to his cottage. On the other hand, old Merdell – that's the old boy down at the quay who looks after people's boats for them and helps with the parking – he says Alec Legge passed him going back to the cottage about five o'clock. Not earlier. That leaves about an hour of his time unaccounted for. He says, of course, that Merdell has no idea of time and was quite wrong as to when he saw him. And after all, the old man is ninety-two.'
'Rather unsatisfactory,' said Major Merrall. 'No motive or anything of that kind to tie him in?'
'He might have been having an affair with Lady Stubbs,' said Bland doubtfully, 'and she might have been threatening to tell his wife, and he might have done her in, and the girl might have seen it happen -'
'And he concealed Lady Stubbs's body somewhere?'
'Yes. But I'm blessed if I know how or where. My men have searched that sixty-five acres and there's no trace anywhere of disturbed earth, and I should say that by now we've rooted under every bush there is. Still, say he did manage to hide the body, he could have thrown her hat into the river as a blind. And Marlene Tucker saw him and so he disposed of her? That part of it's always the same.' Inspector Bland paused, then said, 'And, of course, there's Mrs Legge -'
'What have we got on her?'
'She wasn't in the tea tent from four to half-past as she says she was,' said Inspector Bland slowly. 'I spotted that as soon as I'd talked to her and to Mrs Folliat. Evidence supports Mrs Folliat's statement. And that's the particular, vital half-hour.' Again he paused. 'Then there's the architect, young Michael Weyman. It's difficult to tie him up with it in any way, but he's what I should call a likely murderer – one of those cocky, nervy young fellows. Would kill anyone and not turn a hair about it. In with a loose set, I shouldn't wonder.'
'You're so damned respectable, Bland,' said Major Merrall. 'How does he account for his movements?'
'Very vague, sir. Very vague indeed.'
'That proves he's a genuine architect,' said Major Merrall with feeling. He had recently built himself a house near the sea coast. 'They're so vague, I wonder they're alive at all sometimes.'
'Doesn't know where he was or when and there's nobody who seems to have seen him. There is some evidence that Lady Stubbs was keen on him.'
'I suppose you're hinting at one of these sex murders?'
'I'm only looking about for what I can find, sir,' said Inspector Bland with dignity. 'And then there's Miss Brewis…' He paused. It was a long pause.
'That's the secretary, isn't it?'
'Yes, sir. Very efficient woman.'
Again there was a pause. Major Merrall eyed his subordinate keenly.
'You've got something on your mind about her, haven't you?' he said.
'Yes, I have, sir. You see, she admits quite openly that she was in the boathouse at about the time the murder must have been committed.'
'Would she do that if she was guilty?'
'She might,' said Inspector Bland slowly. 'Actually, it's the best thing she could do. You see, if she picks up a tray with cake and a fruit drink and tells everyone she's taking that for the child down there – well, then, her presence is accounted for. She goes there and comes back and says the girl was alive at that time. We've taken her word for it. But if you remember, sir, and look again at the medical evidence, Dr Cook's time of death is between four o'clock and quarter to five. We've only Miss Brewis's word for it that Marlene was alive at a quarter past four. And there's one curious point that came up about her testimony. She told me that it was Lady Stubbs who told her to take the cakes and fruit drink to Marlene. But another witness said quite definitely that that wasn't the sort of thing that Lady Stubbs would think about. And I think, you know, that they're right there. It's not like Lady Stubbs. Lady Stubbs was a dumb beauty wrapped up in herself and her own appearance. She never seems to have ordered meals or taken an interest in household management or thought of anybody at all except her own handsome self. The more I think of it, the more it seems most unlikely that she should have told Miss Brewis to take anything to the Girl Guide.'
'You know, Bland,' said Merrall, 'you've got something there. But what's her motive, if so?'
'No motive for killing the girl,' said Bland; 'but I do think, you know, that she might have a motive for killing Lady Stubbs. According to M. Poirot, whom I told you about, she's head over heels in love with her employer. Supposing she followed Lady Stubbs into the woods and killed her and that Marlene Tucker, bored in the boathouse, came out and happened to see it? Then of course she'd have to kill Marlene too. What would she do next? Put the girl's body in the boathouse, come back to the house, fetch the tray and go down to the boathouse again. Then she's covered her own absence from the fete and we've got her testimony, our only reliable testimony on the face of it, that Marlene Tucker was alive at a quarter past four.'
'Well,' said Major Merrall, with a sigh, 'keep after it, Bland. Keep after it. What do you think she did with Lady Stubbs's body, if she's the guilty party?'
'Hid it in the woods, buried it, or threw it into the river.'
'The last would be rather difficult, wouldn't it?'
'It depends where the murder was committed,' said the inspector. 'She's quite a hefty woman. If it was not far from the boathouse, she could have carried her down there and thrown her off the edge of the quay.'
'With every pleasure steamer on the Helm looking on?'
'It would be just another piece of horse-play. Risky, but possible. But I think it far more likely myself that she hid the body somewhere, and just threw the hat into the Helm. It's possible, you see, that she, knowing the house and grounds well, might know some place where you could conceal a body. She may have managed to dispose of it in the river later. Who knows? That is, of course, if she did it,' added Inspector Bland as an afterthought. 'But actually, sir, I stick to de Sousa -'
Major Merall had been noting down points on a pad. He looked up now, clearing his throat.
'It comes to this, then. We can summarise it as follows: we've got five or six people who could have killed Marlene Tucker. Some of them are more likely than others, but that's as far as we can go. In a general way, we know why she was killed. She was killed because she saw something. But until we know exactly what it was she saw – we don't know who killed her.'
'Put like that, you make it sound a bit difficult, sir.'
'Oh, it is difficult. But we shall get there – in the end.'
'And meantime that chap will have left England – laughing in his sleeve – having got away with two murders.'
'You're fairly sure about him, aren't you? I don't say you're wrong. All the same…'
The chief constable was silent for a moment or two, then he said, with a shrug of his shoulders:
'Anyway, it's better than having one of these psychopathic murderers. We'd probably having a third murer on our hands by now.'
'They do say things go in threes,' said the inspector gloomily.
He repeated that remark the following morning when he heard that old Merdell, returning home from a visit to his favourite pub across the river at Gitcham, must have exceeded his usual potations and fallen in the river when boarding the quay. His boat was found adrift, and the old man's body was recovered that evening.
The inquest was short and simple. The night had been dark and overcast, old Merdell had had three pints of beer and, after all, he was ninety-two.
The verdict brought in was Accidental Death.
Chapter 16
I
Hercule Poirot sat in a square chair in front of the square fireplace in the square room of his London flat. In front of him were various objects that were not square: that were instead violently and almost impossibly curved. Each of them, studied separately, looked as if they could not have any conceivable function in a sane world. They
