Taken at the Flood (16 page)

“Doctors, like every one else, are victims of the preconceived idea. Here's a man, obviously murdered, lying with a bloodstained pair of fire tongs beside him. It would be nonsense to say he was hit with anything else, and yet, speaking out of complete inexperience of people with their heads smashed in, I'd have suspected something rather different—something not so smooth and round—
something—oh, I don't know, something with a more cutting edge—a brick, something like that.”

“You did not say so at the inquest?”

“No—because I don't really know. Jenkins, the police surgeon, was satisfied, and he's the fellow who counts. But there's the preconceived idea—weapon lying beside the body.
Could
the wound have been inflicted with that? Yes, it
could.
But if you were shown the wound and asked what made it—well, I don't know whether you'd say it, because it really doesn't make sense—I mean if you had two fellows, one hitting him with a brick and one with the tongs—” The doctor stopped, shook his head in a dissatisfied way. “Doesn't make sense, does it?” he said to Poirot.

“Could he have fallen on some sharp object?”

Dr. Cloade shook his head.

“He was lying face down in the middle of the floor—on a good thick old-fashioned Axminster carpet.”

He broke off as his wife entered the room.

“Here's Kathie with the catlap,” he remarked.

Aunt Kathie was balancing a tray covered with crockery, half a loaf of bread and some depressing-looking jam in the bottom of a 2-lb. pot.

“I
think
the kettle was boiling,” she remarked doubtfully as she raised the lid of the teapot and peered inside.

Dr. Cloade snorted again and muttered: “Catlap,” with which explosive word he left the room.

“Poor Lionel, his nerves are in a terrible state since the war. He worked much too hard. So many doctors away. He gave himself no rest. Out morning, noon, and night. I wonder he didn't break down completely. Of course he looked forward to retiring as soon
as peace came. That was all fixed up with Gordon. His hobby, you know, is botany with special reference to medicinal herbs in the Middle Ages. He's writing a book on it. He was looking forward to a quiet life and doing the necessary research. But then, when Gordon died like that—well, you know what things are, M. Poirot, nowadays. Taxation and everything. He can't afford to retire and it's made him very bitter. And really it
does
seem unfair. Gordon's dying like that, without a will—well, it really quite shook my faith. I mean, I really couldn't see the
purpose
in that. It seemed, I couldn't help feeling, a
mistake.
”

She sighed, then cheered up a little.

“But I get some lovely reassurances from the other side. ‘Courage and patience and a way will be found.' And really, when that nice Major Porter stood up today and said in such a firm manly way that the poor murdered man was Robert Underhay—well, I saw that a way
had
been found! It's wonderful, isn't it, M. Poirot, how things do turn out for the best?”

“Even murder,” said Hercule Poirot.

P
oirot 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 win
dow. 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 get
ting 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.

“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.

“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 Furrow
bank 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.”