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Seven
Poirot entered the Stag in a thoughtful mood, and shivering slightly for there was a sharp east
wind. The hall was deserted. He pushed open the door of the lounge on the right. It smelt of stale
smoke and the fire was nearly out. Poirot tiptoed along to the door at the end of the hall labelled
“Residents Only.” Here there was a good fire, but in a large armchair, comfortably toasting her
toes, was a monumental old lady who glared at Poirot with such ferocity that he beat an apologetic
retreat.
He stood for a moment in the hall looking from the glass-enclosed empty office to the door
labelled in firm old-fashioned style COFFEE ROOM. By experience of country hotels Poirot
knew well that the only time coffee was served there was somewhat grudgingly for breakfast and
that even then a good deal of watery hot milk was its principal component. Small cups of a treacly
and muddy liquid called Black Coffee were served not in the COFFEE ROOM but in the Lounge.
The Windsor Soup, Vienna Steak and Potatoes, and Steamed Pudding which comprised Dinner
would be obtainable in the COFFEE ROOM at seven sharp. Until then a deep peace brooded over
the residential area of the Stag.
Poirot went thoughtfully up the staircase. Instead of turning to the left where his own room, No.
11, was situated, he turned to the right and stopped before the door of No. 5. He looked round him.
Silence and emptiness. He opened the door and went in.
The police had done with the room. It had clearly been freshly cleaned and scrubbed. There was
no carpet on the floor. Presumably the “old-fashioned Axminster” had gone to the cleaners. The
blankets were folded on the bed in a neat pile.
Closing the door behind him, Poirot wandered round the room. It was clean and strangely
barren of human interest. Poirot took in its furnishings—a writing table, a chest of drawers of
good old-fashioned mahogany, an upright wardrobe of the same (the one presumably that masked
the door into No. 4), a large brass double bed, a basin with hot and cold water — tribute to
modernity and the servant shortage—a large but rather uncomfortable armchair, two small chairs,
an old-fashioned Victorian grate with a poker and a pierced shovel belonging to the same set as
the fire tongs; a heavy marble mantelpiece and a solid marble fire curb with squared corners.
It was at these last that Poirot bent and looked. Moistening his finger he rubbed it along the
right-hand corner and then inspected the result. His finger was slightly black. He repeated the
performance with another finger on the left-hand corner of the curb. This time his finger was quite
clean.
“Yes,” said Poirot thoughtfully to himself. “Yes.”
He looked at the fitted washbasin. Then he strolled to the window. It looked out over some leads
—the roof of a garage, he fancied, and then to a small back alley. An easy way to come and go
unseen from room No. 5. But then it was equally easy to walk upstairs to No. 5 unseen. He had
just done it himself.
Quietly, Poirot withdrew, shutting the door noiselessly behind him. He went along to his own
room. It was decidedly chilly. He went downstairs again, hesitated, and then, driven by the chill of
the evening, boldly entered the Residents Only, drew up a second armchair to the fire and sat
down.
The monumental old lady was even more formidable seen close at hand. She had iron-grey hair,
a flourishing moustache and, when presently she spoke, a deep and awe-inspiring voice.
“This Lounge,” she said, “is Reserved for Persons staying in the hotel.”
“I am staying in the hotel,” replied Hercule Poirot.
The old lady meditated for a moment or two before returning to the attack. Then she said
accusingly:
“You’re a foreigner.”
“Yes,” replied Hercule Poirot.
“In my opinion,” said the old lady, “you should all Go Back.”
“Go back where?” inquired Poirot.
“To where you came from,” said the old lady firmly.
She added as a kind of rider, sotto voce: “Foreigners!” and snorted.
“That,” said Poirot mildly, “would be difficult.”
“Nonsense,” said the old lady. “That’s what we fought the war for, isn’t it? So that
people could go back to their proper places and stay there.”
Poirot did not enter into a controversy. He had already learnt that every single individual had a
different version of the theme, “What did we fight the war for?”
A somewhat hostile silence reigned.
“I don’t know what things are coming to,” said the old lady. “I really don’t. Every year I
come and stay in this place. My husband died here sixteen years ago. He’s buried here. I come
every year for a month.”
“A pious pilgrimage,” said Poirot politely.
“And every year things get worse and worse. No service! Food uneatable! Vienna steaks
indeed! A steak’s either rump or fillet steak—not chopped-up horse!”
Poirot shook his head sadly.
“One good thing—they’ve shut down the aerodrome,” said the old lady. “Disgraceful it
was, all those young airmen coming in here with those dreadful girls. Girls, indeed! I don’t know
what their mothers are thinking of nowadays. Letting them gad about as they do. I blame the
Government. Sending the mothers to work in factories. Only let ’em off if they’ve got young
children. Young children, stuff and nonsense! Any one can look after a baby! A baby doesn’t go
running round after soldiers. Girls from fourteen to eighteen, they’re the ones that need looking
after! Need their mothers. It takes a mother to know just what a girl is up to. Soldiers! Airmen!
That’s all they think about. Americans! Niggers! Polish riffraff!”
Indignation at this point made the old lady cough. When she had recovered, she went on,
working herself into a pleasurable frenzy and using Poirot as a target for her spleen.
“Why do they have barbed wire round their camps? To keep the soldiers from getting at the
girls? No, to keep the girls from getting at the soldiers! Man-mad, that’s what they are! Look at
the way they dress. Trousers! Some poor fools wear shorts—they wouldn’t if they knew what
they looked like from behind!”
“I agree with you, Madame, indeed I agree with you.”
“What do they wear on their heads? Proper hats? No, a twisted-up bit of stuff, and faces
covered with paint and powder. Filthy stuff, all over their mouths. Not only red nails—but red toe-
nails!”
The old lady paused explosively and looked at Poirot expectantly. He sighed and shook his
head.
“Even in church,” said the old lady. “No hats. Sometimes not even those silly scarves. Just
that ugly crimped, permanently waved hair. Hair? Nobody knows what hair is nowadays. I could
sit on my hair when I was young.”
Poirot stole a glance at the iron-grey bands. It seemed impossible that this fierce old woman
could ever have been young!
“Put her head in here the other night, one of them did,” the old lady went on. “Tied up in an
orange scarf and painted and powdered. I looked at her. I just LOOKED at her! She soon went
away!
“She wasn’t a Resident,” went on the old lady. “No one of her type staying here, I’m
glad to say! So what was she doing coming out of a man’s bedroom? Disgusting, I call it. I spoke
about it to that Lippincott girl—but she’s just as bad as any of them—go a mile for anything that
wears trousers.”
Some faint interest stirred in Poirot’s mind.
“Coming out of a man’s bedroom?” he queried.
The old lady fell upon the topic with zest.
“That’s what I said. Saw her with my own eyes. No. 5.”
“What day was that, Madame?”
“The day before there was all that fuss about a man being murdered. Disgraceful that such a
thing could happen here! This used to be a very decent old-fashioned type of place. But now—”
“And what hour of the day was this?”
“Day? It wasn’t day at all. Evening. Late evening, too. Perfectly disgraceful. Past ten
o’clock. I go up to bed at a quarter-past ten. Out she comes from No. 5 as bold as brass, stares at
me, then dodges back inside again, laughing and talking with the man there.”
“You heard him speak?”
“Aren’t I telling you so? She dodges back inside and he calls out, ‘Oh, go on, get out of
here. I’m fed up.’ That’s nice way for a man to talk to a girl. But they ask for it! Hussies!”
Poirot said, “You did not report this to the police?”
She fixed him with a basilisk stare and totteringly rose out of her chair. Standing over him and
glaring down on him, she said:
“I have never had anything to do with the police. The police indeed! I, in a police court?”
Quiverering with rage and with one last malevolent glance at Poirot she left the room.
Poirot sat for a few minutes thoughtfully caressing his moustache, then he went in search of
Beatrice Lippincott.
“Oh, yes, M. Poirot, you mean old Mrs. Leadbetter? Canon Leadbetter’s widow. She comes
here every year, but of course between ourselves she is rather a trial. She’s really frightfully rude
to people sometimes, and she doesn’t seem to understand that things are different nowadays.
She’s nearly eighty, of course.”
“But she is clear in her mind? She knows what she is saying?”
“Oh, yes. She’s quite a sharp old lady—rather too much so sometimes.”
“Do you know who a young woman was who visited the murdered man on Tuesday night?”
Beatrice looked astonished.
“I don’t remember a young woman coming to visit him at any time. What was she like?”
“She was wearing an orange scarf round her head and I should fancy a good deal of makeup.
She was in No. 5 talking to Arden at a quarter past ten on Tuesday night.”
“Really, M. Poirot, I’ve no idea whatsoever.”
Thoughtfully Poirot went along in search of Superintendent Spence.
Spence listened to Poirot’s story in silence. Then he leaned back in his chair and nodded his
head slowly.
“Funny, isn’t it?” he said. “How often you come back to the same old formula. Cherchez
la femme.”
The Superintendent’s French accent was not as good as Sergeant Graves’, but he was proud
of it. He got up and went across the room. He came back holding something in his hand. It was a
lipstick in a gilt cardboard case.
“We had this indication all along that there might be a woman mixed up in it,” he said.
Poirot took the lipstick and smeared a little delicately on the back of his hand. “Good
quality,” he said. “A dark cherry red—worn by a brunette probably.”
“Yes. It was found on the floor of No. 5. It had rolled under the chest of drawers and of course
just possibly it might have been there some time. No fingerprints on it. Nowadays, of course, there
isn’t the range of lipsticks there used to be—just a few standard makes.”
“And you have no doubt made your inquiries?”
Spence smiled.
“Yes,” he said; “as you put it, we have made our inquiries. Rosaleen Cloade uses this type
of lipstick. So does Lynn Marchmont. Frances Cloade uses a more subdued colour. Mrs. Lionel
Cloade doesn’t use lipstick at all. Mrs. Marchmont uses a pale mauve shade. Beatrice Lippincott
doesn’t appear to use anything as expensive as this—nor does the chambermaid, Gladys.”
He paused.
“You have been thorough,” said Poirot.
“Not thorough enough. It looks now as though an outsider is mixed up in it—some woman,
perhaps, that Underhay knew in Warmsley Vale.”
“And who was with him at a quarter past ten on Tuesday evening?”
“Yes,” said Spence. He added with a sigh, “This lets David Hunter out.”
“It does?”
“Yes. His lordship has consented to make a statement at last. After his solicitor had been along
to make him see reason. Here’s his account of his own movements.”
Poirot read a neat typed memorandum.
Left London 4:16 train for Warmsley Heath. Arrived there 5:30. Walked to
Furrowbank by footpath.
“His reason for coming down,” the Superintendent broke in, “was, according to him, to get
certain things he’d left behind, letters and papers, a chequebook, and to see if some shirts had
come back from the laundry—which, of course, they hadn’t! My word, laundry’s a problem
nowadays. Four ruddy weeks since they’ve been to our place—not a clean towel left in our
house, and the wife washes all my things herself now.”
After this very human interpolation the Superintendent returned to the itinerary of David’s
movements.
“Left Furrowbank at 7:25 and states he went for a walk as he had missed the
7:20 train and there would be no train until the 9:20.”
“In what direction did he go for a walk?” asked Poirot.
The Superintendent consulted his notes.
“Says by Downe Copse, Bats Hill and Long Ridge.”
“In fact, a complete circular tour round the White House!”
“My word, you pick up local geography quickly, M. Poirot!”
Poirot smiled and shook his head.
“No, I did not know the places you named. I was making a guess.”
“Oh, you were, were you?” The Superintendent cocked his head on one side.
“Then, according to him, when he was up on Long Ridge, he realized he was cutting it rather
fine and fairly hared it for Warmsley Heath station, going across country. He caught the train by
the skin of his teeth, arrived at Victoria 10:45, walked to Shepherd’s Court, arriving there at
eleven o’clock, which latter statement is confirmed by Mrs. Gordon Cloade.”
“And what confirmation have you of the rest of it?”
“Remarkably little—but there is some. Rowley Cloade and others saw him arrive at Warmsley
Heath. The maids at Furrowbank were out (he had his own key of course) so they didn’t see him,
but they found a cigarette stump in the library which I gather intrigued them and also found a good
deal of confusion in the linen cupboard. Then one of the gardeners was there working late—
shutting up greenhouses or something and he caught sight of him. Miss Marchmont met him up by
Mardon Wood—when he was running for the train.”
“Did any one see him catch the train?”
“No — but he telephoned from London to Miss Marchmont as soon as he got back — at
11:05.”
“That is checked?”
“Yes, we’d already put through an inquiry about calls from that number. There was a Toll
call out at 11:04 to Warmsley Vale 34. That’s the Marchmonts’ number.”
“Very, very interesting,” murmured Poirot.
But Spence was going on painstakingly and methodically.
“Rowley Cloade left Arden at five minutes to nine. He’s quite definite it wasn’t earlier.
About 9:10 Lynn Marchmont sees Hunter up at Mardon Wood. Granted he’s run all the way
from the Stag, would he have had time to meet Arden, quarrel with him, kill him and get to
Mardon Wood? We’re going into it and I don’t think it can be done. However, now we’re
starting again. Far from Arden being killed at nine o’clock, he was alive at ten minutes past ten
—that is unless your old lady is dreaming. He was either killed by the woman who dropped the
lipstick, the woman in the orange scarf—or by somebody who came in after that woman left. And
whoever did it, deliberately put the hands of the watch back to nine-ten.”
“Which if David Hunter had not happened to meet Lynn Marchmont in a very unlikely place
would have been remarkably awkward for him?” said Poirot.
“Yes, it would. The 9:20 is the last train up from Warmsley Heath. It was growing dark. There
are always golfers going back by it. Nobody would have noticed Hunter—indeed the station
people don’t know him by sight. And he didn’t take a taxi at the other end. So we’d only have
his sister’s word for it that he arrived back at Shepherd’s Court when he said he did.”
Poirot was silent and Spence asked:
“What are you thinking about, M. Poirot?”
Poirot said, “A long walk round the White House. A meeting in Mardon Woods. A telephone
call later…And Lynn Marchmont is engaged to Rowley Cloade…I should like very much to know
what was said over that telephone call.”
“It’s the human interest that’s getting you?”
“Yes,” said Poirot. “It is always the human interest.”
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