Dead Man's Folly (14 page)

I

I
nspector Bland sat in Helmmouth Police Station. Superintendent Baldwin, a large comfortable-looking man, sat on the other side of the table. Between the two men, on the table, was a black sodden mass. Inspector Bland poked at it with a cautious forefinger.

“That's her hat all right,” he said. “I'm sure of it, though I don't suppose I could swear to it. She fancied that shape, it seems. So her maid told me. She'd got one or two of them. A pale pink and a sort of puce colour, but yesterday she was wearing the black one. Yes, this is it. And you fished it out of the river? That makes it look as though it's the way we think it is.”

“No certainty yet,” said Baldwin. “After all,” he added, “anyone could throw a hat into the river.”

“Yes,” said Bland, “they could throw it in from the boathouse, or they could throw it in off a yacht.”

“The yacht's sewed up, all right,” said Baldwin. “If she's there, alive or dead, she's still there.”

“He hasn't been ashore today?”

“Not so far. He's on board. He's been sitting out in a deck chair smoking a cigar.”

Inspector Bland glanced at the clock.

“Almost time to go aboard,” he said.

“Think you'll find her?” asked Baldwin.

“I wouldn't bank on it,” said Bland. “I've got the feeling, you know, that he's a clever devil.” He was lost in thought for a moment, poking again at the hat. Then he said, “What about the body—if there was a body? Any ideas about that?”

“Yes,” said Baldwin, “I talked to Otterweight this morning. Ex-coastguard man. I always consult him in anything to do with tides and currents. About the time the lady went into the Helm, if she did go into the Helm, the tide was just on the ebb. There is a full moon now and it would be flowing swiftly. Reckon she'd be carried out to sea and the current would take her towards the Cornish coast. There's no certainty where the body would fetch up or if it would fetch up at all. One or two drownings we've had here, we've never recovered the body. It gets broken up, too, on the rocks. Here, by Start Point. On the other hand, it
might
fetch up any day.”

“If it doesn't, it's going to be difficult,” said Bland.

“You're certain in your own mind that she did go into the river?”

“I don't see what else it can be,” said Inspector Bland sombrely. “We've checked up, you know, on the buses and the trains. This place is a cul-de-sac. She was wearing conspicuous clothes and she didn't take any others with her. So I should say she never left Nasse. Either her body's in the sea or else it's hidden somewhere on the
property. What I want now,” he went on heavily, “is
motive.
And the body of course,” he added, as an afterthought. “Can't get anywhere until I find the body.”

“What about the other girl?”

“She saw it—or she saw something. We'll get at the facts in the end, but it won't be easy.”

Baldwin in his turn looked up at the clock.

“Time to go,” he said.

The two police officers were received on board the
Espérance
with all de Sousa's charming courtesy. He offered them drinks which they refused, and went on to express a kindly interest in their activities.

“You are farther forward with your inquiries regarding the death of this young girl?”

“We're progressing,” Inspector Bland told him.

The superintendent took up the running and expressed very delicately the object of their visit.

“You would like to search the
Espérance?
” De Sousa did not seem annoyed. Instead he seemed rather amused. “But why? You think I conceal the murderer or do you think perhaps that I am the murderer myself?”

“It's necessary, Mr. de Sousa, as I'm sure you'll understand. A search warrant….”

De Sousa raised his hands.

“But I am anxious to cooperate—eager! Let this be all among friends. You are welcome to search where you will in my boat. Ah, perhaps you think that I have here my cousin, Lady Stubbs? You think, perhaps, she has run away from her husband and taken shelter with me? But search, gentlemen, by all means search.”

The search was duly undertaken. It was a thorough one. In the end, striving to conceal their chagrin, the two police officers took leave of Mr. de Sousa.

“You have found nothing? How disappointing. But I told you that was so. You will perhaps have some refreshment now. No?”

He accompanied them to where their boat lay alongside.

“And for myself?” he asked. “I am free to depart? You understand it becomes a little boring here. The weather is good. I should like very much to proceed to Plymouth.”

“If you would be kind enough, sir, to remain here for the inquest—that is tomorrow—in case the Coroner should wish to ask you anything.”

“Why, certainly. I want to do all that I can. But after that?”

“After that, sir,” said Superintendent Baldwin, his face wooden, “you are, of course, at liberty to proceed where you will.”

The last thing they saw as the launch moved away from the yacht was de Sousa's smiling face looking down on them.

II

The inquest was almost painfully devoid of interest. Apart from the medical evidence and evidence of identity, there was little to feed the curiosity of the spectators. An adjournment was asked for and granted. The whole proceedings had been purely formal.

What followed the inquest, however, was not quite so formal. Inspector Bland spent the afternoon taking a trip in that well-known pleasure steamer, the
Devon Belle.
Leaving Brixwell at about three o'clock, it rounded the headland, proceeded around the coast, entered the mouth of the Helm and went up the river. There were
about two hundred and thirty people on board besides Inspector Bland. He sat on the starboard side of the boat, scanning the wooded shore. They came round a bend in the river and passed the isolated grey tiled boathouse that belonged to Hoodown Park. Inspector Bland looked surreptitiously at his watch. It was just quarter past four. They were coming now close beside the Nasse boathouse. It nestled remote in its trees with its little balcony and its small quay below. There was no sign apparent that there was anyone inside the boathouse, though as a matter of fact, to Inspector Bland's certain knowledge, there
was
someone inside. P.C. Hoskins, in accordance with orders, was on duty there.

Not far from the boathouse steps was a small launch. In the launch were a man and girl in holiday kit. They were indulging in what seemed like some rather rough horseplay. The girl was screaming, the man was playfully pretending he was going to duck her overboard. At that same moment a stentorian voice spoke through a megaphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” it boomed, “you are now approaching the famous village of Gitcham where we shall remain for three-quarters of an hour and where you can have a crab or lobster tea, as well as Devonshire cream. On your right are the grounds of Nasse House. You will pass the house itself in two or three minutes, it is just visible through the trees. Originally the home of Sir Gervase Folliat, a contemporary of Sir Francis Drake who sailed with him in his voyage to the new world, it is now the property of Sir George Stubbs. On your left is the famous Gooseacre Rock. There, ladies and gentlemen, it was the habit to deposit scolding wives at low tide and leave them there until the water came up to their necks.”

Everybody on the
Devon Belle
stared with fascinated interest at
the Gooseacre Rock. Jokes were made and there were many shrill giggles and guffaws.

While this was happening, the holidaymaker in the boat, with a final scuffle, did push his lady friend overboard. Leaning over, he held her in the water, laughing and saying, “No, I don't pull you out till you've promised to behave.”

Nobody, however, observed this with the exception of Inspector Bland. They had all been listening to the megaphone, staring for the first sight of Nasse House through the trees, and gazing with fascinated interest at the Gooseacre Rock.

The holidaymaker released the girl, she sank under water and a few moments later appeared on the other side of the boat. She swam to it and got in, heaving herself over the side with practised skill. Policewoman Alice Jones was an accomplished swimmer.

Inspector Bland came ashore at Gitcham with the other two hundred and thirty passengers and consumed a lobster tea with Devonshire cream and scones. He said to himself as he did so, “So it
could
be done, and no one would notice!”

III

While Inspector Bland was doing his experiment on the Helm, Hercule Poirot was experimenting with a tent on the lawn at Nasse House. It was, in actual fact, the same tent where Madame Zuleika had told her fortunes. When the rest of the marquees and stands had been dismantled Poirot had asked for this to remain behind.

He went into it now, closed the flaps and went to the back of it. Deftly he unlaced the flaps there, slipped out, relaced them, and plunged into the hedge of rhododendron that immediately backed
the tent. Slipping between a couple of bushes, he soon reached a small rustic arbour. It was a kind of summerhouse with a closed door. Poirot opened the door and went inside.

It was very dim inside because very little light came in through the rhododendrons which had grown up round it since it had been first placed there many years ago. There was a box there with croquet balls in it, and some old rusted hoops. There were one or two broken hockey sticks, a good many earwigs and spiders, and a round irregular mark on the dust on the floor. At this Poirot looked for some time. He knelt down, and taking a little yard measure from his pocket, he measured its dimensions carefully. Then he nodded his head in a satisfied fashion.

He slipped out quietly, shutting the door behind him. Then he pursued an oblique course through the rhododendron bushes. He worked his way up the hill in this way and came out a short time after on the path which led to the Folly and down from there to the boathouse.

He did not visit the Folly this time, but went straight down the zigzagging way until he reached the boathouse. He had the key with him and he opened the door and went in.

Except for the removal of the body, and of the tea tray with its glass and plate, it was just as he remembered it. The police had noted and photographed all that it contained. He went over now to the table where the pile of comics lay. He turned them over and his expression was not unlike Inspector Bland's had been as he noted the words Marlene had doodled down there before she died. “Jackie Blake goes with Susan Brown.” “Peter pinches girls at the pictures.” “Georgie Porgie kisses hikers in the wood.” “Biddy Fox likes boys.” “Albert goes with Doreen.”

He found the remarks pathetic in their young crudity. He remembered Marlene's plain, rather spotty face. He suspected that boys had not pinched Marlene at the pictures. Frustrated, Marlene had got a vicarious thrill by her spying and peering at her young contemporaries. She had spied on people, she had snooped, and she had seen things. Things that she was not meant to have seen—things, usually, of small importance, but on one occasion perhaps something of more importance? Something of whose importance she herself had had no idea.

It was all conjecture, and Poirot shook his head doubtfully. He replaced the pile of comics neatly on the table, his passion for tidiness always in the ascendent. As he did so, he was suddenly assailed with the feeling of something missing. Something…What was it? Something that
ought
to have been there…Something…He shook his head as the elusive impression faded.

He went slowly out of the boathouse, unhappy and displeased with himself. He, Hercule Poirot, had been summoned to prevent a murder—and he had not prevented it. It had happened. What was even more humiliating was that he had no real ideas, even now, as to what had actually happened. It was ignominious. And tomorrow he must return to London defeated. His ego was seriously deflated—even his moustaches drooped.

I
t was a fortnight later that Inspector Bland had a long and unsatisfying interview with the Chief Constable of the County.

Major Merrall had irritable tufted eyebrows and looked rather like an angry terrier. But his men all liked him and respected his judgment.

“Well, well, well,” said Major Merrall. “What have we got? Nothing that we can act on. This fellow de Sousa now? We can't connect him in any way with the Girl Guide. If Lady Stubbs' body had turned up, that would have been different.” He brought his eyebrows down towards his nose and glared at Bland. “You think there
is
a body, don't you?”

“What do you think, sir?”

“Oh, I agree with you. Otherwise, we'd have traced her by now. Unless, of course, she'd made her plans very carefully. And I don't see the least indication of that. She'd no money, you know. We've been into all the financial side of it. Sir George had the
money. He made her a very generous allowance, but she's not got a stiver of her own. And there's no trace of a lover. No rumour of one, no gossip—and there would be, mark you, in a country district like that.”

He took a turn up and down the floor.

“The plain fact of it is that we don't know. We
think
de Sousa for some unknown reason of his own made away with his cousin. The most probable thing is that he got her to meet him down at the boathouse, took her aboard the launch and pushed her overboard. You've tested that that could happen?”

“Good lord, sir! You could drown a whole boatful of people during holiday time in the river or on the seashore. Nobody'd think anything of it. Everyone spends their time squealing and pushing each other off things. But the thing de Sousa
didn't
know about, was that that girl was in the boathouse, bored to death with nothing to do and ten to one was looking out of the window.”

“Hoskins looked out of the window and watched the performance you put up, and you didn't see him?”

“No, sir. You'd have no idea anyone was in that boathouse unless they came out on the balcony and showed themselves—”

“Perhaps the girl did come out on the balcony. De Sousa realizes she's seen what he's doing, so he comes ashore and deals with her, gets her to let him into the boathouse by asking her what she's doing there. She tells him, pleased with her part in the Murder Hunt, he puts the cord round her neck in a playful manner—and whoooosh…” Major Merrall made an expressive gesture with his hands. “That's that! Okay, Bland; okay. Let's say that's how it happened. Pure guesswork. We haven't got
any
evidence. We haven't got a body, and if we attempted to detain de Sousa in this
country we'd have a hornets' nest about our ears. We'll have to let him go.”

“
Is
he going, sir?”

“He's laying up his yacht a week from now. Going back to his blasted island.”

“So we haven't got much time,” said Inspector Bland gloomily.

“There are other possibilities, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, sir, there are several
possibilities.
I still hold to it that she must have been murdered by somebody who was in on the facts of the Murder Hunt. We can clear two people completely. Sir George Stubbs and Captain Warburton. They were running shows on the lawn and taking charge of things the entire afternoon. They are vouched for by dozens of people. The same applies to Mrs. Masterton, if, that is, one can include her at all.”

“Include everybody,” said Major Merrall. “She's continually ringing me up about bloodhounds. In a detective story,” he added wistfully, “she'd be just the woman who
had
done it. But, dash it, I've known Connie Masterton pretty well all my life. I just can't see her going round strangling Girl Guides, or disposing of mysterious exotic beauties. Now, then, who else is there?”

“There's Mrs. Oliver,” said Bland. “She devised the Murder Hunt. She's rather eccentric and she was away on her own for a good part of the afternoon. Then there's Mr. Alec Legge.”

“Fellow in the pink cottage, eh?”

“Yes. He left the show fairly early on, or he wasn't seen there. He says he got fed up with it and walked back 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' 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 medi
cal evidence, Dr. Cook's time of death is between four o'clock and quarter to five. We've only Miss Brewis' 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 fête 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' 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 horseplay. 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 Merrall had been noting down points on a pad. He looked up now, clearing his throat.

“It comes to this, then. We can summarize 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 be having a third murder 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 had 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.