tennis court. But there was no one there but an old gentleman of military aspect who was fast asleep on a garden seat with his hat pulled over his eyes. Poirot retraced his steps to the house and went on down to the camellia garden.
In the camellia garden Poirot found Mrs Oliver dressed in purple splendour, sitting on a garden seat in a brooding attitude, and looking rather like Mrs Siddons. She beckoned him to the seat beside her.
'This is only the second clue,' she hissed. 'I think I've made them too difficult. Nobody's come yet.'
At this moment a young man in shorts, with a prominent Adam's apple, entered the garden. With a cry of satisfaction he hurried to a tree in one corner and a further satisfied cry announced his discovery of the next clue. Passing them, he felt impelled to communicate his satisfaction.
'Lots of people don't know about cork trees,' he said confidentially. 'Clever photograph, the first clue, but I spotted what it was – section of a tennis net. There was a poison bottle, empty, and a cork. Most of 'em will go all out after the bottle clue – I guessed it was a red herring. Very delicate, cork trees, only hardy in this part of the world. I'm interested in rare shrubs and trees. Now where does one go, I wonder?'
He frowned over the entry in the notebook he carried.
'I've copied the next clue but it doesn't seem to make sense.' He eyed them suspiciously. 'You competing?'
'Oh, no,' said Mrs Oliver. 'We're just – looking on.'
'Righty-ho… 'When lovely woman stoops to folly.'… I've an idea I've heard that somewhere.'
'It is a well-known quotation,' said Poirot.
'A Folly can also be a building,' said Mrs Oliver helpfully. 'White – with pillars,' she added.
'That's an idea! Thanks a lot. They say Mrs Ariadne Oliver is down here herself somewhere about. I'd like to get her autograph. You haven't seen her about, have you?'
'No,' said Mrs Oliver firmly.
'I'd like to meet her. Good yarns she writes.' He lowered his voice. 'But they say she drinks like a fish.'
He hurried off and Mrs Oliver said indignantly:
'Really! That's most unfair when I only like lemonade!'
'And have you not just perpetrated the great unfairness in helping that young man towards the next clue?'
'Considering he's the only one who's got here so far, I thought he ought to be encouraged.'
'But you wouldn't give him your autograph.'
'That's different,' said Mrs Oliver. 'Sh! Here come some more.'
But these were not clue hunters. They were two women who having paid for admittance were determined to get their money's worth by seeing the grounds thoroughly.
They were hot and dissatisfied.
'You'd think they'd have some nice flower-beds,' said one to the other. 'Nothing but trees and more trees. It's not what I call a garden.'
Mrs Oliver nudged Poirot, and they slipped quietly away.
'Supposing,' said Mrs Oliver distractedly, 'that nobody ever finds my body?'
'Patience, Madame, and courage,' said Poirot. 'The afternoon is still young.'
'That's true,' said Mrs Oliver brightening. 'And it's half-price admission after four-thirty, so probably lots of people will flock in. Let's go and see how that Marlene child is getting on. I don't really trust that girl, you know. No sense of responsibility. I wouldn't put it past her to sneak away quietly, instead of being a corpse, and go and have tea. You know what people are like about their teas.'
They proceeded amicably along the woodland path and Poirot commented on the geography of the property.
'I find it very confusing,' he said. 'So many paths, and one is never sure where they lead. And trees, trees everywhere.'
'You sound like that disgruntled woman we've just left.'
They passed the Folly and zig-zagged down the path to the river. The outlines of the boathouse showed beneath them.
Poirot remarked that it would be awkward if the murder searchers were to light upon the boathouse and find the body by accident.
'A sort of short cut? I thought of that. That's why the last clue is just a key. You can't unlock the door without it. It's a Yale. You can only open it from the inside.'
A short steep slope led down to the door of the boathouse which was built out over the river, with a little wharf and a storage place for boats underneath. Mrs Oliver took a key from a pocket concealed amongst her purple folds and unlocked the door.
'We've just come to cheer you up, Marlene,' she said brightly as she entered.
She felt slightly remorseful at her unjust suspicions of Marlene's loyalty, for Marlene, artistically arranged as 'the body,' was playing her part nobly, sprawled on the floor by the window.
Marlene made no response. She lay quite motionless. The wind blowing gently through the open window rustled a pile of 'comics' spread out on the table.
'It's all right,' said Mrs Oliver impatiently. 'It's only me and M. Poirot. Nobody's got any distance with the clues yet.'
Poirot was frowning. Very gently he pushed Mrs Oliver aside and went and bent over the girl on the floor. A suppressed exclamation came from his lips. He looked up at Mrs Oliver.
'So…' he said. 'That which you expected has happened.'
'You don't mean…' Mrs Oliver's eyes widened in horror. She grasped for one of the basket chairs and sat down. 'You can't mean… She isn't dead?'
Poirot nodded.
'Oh, yes,' he said. 'She is dead. Though not very long dead.'
'But how -?'
He lifted the corner of the gay scarf bound round the girl's head, so that Mrs Oliver could see the ends of the clothes line.
'Just like my murder,' said Mrs Oliver unsteadily. 'But who? And why?'
'That is the question,' said Poirot.
He forbore to add that those had also been her questions.
And that the answers to them could not be her answers, since the victim was not the Yugoslavian first wife of an Atom Scientist, but Marlene Tucker, a fourteen-year-old village girl who, as far as was known, had not an enemy in the world.
Chapter 7
