'There'll always be Folliats at Nasse House.'
'I beg your pardon, sir?'
'I am repeating what your old father said to me on the quay.'
'Ah, talked a lot of nonsense, father did. I had to shut him up pretty sharp now and then.'
'So Marlene was Merdell's granddaughter,' said Poirot. 'Yes, I begin to see.' He was silent for a moment, an immense excitement was surging within him. 'Your father was drowned, you say, in the river?'
'Yes, sir. Took a drop too much, he did. And where he got the money from, I don't know. Of course he used to get tips now and again on the quay helping people with boats or with parking their cars. Very cunning he was at hiding his money from me. Yes, I'm afraid as he'd had a drop too much. Missed his footing, I'd say, getting off his boat on to the quay. So he fell in and was drowned. His body was washed up down to Helmmouth the next day. 'Tis a wonder, as you might say, that it never happened before, him being ninety-two and half blinded anyway.'
'The fact remains that it did not happen before -'
'Ah, well, accidents happen, sooner or later -'
'Accident,' mused Poirot. 'I wonder.'
He got up. He murmured:
'I should have guessed. Guessed long ago. The child practically told me -'
'I beg your pardon, sir?'
'It is nothing,' said Poirot. 'Once more I tender you my condolences both on the death of your daughter and on that of your father.'
He shook hands with them both and left the cottage. He said to himself:
'I have been foolish – very foolish. I have looked at everything the wrong way round.'
'Hi – mister.'
It was a cautious whisper. Poirot looked round. The fat child Marilyn was standing in the shadow of the cottage wall. She beckoned him to her and spoke in a whisper.
'Mum don't know everything,' she said. 'Marlene didn't get that scarf off of the lady down at the cottage.'
'Where did she get it?'
'Bought it in Torquay. Bought some lipstick, too, and some scent – Newt in Paris – funny name. And a jar of foundation cream, what she'd read about in an advertisement.' Marilyn giggled. 'Mum doesn't know. Hid it at the back of her drawer, Marlene did, under her winter vests. Used to go into the convenience at the bus stop and do herself up, when she went to the pictures.'
Marilyn giggled again.
'Mum never knew.'
'Didn't your mother find these things after your sister died?'
Marilyn shook her fair fluffy head.
'No,' she said. 'I got 'em now – in my drawer. Mum doesn't know.'
Poirot eyed her consideringly, and said:
'You seem a very clever girl, Marilyn.'
Marilyn grinned rather sheepishly.
'Miss Bird says it's no good my trying for the grammar school.'
'Grammar school is not everything,' said Poirot. 'Tell me, how did Marlene get the money to buy these things?'
Marilyn looked with close attention at a drainpipe.
'Dunno,' she muttered.
'I think you do know,' said Poirot.
Shamelessly he drew out a half-crown from his pocket and added another half-crown to it.
'I believe,' he said, 'there is a new, very attractive shade of lipstick called 'Carmine Kiss.''
'Sounds smashing,' said Marilyn, her hand advanced towards the five shillings. She spoke in a rapid whisper. 'She used to snoop about a bit, Marlene did. Used to see goings-on – you know what. Marlene would promise not to tell and then they'd give her a present, see?'
Poirot relinquished the five shillings.
'I see,' he said.
He nodded to Marilyn and walked away. He murmured again under his breath, but this time with intensified meaning:
'I see.'
So many things now fell into place. Not all of it. Not clear yet by any means – but he was on the right track. A perfectly clear trail all the way if only he had had the wit to see it. That first conversation with Mrs Oliver, some casual words of Michael Weyman's, the significant conversation with old Merdell on the quay, an illuminating phrase spoken by Miss Brewis – the arrival of Etienne De Sousa.
A public telephone box stood adjacent to the village post office. He entered it and rang up a number. A few minutes later he was speaking to Inspector Bland.
'Well, M. Poirot, where are you?'
'I am here, in Nassecombe.'
'But you were in London yesterday afternoon?'
'It only takes three and a half hours to come here by a good train,' Poirot pointed out. 'I have a question for you.'
'Yes?'
'What kind of a yacht did Etienne De Sousa have?'
'Maybe I can guess what you're thinking, M. Poirot, but I assure you there was nothing of that kind. It wasn't fitted up for smuggling if that's what you mean. There were no fancy hidden partitions or secret cubbyholes. We'd have found them if there had been. There was nowhere on it you could have stowed away a body.'
'You are wrong, mon cher, that is not what I mean. I only asked what kind of a yacht, big or small?'
'Oh, it was very fancy. Must have cost the earth. All very smart, newly painted, luxury fittings.'
'Exactly,' said Poirot. He sounded so pleased that Inspector Bland felt quite surprised.
'What are you getting at, M. Poirot?' he asked.
'Etienne De Sousa,' said Poirot, 'is a rich man. That, my friend, is very significant.'
'Why?' demanded Inspector Bland.
'It fits in with my latest idea,' said Poirot.
'You've got an idea, then?'
'Yes. At last I have an idea. Up to now I have been very stupid.'
'You mean we've all been very stupid.'
'No,' said Poirot, 'I mean specially myself. I had the good fortune to have a perfectly clear trail presented to me, and I did not see it.'
'But now you're definitely on to something?'
'I think so, yes.'
'Look here, M. Poirot -'
But Poirot had rung off. After searching his pockets for available change, he put through a personal call to Mrs Oliver at her London number.
'But do not,' he hastened to add, when he made his demand, 'disturb the lady to answer the telephone if she is at work.'
He remembered how bitterly Mrs Oliver had once reproached him for interrupting a train of creative thought and how the world in consequence had been deprived of an intriguing mystery centring round an old-fashioned long-sleeved woollen vest. The exchange, however, was unable to appreciate his scruples.
'Well,' it demanded, 'do you want a personal call or don't you?'
'I do,' said Poirot, sacrificing Mrs Oliver's creative genius upon the altar of his own impatience. He was relieved when Mrs Oliver spoke. She interrupted his apologies.
'It's splendid that you've rung me up,' she said. 'I was just going out to give a talk on How I Write My Books. Now I can get my secretary to ring up and say I am unavoidably detained.'
'But, Madame, you must not let me prevent -'
