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Thirteen
It took them only about five minutes to reach Furrowbank. The drive wound up an incline through
carefully massed banks of rhododendrons. No trouble or expense had been spared by Gordon
Cloade to make Furrowbank a showplace.
The parlourmaid who answered the front door looked surprised to see them and a little doubtful
as to whether they could see Mrs. Cloade. Madam, she said, wasn’t up yet. However, she
ushered them into the drawing room and went upstairs with Poirot’s message.
Poirot looked round him. He was contrasting this room with Frances Cloade’s drawing room
— the latter such an intimate room, so characteristic of its mistress. The drawing room at
Furrowbank was strictly impersonal—speaking only of wealth tempered by good taste. Gordon
Cloade had seen to the latter—everything in the room was of good quality and of artistic merit, but
there was no sign of any selectiveness, no clue to the personal tastes of the room’s mistress.
Rosaleen, it seemed, had not stamped upon the place any individuality of her own.
She had lived in Furrowbank as a foreign visitor might live at the Ritz or at the Savoy.
“I wonder,” thought Poirot, “if the other—”
Lynn broke the chain of his thought by asking him of what he was thinking, and why he looked
so grim.
“The wages of sin, Mademoiselle, are said to be death. But sometimes the wages of sin seem
to be luxury. Is that any more endurable, I wonder? To be cut off from one’s own home life. To
catch, perhaps, a single glimpse of it when the way back to it is barred—”
He broke off. The parlourmaid, her superior manner laid aside, a mere frightened middle-aged
woman, came running into the room, stammering and choking with words she could hardly get
out.
“Oh Miss Marchmont! Oh, sir, the mistress—upstairs—she’s very bad—she doesn’t speak
and I can’t rouse her and her hand’s so cold.”
Sharply, Poirot turned and ran out of the room. Lynn and the maid came behind him. He raced
up to the first floor. The parlourmaid indicated the open door facing the head of the stairs.
It was a large beautiful bedroom, the sun pouring in through the open windows on to pale
beautiful rugs.
In the big carved bedstead Rosaleen was lying—apparently asleep. Her long dark lashes lay on
her cheeks, her head turned naturally into the pillow. There was a crumpled-up handkerchief in
one hand. She looked like a sad child who had cried itself to sleep.
Poirot picked up her hand and felt for the pulse. The hand was ice-cold and told him what he
already guessed.
He said quietly to Lynn:
“She has been dead some time. She died in her sleep.”
“Oh, sir—oh—what shall we do?” The parlourmaid burst out crying.
“Who was her doctor?”
“Uncle Lionel,” said Lynn.
Poirot said to the parlourmaid: “Go and telephone to Dr. Cloade.” She went out of the room,
still sobbing. Poirot moved here and there about the room. A small white cardboard box beside the
bed bore a label, “One powder to be taken at bedtime.” Using his handkerchief, he pushed the
box open. There were three powders left. He moved across to the mantelpiece, then to the writing-
table. The chair in front of it was pushed aside, the blotter was open. A sheet of paper was there,
with words scrawled in an unformed childish hand.
“I don’t know what to do…I can’t go on…I’ve been so wicked. I must tell someone and
get peace…I didn’t mean to be so wicked to begin with. I didn’t know all that was going to
come of it. I must write down—”
The words sprawled off in a dash. The pen lay where it had been flung down. Poirot stood
looking down at those written words. Lynn still stood by the bed looking down at the dead girl.
Then the door was pushed violently open and David Hunter strode breathlessly into the room.
“David,” Lynn started forward. “Have they released you? I’m so glad—”
He brushed her words aside, as he brushed her aside, thrusting her almost roughly out of the
way as he bent over the still white figure.
“Rosa! Rosaleen…” He touched her hand, then he swung round on Lynn, his face blazing
with anger. His words came high and deliberate!
“So you’ve killed her, have you? You’ve got rid of her at last! You got rid of me, sent me to
gaol on a trumped-up charge, and then, amongst you all, you put her out of the way! All of you?
Or just one of you? I don’t care which it is! You killed her! You wanted the damned money—
now you’ve got it! Her death gives it to you! You’ll all be out of Queer Street now. You’ll all
be rich—a lot of dirty murdering thieves, that’s what you are! You weren’t able to touch her so
long as I was by. I knew how to protect my sister—she was never one to be able to protect herself.
But when she was alone here, you saw your chance and you took it.” He paused, swayed slightly,
and said in a low quivering voice, “Murderers.”
Lynn cried out:
“No, David. No, you’re wrong. None of us would kill her. We wouldn’t do such a thing.”
“One of you killed her, Lynn Marchmont. And you know that as well as I do!”
“I swear we didn’t, David. I swear we did nothing of the kind.”
The wildness of his gaze softened a little.
“Maybe it wasn’t you, Lynn—”
“It wasn’t, David, I swear it wasn’t—”
Hercule Poirot moved forward a step and coughed. David swung round on him.
“I think,” said Poirot, “that your assumptions are a little overdramatic. Why jump to the
conclusion that your sister was murdered?”
“You say she wasn’t murdered? Do you call this”—he indicated the figure on the bed—“a
natural death? Rosaleen suffered from nerves, yes, but she had no organic weakness. Her heart
was sound enough.”
“Last night,” said Poirot, “before she went to bed, she sat writing here—”
David strode past him, bent over the sheet of paper.
“Do not touch it,” Poirot warned him.
David drew back his hand, and read the words as he stood motionless.
He turned his head sharply and looked searchingly at Poirot.
“Are you suggesting suicide? Why should Rosaleen commit suicide?”
The voice that answered the question was not Poirot’s. Superintendent Spence’s quiet
Oastshire voice spoke from the open doorway:
“Supposing that last Tuesday night Mrs. Cloade wasn’t in London, but in Warmsley Vale?
Suppose she went to see the man who had been blackmailing her? Suppose that in a nervous
frenzy she killed him?”
David swung round on him. His eyes were hard and angry.
“My sister was in London on Tuesday night. She was there in the flat when I got in at eleven
o’clock.”
“Yes,” said Spence, “that’s your story, Mr. Hunter. And I dare say you’ll stick to it. But
I’m not obliged to believe that story. And in any case, isn’t it a little late”—he gestured
towards the bed—“the case will never come to court now.”
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