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BOOK II
One
I
Hercule Poirot carefully folded the last of the newspapers he had sent George out to purchase. The
information they gave was somewhat meagre. Medical evidence was given that the man’s skull
was fractured by a series of heavy blows. The inquest had been adjourned for a fortnight.
Anybody who could give information about a man named Enoch Arden believed to have lately
arrived from Cape Town was asked to communicate with the Chief Constable of Oastshire.
Poirot laid the papers in a neat pile and gave himself up to meditation. He was interested. He
might, perhaps, have passed the first small paragraph by without interest if it had not been for the
recent visit of Mrs. Lionel Cloade. But that visit had recalled to him very clearly the incidents of
that day at the club during that air raid. He remembered, very distinctly, Major Porter’s voice
saying, “Maybe a Mr. Enoch Arden will turn up somewhere a thousand miles away and start life
anew.” He wanted now, rather badly, to know more about this man called Enoch Arden who had
died by violence at Warmsley Vale.
He remembered that he was slightly acquainted with Superintendent Spence of the Oastshire
police and he also remembered that young Mellon lived not very far from Warmsley Heath, and
that young Mellon knew Jeremy Cloade.
It was while he was meditating a telephone call to young Mellon that George came in and
announced that a Mr. Rowland Cloade would like to see him.
“Aha,” said Hercule Poirot with satisfaction. “Show him in.”
A good-looking worried young man was shown in, and seemed rather at a loss how to begin.
“Well, Mr. Cloade,” said Poirot helpfully, “and what can I do for you?”
Rowley Cloade was eyeing Poirot rather doubtfully. The flamboyant moustaches, the sartorial
elegance, the white spats and the pointed patent-leather shoes all filled this insular young man with
distinct misgivings.
Poirot realized this perfectly well, and was somewhat amused.
Rowley Cloade began rather heavily:
“I’m afraid I’ll have to explain who I am and all that. You won’t know my name—”
Poirot interrupted him:
“But yes, I know your name perfectly. Your aunt, you see, came to see me last week.”
“My aunt?” Rowley’s jaw dropped. He stared at Poirot with the utmost astonishment. This
so clearly was news to him, that Poirot put aside his first surmise which was that the two visits
were connected. For a moment it seemed to him a remarkable coincidence that two members of
the Cloade family should choose to consult him within such a short period of time, but a second
later he realized that there was no coincidence—merely a natural sequence proceeding from one
initial cause.
Aloud he said:
“I assume that Mrs. Lionel Cloade is your aunt.”
If anything Rowley looked rather more astonished than before.
He said with the utmost incredulity:
“Aunt Kathie? Surely—don’t you mean—Mrs. Jeremy Cloade?”
Poirot shook his head.
“But what on earth could Aunt Kathie—”
Poirot murmured discreetly:
“She was directed to me, I understand, by spirit guidance.”
“Oh Lord!” said Rowley. He looked relieved and amused. He said, as though reassuring
Poirot, “She’s quite harmless, you know.”
“I wonder,” said Poirot.
“What do you mean?”
“Is anybody—ever—quite harmless?”
Rowley stared. Poirot sighed.
“You have come to me to ask me something?—Yes?” he prompted gently.
The worried look came back to Rowley’s face.
“It’s rather a long story, I’m afraid—”
Poirot was afraid of it, too. He had a very shrewd idea that Rowley Cloade was not the sort of
person to come to the point quickly. He leaned back and half-closed his eyes as Rowley began:
“My uncle, you see, was Gordon Cloade—”
“I know all about Gordon Cloade,” said Poirot, helpfully.
“Good. Then I needn’t explain. He married a few weeks before his death—a young widow
called Underhay. Since his death she has been living at Warmsley Vale—she and a brother of
hers. We all understood that her first husband had died of fever in Africa. But now it seems as
though that mightn’t be so.”
“Ah,” Poirot sat up. “And what has led you to that surmise?”
Rowley described the advent of Mr. Enoch Arden in Warmsley Vale. “Perhaps you have seen
in the papers—”
“Yes, I have seen.” Poirot was again helpful.
Rowley went on. He described his first impression of the man Arden, his visit to the Stag, the
letter he had received from Beatrice Lippincott and finally the conversation that Beatrice had
overheard.
“Of course,” Rowley said, “one can’t be sure just what she did hear. She may have
exaggerated it all a bit—or even got it wrong.”
“Has she told her story to the police?”
Rowley nodded. “I told her she’d better.”
“I don’t quite see—pardon me—why you come to me, Mr. Cloade? Do you want me to
investigate this—murder? For it is murder, I assume.”
“Lord, no,” said Rowley. “I don’t want anything of that kind. That’s a police job. He
was bumped off all right. No, what I’m after is this. I want you to find out who the fellow was.”
Poirot’s eyes narrowed.
“Who do you think he was, Mr. Cloade?”
“Well, I mean—Enoch Arden isn’t a name. Dash it all, it’s a quotation. Tennyson. I went
and mugged it up. Fellow who comes back and finds out his wife has married another fellow.”
“So you think,” said Poirot quietly, “that Enoch Arden was Robert Underhay himself?”
Rowley said slowly:
“Well, he might have been—I mean, about the right age and appearance and all that. Of course
I’ve gone over it all with Beatrice again and again. She can’t naturally remember exactly what
they both said. The chap said Robert Underhay had come down in the world and was in bad health
and needed money. Well, he might have been talking about himself, mightn’t he? He seems to
have said something about it wouldn’t suit David Hunter’s book if Underhay turned up in
Warmsley Vale—sounding a bit as though he was there under an assumed name.”
“What evidence of identification was there at the inquest?”
Rowley shook his head.
“Nothing definite. Only the Stag people saying he was the man who’d come there and
registered as Enoch Arden.”
“What about his papers?”
“He hadn’t any.”
“What?” Poirot sat up in surprise. “No papers of any kind?”
“Nothing at all. Some spare socks and a shirt and a toothbrush, etc.—but no papers.”
“No passport? No letters? Not even a ration card?”
“Nothing at all.”
“That,” said Poirot, “is very interesting. Yes, very interesting.”
Rowley went on: “David Hunter, that’s Rosaleen Cloade’s brother, had called to see him
the evening after he arrived. His story to the police is that he’d had a letter from the chap saying
he had been a friend of Robert Underhay’s and was down and out. At his sister’s request he
went to the Stag and saw the fellow and gave him a fiver. That’s his story and you bet he means
to stick to it! Of course the police are keeping dark about what Beatrice heard.”
“David Hunter says he had no previous acquaintance with the man?”
“That’s what he says. Anyway, I gather Hunter never met Underhay.”
“And what about Rosaleen Cloade?”
“The police asked her to look at the body in case she knew the man. She told them that he was
a complete stranger to her.”
“Eh bien,” said Poirot. “Then that answers your question!”
“Does it?” said Rowley bluntly. “I think not. If the dead man is Underhay then Rosaleen
was never my uncle’s wife and she’s not entitled to a penny of his money. Do you think she
would recognize him under those circumstances?”
“You don’t trust her?”
“I don’t trust either of them.
“Surely there are plenty of people who could say for certain that the dead man is or is not
Underhay?”
“It doesn’t seem to be so easy. That’s what I want you to do. Find someone who knows
Underhay. Apparently he has no living relations in this country—and he was always an unsociable
lonely sort of chap. I suppose there must be old servants—friends—someone—but the war’s
broken up everything and shifted people round. I wouldn’t know how to begin to tackle the job
—anyway I haven’t the time. I’m a farmer—and I’m shorthanded.”
“Why me?” said Hercule Poirot.
Rowley looked embarrassed.
A faint twinkle came into Poirot’s eye.
“Spirit guidance?” he murmured.
“Good Lord, no,” said Rowley horrified. “Matter of fact,” he hesitated, “I heard a fellow
I know talk about you—said you were a wizard at these sort of things. I don’t know about your
fees—expensive, I expect—we’re rather a stony-broke lot, but I dare say we could cough it up
amongst the lot of us. That is, if you’ll take it on.”
Hercule Poirot said slowly:
“Yes, I think perhaps I can help you.”
His memory, a very precise and definite memory, went back. The club bore, the rustling
newspapers, the monotonous voice.
The name—he had heard the name—it would come back to him presently. If not, he could
always ask Mellon…No, he had got it. Porter. Major Porter.
Hercule Poirot rose to his feet.
“Will you come back here this afternoon, Mr. Cloade?”
“Well—I don’t know. Yes, I suppose I could. But surely you can’t do anything in that short
time?”
He looked at Poirot with awe and incredulity. Poirot would have been less than human if he
could have resisted the temptation to show off. With memories of a brilliant predecessor in his
mind, he said solemnly:
“I have my methods, Mr. Cloade.”
It was clearly the right thing to say. Rowley’s expression became respectful in the extreme.
“Yes—of course—really—I don’t know how you people do these things.”
Poirot did not enlighten him. When Rowley had gone, he sat down and wrote a short note.
Giving it to George he instructed him to take it to the Coronation Club and wait for an answer.
The answer was highly satisfactory. Major Porter presented his compliments to M. Hercule
Poirot and would be happy to see him and his friend at 79 Edgeway Street, Campden Hill, that
afternoon at five o’clock.
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