Taken at the Flood (21 page)

L
ynn came out of the house and glanced up at the sky.

The sun was getting low, there was no red in the sky but a rather unnatural glow of light. A still evening with a breathless feel about it. There would be, she thought, a storm later.

Well, the time had come now. She couldn't put things off any longer. She must go to Long Willows and tell Rowley. She owed him that at least—to tell him herself. Not to choose the easy way of the written word.

Her mind was made up—quite made up—she told herself and yet she felt a curious reluctance. She looked round her and thought: “It's goodbye to all this—to my own world—my own way of life.”

For she had no illusions. Life with David was a gamble—an adventure that was as likely to turn out badly as to turn out well. He himself had warned her….

The night of the murder, over the telephone.

And now, a few hours ago, he had said:

“I meant to go out of your life. I was a fool—to think I could leave you behind me. We'll go to London and be married by special licence—oh, yes, I'm not going to give you the chance of shilly-shallying about. You've got roots here, roots that hold you down. I've got to pull you up by the roots.” He had added: “We'll break it to Rowley when you're actually Mrs. David Hunter. Poor devil, it's the best way to break it to him.”

But to that she did not agree, though she had not said so at the time. No, she must tell Rowley herself.

It was to Rowley she was going now!

The storm was just starting as Lynn tapped at the door of Long Willows. Rowley opened it and looked astonished to see her.

“Hallo, Lynn, why didn't you ring up and say you were coming? I might have been out.”

“I want to talk to you, Rowley.”

He stood aside to let her pass and followed her into the big kitchen. The remains of his supper were on the table.

“I'm planning to get an Aga or an Esse put in here,” he said. “Easier for you. And a new sink—steel—”

She interrupted. “Don't make plans, Rowley.”

“You mean because that poor kid isn't buried yet? I suppose it does seem rather heartless. But she never struck me as a particularly happy person. Sickly, I suppose. Never got over that damned air raid. Anyway, there it is. She's dead and in her grave and oh the difference to me—or rather to us—”

Lynn caught her breath.

“No, Rowley. There isn't any ‘us.' That's what I came to tell you.”

He stared at her. She said quietly, hating herself, but steadfast in her purpose:

“
I'm going to marry David Hunter, Rowley.
”

She did not know quite what she expected—protests, perhaps an angry outburst—but she certainly did not expect Rowley to take it as he did.

He stared at her for a minute or two, then he went across and poked at the stove, turning at last in an almost absentminded manner.

“Well,” he said, “let's get it clear. You're going to marry David Hunter. Why?”

“Because I love him.”

“You love me.”

“No. I did love you—when I went away. But it's been four years and I've—I've changed. We've both changed.”

“You're wrong…” he said quietly. “I haven't changed.”

“Well, perhaps you haven't changed so much.”

“I haven't changed at all. I haven't had much chance to change. I've just gone plodding on here.
I
haven't dropped from parachutes or swarmed up cliffs by night or wound an arm round a man in the darkness and stabbed him—”

“Rowley—”

“
I
haven't been to the war.
I
haven't fought.
I
don't know what war is! I've led a nice safe life here, down on the farm. Lucky Rowley! But as a husband, you'd be ashamed of me!”

“No, Rowley—oh, no! It isn't that at all.”

“But I tell you it is!” He came nearer to her. The blood was welling up in his neck, the veins of his forehead were starting out.
That look in his eyes—she had seen it once as she passed a bull in a field. Tossing its head, stamping its foot, slowly lowering its head with the great horns. Goaded to a dull fury, a blind rage….

“
Be quiet,
Lynn,
you
'll listen to
me
for a change. I've missed what I ought to have had. I've missed my chance of fighting for my country. I've seen my best friend go and be killed. I've seen my girl—
my
girl—dress up in uniform and go overseas. I've been Just the Man She Left Behind Her.
My
life's
been hell
—don't you understand, Lynn? It's been hell. And then you came back—and since then it's been worse hell. Ever since that night at Aunt Kathie's when I saw you looking at David Hunter across the table. But
he's not going to have you, do you hear?
If you're not for me, then no one shall have you. What do you think I am?”

“Rowley—”

She had risen, was retreating a step at a time. She was terrified. This man was not a man any longer, he was a brute beast.

“
I've killed two people,
” said Rowley Cloade. “
Do you think I shall stick at killing a third?
”

“Rowley—”

He was upon her now, his hands round her throat….

“I can't bear any more, Lynn—”

The hands tightened round her neck, the room whirled, blackness, spinning blackness, suffocation—everything going dark….

And then, suddenly a cough. A prim, slightly artificial cough.

Rowley paused, his hands relaxed, fell to his sides. Lynn, released, sank in a crumpled heap on the floor.

Just inside the door, Hercule Poirot stood apologetically coughing.

“I hope,” he said, “that I do not intrude? I knocked. Yes, indeed, I knocked, but no one answered…I suppose you were busy?”

For a moment the air was tense, electric. Rowley stared. It looked for a moment as though he might fling himself on Hercule Poirot, but finally he turned away. He said in a flat empty voice:

“You turned up—just in the nick of time.”

I
nto an atmosphere quivering with danger Hercule Poirot brought his own atmosphere of deliberate anticlimax.

“The kettle, it is boiling?” he inquired.

Rowley said heavily—stupidly—“Yes, it's boiling.”

“Then you will, perhaps, make some coffee? Or some tea if it is easier.”

Like an automaton Rowley obeyed.

Hercule Poirot took a large clean handkerchief from his pocket; he soaked it in cold water, wrung it out and came to Lynn.

“There, Mademoiselle, if you fasten that round your throat—so. Yes, I have the safety pin. There, that will at once ease the pain.”

Croaking hoarsely, Lynn thanked him. The kitchen of Long Willows, Poirot fussing about—it all had for her the quality of a nightmare. She felt horribly ill, and her throat was paining her badly. She staggered to her feet and Poirot guided her gently to a chair and put her into it.

“There,” he said, and over his shoulder:

“The coffee?” he demanded.

“It's ready,” said Rowley.

He brought it. Poirot poured out a cup and took it to Lynn.

“Look here,” said Rowley, “I don't think you understand. I tried to strangle Lynn.”

“Tscha, tscha,” said Poirot in a vexed voice. He seemed to be deploring a lapse of bad taste on Rowley's part.

“Two deaths I've got on my conscience,” said Rowley. “Hers would have been the third—if you hadn't arrived.”

“Let us drink up our coffee,” said Poirot, “and not talk of deaths. It is not agreeable for Mademoiselle Lynn.”

“My God!” said Rowley. He stared at Poirot.

Lynn sipped her coffee with difficulty. It was hot and strong. Presently she felt her throat less painful, and the stimulant began to act.

“There, that is better, yes?” said Poirot.

She nodded.

“Now we can talk,” said Poirot. “When I say that, I mean, really, that
I
shall talk.”

“How much do you know?” said Rowley heavily. “Do you know that I killed Charles Trenton?”

“Yes,” said Poirot. “I have known that for some time.”

The door burst open. It was David Hunter.

“Lynn,” he cried. “You never told me—”

He stopped, puzzled, his eyes going from one to the other.

“
What's the matter with your throat?
”

“Another cup,” said Poirot. Rowley took one from the dresser.
Poirot received it, filled it with coffee and handed it to David. Once more, Poirot dominated the situation.

“Sit down,” he said to David. “We will sit here and drink coffee, and you shall all three listen to Hercule Poirot while he gives you a lecture on crime.”

He looked round on them and nodded his head.

Lynn thought:

“This is some fantastic nightmare. It isn't
real!
”

They were all, it seemed, under the sway of this absurd little man with the big moustaches. They sat there, obediently—Rowley the killer; she, his victim; David, the man who loved her—all holding cups of coffee, listening to this little man who in some strange way dominated them all.

“What causes crime?” Hercule Poirot demanded rhetorically. “It is a question, that. What stimulus is needed? What inbred predisposition does there have to be? Is
every one
capable of crime—of
some
crime? And what happens—that is what I have asked myself from the beginning, what happens when people who have been protected from real life—from its assaults and ravages—are suddenly deprived of that protection?”

“I am speaking, you see, of the Cloades. There is only one Cloade here, and so I can speak very freely. From the beginning the problem has fascinated me. Here is a whole family who circumstances have prevented from ever having to stand on their own feet. Though each one of the family had a life of his or her own, a profession, yet really they have never escaped from the shadow of a beneficent protection. They have had, always, freedom from fear. They have lived in security—and a security which was unnatural and artificial. Gordon Cloade was always there behind them.

“What I say to you is this, there is no telling what a human character is, until the test comes. To most of us the test comes early in life. A man is confronted quite soon with the necessity to stand on his own feet, to face dangers and difficulties and to take his own line of dealing with them. It may be the straight way, it may be the crooked way—whichever it is, a man usually learns early just what he is made of.

“But the Cloades had no opportunity of knowing their own weaknesses until the time when they were suddenly shorn of protection and were forced, quite unprepared, to face difficulty. One thing, and one thing only, stood between them and the resumption of security, the life of Rosaleen Cloade. I am quite certain in my own mind that every single one of the Cloades thought at one time or another, ‘If Rosaleen was to die—'”

Lynn shivered. Poirot paused, letting the words sink in, then went on:

“The thought of death,
her
death, passed through every mind—of that I am certain. Did the further thought of murder pass through also? And did the thought, in one particular instance, go beyond thinking and become action.”

Without a change of voice he turned to Rowley:

“Did
you
think of killing her?”

“Yes,” said Rowley. “It was the day she came to the farm. There was no one else there. I thought then—I could kill her quite easily. She looked pathetic—and very pretty—like the calves I'd sent to market. You can see how pathetic they are—but you send them off just the same. I wondered, really, that she wasn't afraid…She would have been, if she'd known what was in my mind…
Yes, it was in my mind when I took the lighter from her to light her cigarette.”

“She left it behind, I suppose. That's how you got hold of it.”

Rowley nodded.

“I don't know why I
didn't
kill her,” he said wonderingly. “I thought of it. One could have faked it up as an accident, or something.”

“It was not your type of crime,” said Poirot. “That is the answer. The man you did kill, you killed in a rage—and you did not really
mean
to kill him, I fancy?”

“Good Lord, no. I hit him on the jaw. He went over backwards and hit his head on that marble fender. I couldn't believe it when I found he was dead.”

Then suddenly he shot a startled glance at Poirot:

“How did you know that?”

“I think,” said Poirot, “that I have reconstructed your actions fairly accurately. You shall tell me if I am wrong. You went to the Stag, did you not, and Beatrice Lippincott told you about the conversation she had overheard? Thereupon you went, as you have said, to your uncle's, Jeremy Cloade, to get his opinion as a solicitor upon the position. Now something happened there, something that made you change your mind about consulting him. I think I know what that something was.
You saw a photograph
—”

Rowley nodded.

“Yes, it was on the desk. I suddenly realized the likeness. I realized too why the fellow's face had seemed so familiar. I tumbled to it that Jeremy and Frances were getting some relation of hers to put up a stunt and get money out of Rosaleen. It made me see red.
I went headlong back to the Stag and up to No. 5 and accused the fellow of being a fraud. He laughed and admitted it—said David Hunter was going to come across all right with the money that very evening. I just saw red when I realized that my own family was, as I saw it, double-crossing me. I called him a swine and hit him. He went down as I said.”

There was a pause. Poirot said: “And then?”

“It was the lighter,” said Rowley slowly. “It fell out of my pocket. I'd been carrying it about meaning to give it back to Rosaleen when I saw her. It fell down on the body, and I saw the initials, D.H. It was David's, not hers.

“Ever since that party at Aunt Kathie's I'd realized—well, never mind all that. I've sometimes thought I'm going mad—perhaps I
am
a bit mad. First Johnnie going—and then the war—I—I can't talk about things but sometimes I'd feel blind with rage—and now Lynn—and this fellow. I dragged the dead man into the middle of the room and turned him over on his face. Then I picked up those heavy steel tongs—well, I won't go into details. I wiped off fingerprints, cleaned up the marble curb—then I deliberately put the hands of the wristwatch at ten minutes past nine and smashed it. I took away his ration book and his papers—I thought his identity might be traced through them. Then I got out. It seemed to me that with Beatrice's story of what she'd overheard, David would be for it all right.”

“And then,” said Poirot, “you came to
me.
It was a pretty little comedy that you played there, was it not, asking me to produce some witnesses that knew Underhay? It was already clear to me that Jeremy Cloade had repeated to his family the story that Major Porter had told. For nearly two years all the family had cherished
a secret hope that Underhay might turn up. That wish influenced Mrs. Lionel Cloade in her manipulation of the Ouija board—unconsciously, but it was a very revealing accident.

“
Eh bien,
I perform my ‘conjuring trick.' I flatter myself that I impress you and really it is
I
who am the complete mug. Yes and there in Major Porter's room, he says, after he offers me a cigarette, he says to you, ‘You don't, do you?'

“
How did he know that you did not smoke?
He is supposed only that moment to have met you. Imbecile that I am, I should have seen the truth then—that already you and Major Porter, you had made your little arrangement together! No wonder he was nervous that morning. Yes,
I
am to be the mug,
I
am to bring Major Porter down to identify the body. But I do not go on being the mug for ever—no, I am not the mug now, am I?”

He looked round angrily and then went on:

“But then, Major Porter went back on that arrangement. He does not care to be a witness upon oath in a murder trial, and the strength of the case against David Hunter depends very largely upon the identity of the dead man. So Major Porter backs out.”

“He wrote to me he wouldn't go through with it,” said Rowley thickly. “The damned fool. Didn't he see we'd gone too far to stop? I came up to try to drive some sense into him. I was too late. He'd said he'd rather shoot himself than perjure himself when it was a question of murder. The front door wasn't locked—I went up and found him.

“I can't tell you what I felt like. It was as though I was a murderer twice over. If only he'd waited—if he'd only let me talk to him.”

“There was a note there?” Poirot asked. “You took it away?”

“Yes—I was in for things now. Might as well go the whole hog. The note was to the coroner. It simply said that he'd given perjured evidence at the inquest. The dead man was
not
Robert Underhay. I took the note away and destroyed it.”

Rowley struck his fist on the table. “It was like a bad dream—a horrible nightmare! I'd begun this thing and I'd got to go on with it. I wanted the money to get Lynn—and I wanted Hunter to hang. And then—I couldn't understand it—the case against him broke down. Some story about a woman—a woman who was with Arden later. I couldn't understand, I
still
can't understand. What woman? How could a woman be in there talking to Arden after he was dead?”

“There was no woman,” said Poirot.

“But, M. Poirot,” Lynn croaked. “That old lady. She
saw
her. She heard her.”

“Aha,” said Poirot. “But what did she see? And what did she hear? She saw someone in trousers, with a light tweed coat. She saw a head completely enveloped in an orange scarf arranged turban-wise and a face covered with makeup and a lipsticked mouth. She saw that in a dim light. And what did she hear? She saw the ‘hussy' draw back into No. 5 and from within the room she heard a man's voice saying, ‘Get out of here, my girl.'
Eh bien,
it was a
man
she saw and a
man
she heard! But it was a very ingenious idea, Mr. Hunter,” Poirot added, turning placidly to David.

“What do you mean?” David asked sharply.

“It is now to
you
that I will tell a story. You come along to the Stag at nine o'clock or thereabouts. You come not to murder, but to
pay.
What do you find? You find the man who had been blackmailing you lying on the floor, murdered in a particularly brutal
manner. You can think fast, Mr. Hunter, and you realize at once that you are in imminent danger. You have not been seen entering the Stag by any one as far as you know and your first idea is to clear out as soon as possible, catch the 9:20 train back to London and swear hard that you have not been near Warmsley Vale. To catch the train your only chance is to run across country. In doing so you run unexpectedly into Miss Marchmont and you also realize that you cannot catch the train. You see the smoke of it in the valley. She too, although you do not know it, has seen the smoke, but she has not consciously realized that it indicates
that you cannot catch the train,
and when you tell her that the time is
nine-fifteen
she accepts your statement without any doubt.

“To impress on her mind that you do catch the train, you invent a very ingenious scheme. In fact, you now have to plan an entirely new scheme to divert suspicion from yourself.

“You go back to Furrowbank, letting yourself in quietly with your key and you help yourself to a scarf of your sister's, you take one of her lipsticks, and you also proceed to make up your face in a highly theatrical manner.

“You return to the Stag at a suitable time, impress your personality on the old lady who sits in the Residents Only room and whose peculiarities are common gossip at the Stag. Then you go up to No. 5. When you hear her coming to bed, you come out into the passage, then withdraw hurriedly inside again, and proceed to say loudly, ‘You'd better get out of here, my girl.'”