万圣节前夜的谋杀22

Twenty-one

Poirot went on up the hill. Suddenly he no longer felt the pain of his feet.

Something had come to him. The fitting together of the things he hadthought and felt, had known they were connected, but had not seen howthey were connected. He was conscious now of danger—danger that mightcome to someone any minute now unless steps were taken to prevent it.

Serious danger.

Elspeth McKay came out to the door to meet him. “You look fagged out,”

she said. “Come and sit down.”

“Your brother is here?”

“No. He’s gone down to the station. Something’s happened, I believe.”

“Something has happened?” He was startled. “So soon? Not possible.”

“Eh?” said Elspeth. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Nothing. Something has happened to somebody, do youmean?”

“Yes, but I don’t know who exactly. Anyway, Tim Raglan rang up andasked for him to go down there. I’ll get you a cup of tea, shall I?”

“No,” said Poirot, “thank you very much, but I think—I think I will gohome.” He could not face the prospect of black bitter tea. He thought of agood excuse that would mask any signs of bad manners. “My feet,” he ex-plained. “My feet. I am not very suitably attired as to footwear for thecountry. A change of shoes would be desirable.”

Elspeth McKay looked down at them. “No,” she said. “I can see they’renot. Patent leather draws the feet. There’s a letter for you, by the way. For-eign stamps on it. Come from abroad—c/o Superintendent Spence, PineCrest. I’ll bring it to you.”

She came back in a minute or two, and handed it to him.

“If you don’t want the envelope, I’d like it for one of my nephews—hecollects stamps.”

“Of course.” Poirot opened the letter and handed her the envelope. Shethanked him and went back into the house.

Poirot unfolded the sheet and read.

Mr. Goby’s foreign service was run with the same competence that heshowed in his English one. He spared no expense and got his resultsquickly.

True, the results did not amount to much—Poirot had not thought thatthey would.

Olga Seminoff had not returned to her hometown. She had had no fam-ily still living. She had had a friend, an elderly woman, with whom shehad corresponded intermittently, giving news of her life in England. Shehad been on good terms with her employer who had been occasionally ex-acting, but had also been generous.

The last letters received from Olga had been dated about a year and ahalf ago. In them there had been mention of a young man. There werehints that they were considering marriage, but the young man, whosename she did not mention, had, she said, his way to make, so nothingcould be settled as yet. In her last letter she spoke happily of their pro-spects being good. When no more letters came, the elderly friend assumedthat Olga had married her Englishman and changed her address. Suchthings happened frequently when girls went to England. If they were hap-pily married they often never wrote again.

She had not worried.

It fitted, Poirot thought. Lesley had spoken of marriage, but might nothave meant it. Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe had been spoken of as “generous.”

Lesley had been given money by someone, Olga perhaps (money origin-ally given her by her employers), to induce him to do forgery on her be-half.

Elspeth McKay came out on the terrace again. Poirot consulted her as tohis surmises about a partnership between Olga and Lesley.

She considered a moment. Then the oracle spoke.

“Kept very quiet about it, if so. Never any rumours about those two.

There usually is in a place like this if there’s anything in it.”

“Young Ferrier was tied up to a married woman. He might have warnedthe girl not to say anything about him to her employer.”

“Likely enough. Mrs. Smythe would probably know that Lesley Ferrierwas a bad character, and would warn the girl to have nothing to do withhim.”

Poirot folded up the letter and put it into his pocket.

“I wish you’d let me get you a pot of tea.”

“No, no—I must go back to my guest house and change my shoes. You donot know when your brother will be back?”

“I’ve no idea. They didn’t say what they wanted him for.”

Poirot walked along the road to his guest house. It was only a few hun-dred yards. As he walked up to the front door it was opened and his land-lady, a cheerful lady of thirty odd, came out to him.

“There’s a lady here to see you,” she said. “Been waiting some time. Itold her I didn’t know where you’d gone exactly or when you’d be back,but she said she’d wait.” She added, “It’s Mrs. Drake. She’s in a state, I’dsay. She’s usually so calm about everything, but really I think she’s had ashock of some kind. She’s in the sitting room. Shall I bring you in some teaand something?”

“No,” said Poirot, “I think it will be better not. I will hear first what shehas to say.”

He opened the door and went into the sitting room. Rowena Drake hadbeen standing by the window. It was not the window overlooking thefront path so she had not seen his approach. She turned abruptly as sheheard the sound of the door.

“Monsieur Poirot. At last. It seemed so long.”

“I am sorry, Madame. I have been in the Quarry Wood and also talkingto my friend, Mrs. Oliver. And then I have been talking to two boys. ToNicholas and Desmond.”

“Nicholas and Desmond? Yes, I know. I wonder—oh! one thinks all sortsof things.”

“You are upset,” said Poirot gently.

It was not a thing he thought he would ever see. Rowena Drake upset,no longer mistress of events, no longer arranging everything, and enfor-cing her decisions on others.

“You’ve heard, haven’t you?” she asked. “Oh well, perhaps you haven’t.”

“What should I have heard?”

“Something dreadful. He’s—he’s dead. Somebody killed him.”

“Who is dead, Madame?”

“Then you haven’t really heard. And he’s only a child, too, and I thought—oh, what a fool I’ve been. I should have told you. I should have told youwhen you asked me. It makes me feel terrible—terribly guilty for thinkingI knew best and thinking—but I did mean it for the best, Monsieur Poirot,indeed I did.”

“Sit down, Madame, sit down. Calm yourself and tell me. There is a childdead—another child?”

“Her brother,” said Mrs. Drake. “Leopold.”

“Leopold Reynolds?”

“Yes. They found his body on one of the field paths. He must have beencoming back from school and gone out of his way to play in the brooknear here. Somebody held him down in the brook—held his head underwater.”

“The same kind of thing as they did to the child Joyce?”

“Yes, yes. I can see it must be—it must be madness of some kind. Andone doesn’t know who, that’s what’s so awful. One hasn’t the least idea.

And I thought I knew. I really thought — I suppose, yes, it was a verywicked thing.”

“You must tell me, Madame.”

“Yes, I want to tell you. I came here to tell you. Because, you see, youcame to me after you’d talked to Elizabeth Whittaker. After she’d told youthat something had startled me. That I’d seen something. Something in thehall of the house, my house. I said that I hadn’t seen anything and thatnothing had startled me because, you see, I thought—” she stopped.

“What did you see?”

“I ought to have told you then. I saw the door of the library open, openrather carefully and—then he came out. At least, he didn’t come right out.

He just stood in the doorway and then pulled the door back quickly andwent back inside.”

“Who was this?”

“Leopold. Leopold, the child that’s been killed now. And you see, Ithought I—oh, what a mistake, what an awful mistake. If I’d told you, per-haps—perhaps you’d have got at what was behind it.”

“You thought?” Poirot said. “You thought that Leopold had killed his sis-ter. Is that what you thought?”

“Yes, that’s what I thought. Not then, of course, because I didn’t knowshe was dead. But he had a queer look on his face. He’s always been aqueer child. In a way you’re a little afraid of him because you feel he’s not—not quite right. Very clever and a high I.Q., but all the same not all there.

“And I thought ‘Why is Leopold coming out of there instead of being atthe Snapdragon?’ and I thought ‘What’s he been doing — he looks soqueer?’ And then, well then I didn’t think of it again after that, but I sup-pose, the way he looked upset me. And that’s why I dropped the vase.

Elizabeth helped me to pick up the glass pieces, and I went back to theSnapdragon and I didn’t think of it again. Until we found Joyce. And that’swhen I thought—”

“You thought that Leopold had done it?”

“Yes. Yes, I did think that. I thought it explained the way he’d looked. Ithought I knew. I always think—I’ve thought too much all my life that Iknow things, that I’m right about things. And I can be very wrong. Be-cause, you see, his being killed must mean something quite different. Hemust have gone in there, and he must have found her there—dead—and itgave him a terrible shock and he was frightened. And so he wanted tocome out of the room without anyone seeing him and I suppose he lookedup and saw me and he got back into the room and shut the door andwaited until the hall was empty before coming out. But not because he’dkilled her. No. Just the shock of finding her dead.”

“And yet you said nothing? You didn’t mention who it was you’d seen,even after the death was discovered?”

“No. I—oh, I couldn’t. He’s—you see, he’s so young—was so young, I sup-pose I ought to say now. Ten. Ten—eleven at most and I mean—I felt hecouldn’t have known what he was doing, it couldn’t have been his fault ex-actly. He must have been morally not responsible. He’s always beenrather queer, and I thought one could get treatment for him. Not leave itall to the police. Not send him to approved places. I thought one could getspecial psychological treatment for him, if necessary. I—I meant well. Youmust believe that, I meant well.”

Such sad words, Poirot thought, some of the saddest words in the world.

Mrs. Drake seemed to know what he was thinking.

“Yes,” she said, “‘I did it for the best.’ ‘I meant well.’ One always thinksone knows what is best to do for other people, but one doesn’t. Because,you see, the reason he looked so taken aback must have been that heeither saw who the murderer was, or saw something that would give aclue to who the murderer might be. Something that made the murdererfeel that he himself wasn’t safe. And so—and so he’s waited until he gotthe boy alone and then drowned him in the brook so that he shouldn’tspeak, so that he shouldn’t tell. If I’d only spoken out, if I’d told you, or toldthe police, or told someone, but I thought I knew best.”

“Only today,” said Poirot, after he had sat silent for a moment or two,watching Mrs. Drake where she sat controlling her sobs, “I was told thatLeopold had been very flush of money lately. Somebody must have beenpaying him to keep silent.”

“But who—who?”

“We shall find out,” said Poirot. “It will not be long now.”

 

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