Twenty

LADY CLARKE

There was an air of deep and settled melancholy over Combeside when we saw it again for thesecond time. This may, perhaps, have been partly due to the weather—it was a moist Septemberday with a hint of autumn in the air, and partly, no doubt, it was the semi-shut-up state of thehouse. The downstairs rooms were closed and shuttered, and the small room into which we wereshown smelt damp and airless.

A capable-looking hospital nurse came to us there pulling down her starched cuffs.

“M. Poirot?” she said briskly. “I am Nurse Capstick. I got Mr. Clarke’s letter saying you werecoming.”

Poirot inquired after Lady Clarke’s health.

“Not at all bad really, all things considered.”

“All things considered,” I presumed, meant considering she was under sentence of death.

“One can’t hope for much improvement, of course, but some new treatment has made things alittle easier for her. Dr. Logan is quite pleased with her condition.”

“But it is true, is it not, that she can never recover?”

“Oh, we never actually say that,” said Nurse Capstick, a little shocked by this plain speaking.

“I suppose her husband’s death was a terrible shock to her?”

“Well, M. Poirot, if you understand what I mean, it wasn’t as much of a shock as it would havebeen to anyone in full possession of her health and faculties. Things are dimmed for Lady Clarkein her condition.”

“Pardon my asking, but was she deeply attached to her husband and he to her?”

“Oh, yes, they were a very happy couple. He was very worried and upset about her, poor man.

It’s always worse for a doctor, you know. They can’t buoy themselves up with false hopes. I’mafraid it preyed on his mind very much to begin with.”

“To begin with? Not so much afterwards?”

“One gets used to everything, doesn’t one? And then Sir Carmichael had his collection. Ahobby is a great consolation to a man. He used to run up to sales occasionally, and then he andMiss Grey were busy recataloguing and rearranging the museum on a new system.”

“Oh, yes—Miss Grey. She has left, has she not?”

“Yes—I’m very sorry about it—but ladies do take these fancies sometimes when they’re notwell. And there’s no arguing with them. It’s better to give in. Miss Grey was very sensible aboutit.”

“Had Lady Clarke always disliked her?”

“No—that is to say, not disliked. As a matter of fact, I think she rather liked her to begin with.

But there, I mustn’t keep you gossiping. My patient will be wondering what has become of us.”

She led us upstairs to a room on the first floor. What had at one time been a bedroom had beenturned into a cheerful-looking sitting room.

Lady Clarke was sitting in a big armchair near the window. She was painfully thin, and her facehad the grey, haggard look of one who suffers much pain. She had a slightly faraway, dreamylook, and I noticed that the pupils of her eyes were mere pinpoints.

“This is M. Poirot whom you wanted to see,” said Nurse Capstick in her high, cheerful voice.

“Oh, yes, M. Poirot,” said Lady Clarke vaguely.

She extended her hand.

“My friend Captain Hastings, Lady Clarke.”

“How do you do? So good of you both to come.”

We sat down as her vague gesture directed. There was a silence. Lady Clarke seemed to havelapsed into a dream.

Presently with a slight effort she roused herself.

“It was about Car, wasn’t it? About Car’s death. Oh, yes.”

She sighed, but still in a faraway manner, shaking her head.

“We never thought it would be that way round…I was so sure I should be the first to go…” Shemused a minute or two. “Car was very strong—wonderful for his age. He was never ill. He wasnearly sixty—but he seemed more like fifty…Yes, very strong….”

She relapsed again into her dream. Poirot, who was well acquainted with the effects of certaindrugs and of how they give their taker the impression of endless time, said nothing.

Lady Clarke said suddenly:

“Yes—it was good of you to come. I told Franklin. He said he wouldn’t forget to tell you. Ihope Franklin isn’t going to be foolish…he’s so easily taken in, in spite of having knocked aboutthe world so much. Men are like that…They remain boys…Franklin, in particular.”

“He has an impulsive nature,” said Poirot.

“Yes—yes…And very chivalrous. Men are so foolish that way. Even Car—” Her voice tailedoff.

She shook her head with a febrile impatience.

“Everything’s so dim…One’s body is a nuisance, M. Poirot, especially when it gets the upperhand. One is conscious of nothing else—whether the pain will hold off or not—nothing else seemsto matter.”

“I know, Lady Clarke. It is one of the tragedies of this life.”

“It makes me so stupid. I cannot even remember what it was I wanted to say to you.”

“Was it something about your husband’s death?”

“Car’s death? Yes, perhaps…Mad, poor creature—the murderer, I mean. It’s all the noise andthe speed nowadays—people can’t stand it. I’ve always been sorry for mad people—their headsmust feel so queer. And then, being shut up—it must be so terrible. But what else can one do? Ifthey kill people…” She shook her head—gently pained. “You haven’t caught him yet?” she asked.

“No, not yet.”

“He must have been hanging round here that day.”

“There were so many strangers about, Lady Clarke. It is the holiday season.”

“Yes—I forgot…But they keep down by the beaches, they don’t come up near the house.”

“No stranger came to the house that day.”

“Who says so?” demanded Lady Clarke, with a sudden vigour.

Poirot looked slightly taken aback.

“The servants,” he said. “Miss Grey.”

Lady Clarke said very distinctly:

“That girl is a liar!”

I started on my chair. Poirot threw me a glance.

Lady Clarke was going on, speaking now rather feverishly.

“I didn’t like her. I never liked her. Car thought all the world of her. Used to go on about herbeing an orphan and alone in the world. What’s wrong with being an orphan? Sometimes it’s ablessing in disguise. You might have a good-for-nothing father and a mother who drank—thenyou would have something to complain about. Said she was so brave and such a good worker. Idare say she did her work well! I don’t know where all this bravery came in!”

“Now don’t excite yourself, dear,” said Nurse Capstick, intervening. “We mustn’t have yougetting tired.”

“I soon sent her packing! Franklin had the impertinence to suggest that she might be a comfortto me. Comfort to me indeed! The sooner I saw the last of her the better—that’s what I said!

Franklin’s a fool! I didn’t want him getting mixed up with her. He’s a boy! No sense! ‘I’ll give herthree months’ salary, if you like,’ I said. ‘But out she goes. I don’t want her in the house a daylonger.’ There’s one thing about being ill—men can’t argue with you. He did what I said and shewent. Went like a martyr, I expect—with more sweetness and bravery!”

“Now, dear, don’t get so excited. It’s bad for you.”

Lady Clarke waved Nurse Capstick away.

“You were as much of a fool about her as anyone else.”

“Oh! Lady Clarke, you mustn’t say that. I did think Miss Grey a very nice girl—so romantic-looking, like someone out of a novel.”

“I’ve no patience with the lot of you,” said Lady Clarke feebly.

“Well, she’s gone now, my dear. Gone right away.”

Lady Clarke shook her head with feeble impatience but she did not answer.

Poirot said:

“Why did you say that Miss Grey was a liar?”

“Because she is. She told you no strangers came to the house, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Very well, then. I saw her—with my own eyes—out of this window—talking to a perfectlystrange man on the front doorstep.”

“When was this?”

“In the morning of the day Car died—about eleven o’clock.”

“What did this man look like?”

“An ordinary sort of man. Nothing special.”

“A gentleman—or a tradesman?”

“Not a tradesman. A shabby sort of person. I can’t remember.”

A sudden quiver of pain shot across her face.

“Please—you must go now—I’m a little tired—Nurse.”

We obeyed the cue and took our departure.

“That’s an extraordinary story,” I said to Poirot as we journeyed back to London. “About MissGrey and a strange man.”

“You see, Hastings? It is, as I tell you: there is always something to be found out.”

“Why did the girl lie about it and say she had seen no one?”

“I can think of seven separate reasons—one of them an extremely simple one.”

“Is that a snub?” I asked.

“It is, perhaps, an invitation to use your ingenuity. But there is no need for us to perturbourselves. The easiest way to answer the question is to ask her.”

“And suppose she tells us another lie.”

“That would indeed be interesting—and highly suggestive.”

“It is monstrous to suppose that a girl like that could be in league with a madman.”

“Precisely—so I do not suppose it.”

I thought for some minutes longer.

“A good-looking girl has a hard time of it,” I said at last with a sigh.

“Du tout. Disabuse your mind of that idea.”

“It’s true,” I insisted, “everyone’s hand is against her simply because she is good-looking.”

“You speak the bêtises, my friend. Whose hand was against her at Combeside? SirCarmichael’s? Franklin’s? Nurse Capstick’s?”

“Lady Clarke was down on her, all right.”

“Mon ami, you are full of charitable feeling towards beautiful young girls. Me, I feel charitableto sick old ladies. It may be that Lady Clarke was the clear-sighted one—and that her husband,Mr. Franklin Clarke and Nurse Capstick were all as blind as bats—and Captain Hastings.”

“You’ve got a grudge against that girl, Poirot.”

To my surprise his eyes twinkled suddenly.

“Perhaps it is that I like to mount you on your romantic high horse, Hastings. You are alwaysthe true knight—ready to come to the rescue of damsels in distress—good-looking damsels, bienentendu.”

“How ridiculous you are, Poirot,” I said, unable to keep from laughing.

“Ah, well, one cannot be tragic all the time. More and more I interest myself in the humandevelopments that arise out of this tragedy. It is three dramas of family life that we have there.

First there is Andover—the whole tragic life of Mrs. Ascher, her struggles, her support of herGerman husband, the devotion of her niece. That alone would make a novel. Then you haveBexhill—the happy, easy-going father and mother, the two daughters so widely differing fromeach other—the pretty fluffy fool, and the intense, strong-willed Megan with her clear intelligenceand her ruthless passion for truth. And the other figure—the self-controlled young Scotsman withhis passionate jealousy and his worship of the dead girl. Finally you have the Churston household—the dying wife, and the husband absorbed in his collections, but with a growing tenderness andsympathy for the beautiful girl who helps him so sympathetically, and then the younger brother,vigorous, attractive, interesting, with a romantic glamour about him from his long travels.

“Realize, Hastings, that in the ordinary course of events those three separate dramas wouldnever have touched each other. They would have pursued their course uninfluenced by each other.

The permutations and combinations of life, Hastings—I never cease to be fascinated by them.”

“This is Paddington,” was the only answer I made.

It was time, I felt, that someone pricked the bubble.

On our arrival at Whitehaven Mansions we were told that a gentleman was waiting to seePoirot.

I expected it to be Franklin, or perhaps Japp, but to my astonishment it turned out to be noneother than Donald Fraser.

He seemed very embarrassed and his inarticulateness was more noticeable than ever.

Poirot did not press him to come to the point of his visit, but instead suggested sandwiches anda glass of wine.

Until these made their appearance he monopolized the conversation, explaining where we hadbeen, and speaking with kindliness and feeling of the invalid woman.

Not until we had finished the sandwiches and sipped the wine did he give the conversation apersonal turn.

“You have come from Bexhill, Mr. Fraser?”

“Yes.”

“Any success with Milly Higley?”

“Milly Higley? Milly Higley?” Fraser repeated the name wonderingly. “Oh, that girl! No, Ihaven’t done anything there yet. It’s—”

He stopped. His hands twisted themselves together nervously.

“I don’t know why I’ve come to you,” he burst out.

“I know,” said Poirot.

“You can’t. How can you?”

“You have come to me because there is something that you must tell to someone. You werequite right. I am the proper person. Speak!”

Poirot’s air of assurance had its effect. Fraser looked at him with a queer air of gratefulobedience.

“You think so?”

“Parbleu, I am sure of it.”

“M. Poirot, do you know anything about dreams?”

It was the last thing I had expected him to say.

Poirot, however, seemed in no wise surprised.

“I do,” he replied. “You have been dreaming—?”

“Yes. I suppose you’ll say it’s only natural that I should—should dream about—It. But it isn’tan ordinary dream.”

“No?”

“No?”

“I’ve dreamed it now three nights running, sir…I think I’m going mad….”

“Tell me—”

The man’s face was livid. His eyes were staring out of his head. As a matter of fact, he lookedmad.

“It’s always the same. I’m on the beach. Looking for Betty. She’s lost — only lost, youunderstand. I’ve got to find her. I’ve got to give her her belt. I’m carrying it in my hand. And then—”

“Yes?”

“The dream changes…I’m not looking any more. She’s there in front of me—sitting on thebeach. She doesn’t see me coming—It’s—oh, I can’t—”

“Go on.”

Poirot’s voice was authoritative—firm.

“I come up behind her…she doesn’t hear me…I slip the belt round her neck and pull—oh—pull….”

The agony in his voice was frightful…I gripped the arms of my chair…The thing was too real.

“She’s choking…she’s dead…I’ve strangled her—and then her head falls back and I see herface…and it’s Megan—not Betty!”

He leant back white and shaking. Poirot poured out another glass of wine and passed it over tohim.

“What’s the meaning of it, M. Poirot? Why does it come to me? Every night…?”

“Drink up your wine,” ordered Poirot.

The young man did so, then he asked in a calmer voice:

“What does it mean? I—I didn’t kill her, did I?”

What Poirot answered I do not know, for at that minute I heard the postman’s knock andautomatically I left the room.

What I took out of the letter box banished all my interest in Donald Fraser’s extraordinaryrevelations.

I raced back into the sitting room.

“Poirot,” I cried. “It’s come. The fourth letter.”

He sprang up, seized it from me, caught up his paper knife and slit it open. He spread it out onthe table.

The three of us read it together.

Still no success? Fie! Fie! What are you and the police doing? Well, well, isn’tthis fun? And where shall we go next for honey?

Poor Mr. Poirot. I’m quite sorry for you.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.

We’ve a long way to go still.

Tipperary? No—that comes farther on. Letter T.

The next little incident will take place at Doncaster on September 11th.

So long.

A B C.