I

When Rosamund Darnley came and sat down by him, Hercule Poirot made no attempt to disguise his pleasure. As he has since admitted, he admired Rosamund Darnley as much as any woman he had ever met. He liked her distinction, the graceful lines of her figure, the alert proud carriage of her head. He liked the neat sleek waves of her dark hair and the ironic quality of her smile.

She was wearing a dress of some navy blue material with touches of white. It looked very simple owing to the expensive severity of its line. Rosamund Darnley as Rose Mond Ltd was one of London's best-known dressmakers.

She said:

'I don't think I like this place. I'm wondering why I came here!'

'You have been here before, have you not?'

'Yes, two years ago, at Easter. There weren't so many people then.'

Hercule Poirot looked at her. He said gently:

'Something has occurred to worry you. That is right, is it not?'

She nodded. Her foot swung to and fro. She stared down at it. She said:

'I've met a ghost. That's what it is.'

'A ghost, Mademoiselle?'

'Yes.'

'The ghost of what? Or of whom?'

'Oh, the ghost of myself.'

Poirot asked gently:

'Was it a painful ghost?'

'Unexpectedly painful. It took me back, you know…'

She paused, musing. Then she said.

'Imagine my childhood. No, you can't! You're not English!'

Poirot asked:

'Was it a very English childhood?'

'Oh, incredibly so! The county – a big shabby house – horsed, dogs – walks in the rain – wood fires – apples in the orchard – lack of money – old tweeds – evening dresses that went on from year to year – a neglected garden – with Michaelmas daisies coming out like great banners in the autumn…'

Poirot asked gently:

'And you want to go back?'

Rosamund Darnley shook her head. She said:

'One can't go back, can one? That – never. But I'd like to have gone on – a different way.'

Poirot said:

'I wonder.'

Rosamund Darnley laughed.

'So do I, really!'

Poirot said:

'When I was young (and that, Mademoiselle, is indeed a long time ago) there was a game entitled, "If not yourself, who would you be?" One wrote the answer in young ladies' albums. They had gold edges and were bound in blue leather. The answer? Mademoiselle, is not really very easy to find.'

Rosamund said:

'No – I suppose not. It would be a big risk. One wouldn't like to take on being Mussolini or Princess Elizabeth. As for one's friends, one knows too much about them. I remember once meeting a charming husband and wife. They were so courteous and delightful to one another and seemed on such good terms after years of marriage that I envied the woman. I'd have changed places with her willingly. Somebody told me afterwards that in private they'd never spoken to each other for eleven years!'

She laughed.

'That shows, doesn't it, that you never know?'

After a moment of two Poirot said:

'Many people, Mademoiselle, must envy you.'

Rosamund Darnley said coolly:

'Oh, yes. Naturally.'

She thought about it, her lips curved upward in their ironic smile:

'Yes, I'm really the perfect type of the successful woman! I enjoy the artistic satisfaction of the successful creative artist (I really do like designing clothes) and the financial satisfaction of the successful business woman. I'm very well off, I've a good figure, a passable face, and a not too malicious tongue.'

She paused. Her smiled widened.

'Of course – I haven't got a husband! I've failed there, haven't I, M. Poirot?'

Poirot said gallantly:

'Mademoiselle, if you are not married, it is because none of my sex have been sufficiently eloquent. It is from choice, not necessity, that you remain single.'

Rosamund Darnley said:

'And yet, like all men, I'm sure you believe in your heart that no woman is content unless she is married and has children.'

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

'To marry and have children, that is the common lot of women. Only one woman in a hundred – more, in a thousand, can make for herself a name and a position as you have done.'

Rosamund grinned at him.

'And yet, all the same, I'm nothing but a wretched old maid! That's what I feel today, at any rate. I'd be happier with two pence a year and a big silent brute of a husband and a brood of brats running after me. That's true, isn't it?'

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

'Since you say so, then, yes, Mademoiselle.'

Rosamund laughed, her equilibrium suddenly restored. She took out a cigarette and lit it.

She said:

'You certainly know how to deal with women, M. Poirot. I now feel like taking the opposite point of view and arguing with you in favour of careers for women. Of course I'm damned well off as I am – and I know it!'

'Then everything in the garden – or shall we say at the seaside? Is lovely, Mademoiselle.'

'Quite right.'

Poirot, in his turn, extracted his cigarette case and lit one of those tiny cigarettes which it was his affectation to smoke.

Regarding the ascending haze with a quizzical eye, he murmured:

'So Mr. – no, Captain Marshall is an old friend of yours, Mademoiselle?'

Rosamund sat up. She said:

'Now how do you know that? Oh, I suppose Ken told you.'

Poirot shook his head.

'Nobody has told me anything. After all, Mademoiselle, I am a detective. It was the obvious conclusion to draw.'

Rosamund Darnley said: 'I don't see it.'

'But consider!' The little man's hands were eloquent. 'You have been here a week. You are lively, gay, without a care. Today, suddenly, you speak of ghosts, of old times. What has happened? For several days there have been no new arrivals until last night when Captain Marshall and his wife and daughter arrive. Today the change! It is obvious!'

Rosamund Darnley said:

'Well, it's true enough. Kenneth Marshall and I were more or less children together. The Marshalls lived next door to us. Ken was always nice to me – although condescending, of course, since he was four years older. I've not seen anything of him for a long time. It must be – fifteen years at least.'

Poirot said thoughtfully:

'A long time.'

Rosamund nodded.

There was a pause and then Hercule Poirot said:

'He is sympathetic, yes?'

Rosamund said warmly:

'Ken's a dear. One of the best. Frightfully quiet and reserved. I'd say his only fault is a penchant for making unfortunate marriages.'

Poirot said in a tone of great understanding: 'Ah – '

Rosamund Darnley went on.

'Kenneth's a fool – an utter fool where women are concerned! Do you remember the Martingdale case?'

Poirot frowned.

'Martingdale? Martingdale? Arsenic, was it not?'

'Yes. Seventeen or eighteen years ago. The woman was tried for the murder of her husband.'

'And he was proved to have been a arsenic eater and she was acquitted?'

'That's right. Well, after her acquittal, Ken married her. That's the sort of damn silly thing he does.'

Hercule Poirot murmured:

'But if she was innocent?'

Rosamund Darnley said impatiently:

'Oh, I dare say she was innocent. Nobody really knows! But there are plenty of women to marry in the world without going out of your way to marry one who's stood her trial for murder.'

Poirot said nothing. Perhaps he knew that if he kept silence Rosamund Darnley would go on. She did so.

'He was very young, of course, only just twenty-one. He was crazy about her. She died when Linda was born – a year after their marriage. I believe Ken was terribly cut up by her death. Afterwards he racketed around a lot – trying to forget, I suppose.'

She paused.

'And then came this business of Arlena Stuart. She was in Revue at the time. There was the Codrington divorce case. Lady Codrington divorced Codrington, citing Arlena Stuart. They say Lord Codrington was absolutely infatuated with her. It was understood they were to be married as soon as the decree was made absolute. Actually, when it came to it, he didn't marry her. Turned her down flat. I believe she actually sued him for breach of promise. Anyway, the thing made a big stir at the time. The next thing that happens is that Ken goes and marries her. The fool – the complete fool!'

Hercule Poirot murmured:

'A man might be excused such a folly – she is beautiful, Mademoiselle.'

'Yes, there's no doubt of that. There was another scandal about three years ago. Old Sir Roger Erskine left her every penny of his money. I should have thought that would have opened Ken's eyes if anything would.'

'And did it not?'

Rosamund Darnley shrugged her shoulders.

'I tell you I've seen nothing of him for years. People say, though, that he took it with absolute equanimity. Why, I should like to know? Has he got an absolutely blind belief in her?'

There might be other reasons.

'Yes. Pride! Keeping a stiff upper lip! I don't know what he really feels about her. Nobody does.'

'And she? What does she feel about him?'

Rosamund stared at him.

She said:

'She? She's the world's first gold-digger. And a man-eater as well! If anything personable in trousers comes within a hundred yards of her, it's fresh sport for Arlena! She's that kind.'

Poirot nodded his head slowly in complete agreement.

'Yes, 'he said. 'That is true what you say… Her eyes look for one thing only – men.'

Rosamund said:

'She's got her eye on Patrick Redfern now. He's a good-looking man – and rather the simple kind – you know, fond of his wife, and not a philanderer. That's the kind that's meat and drink to Arlena. I like little Mrs. Redfern – she's nice-looking in hr fair washed-out way – but I don't think she'll stand a dog's chance against that man-eating tiger, Arlena.'

Poirot said:

'No, it is as you say.'

He looked distressed.

Rosamund said:

'Christine Redfern was a school teacher, I believe. She's the kind that thinks that mind has a pull over matter. She's got a rude shock coming to her.'

Poirot shook his head vexedly.

Rosamund got up. She said:

'It's a shame, you know.' She added vaguely: 'Somebody ought to do something about it.'

II

Linda Marshall was examining her face dispassionately in her bedroom mirror. She disliked her face very much. At this minute it seemed to her to be mostly bones and freckles. She noted with distaste her heavy bush of soft brown hair (mouse, she called it in her own mind), her greenish-grey eyes, her high cheek-bones and the long aggressive line of the chin. Her mouth and teeth weren't perhaps quite so bad – but what were teeth after all? And was that a spot coming on the side of her nose?

She decided with relief that it wasn't a spot. She thought to herself:

'It's awful to be sixteen – simply awful.'

One didn't, somehow, know where one was. Linda was as awkward as a young colt and as prickly as a hedgehog. She was conscious the whole time of her ungainliness and of the fact that she was neither one thing nor the other. It hadn't been so bad at school. But now she had left school. Nobody seemed to know quite what she was going to do next. Her father talked vaguely of sending her to Paris next winter. Linda didn't want to go to Paris – but then she didn't want to be at home either. She'd never realized properly, somehow, until now, how very much she disliked Arlea.

Linda's young face grew tense, her green eyes hardened.

Arlena…

She thought to herself:

'She's a beast – a beast…'

Stepmothers! It was rotten to have a stepmother, everybody said so. And it was true! Not that Arlena was unkind to her. Most of the time she hardly noticed the girl. But when she did, there was a contemptuous amusement in her glance, in her words. The finished grace and poise of Arlena's movements emphasized Linda's own adolescent clumsiness. With Arlena about, one felt, shamingly, just how immature and crude one was.

But it wasn't that only. No, it wasn't only that.

Linda groped haltingly in the recesses of her mind. She wasn't very good at sorting out her emotions and labelling them. It was something that Arlena did to people – to the house –

'She's bad,' thought Linda with decision. 'She's quite, quite bad.'

But you couldn't even leave it at that. You couldn't just elevate your nose with a sniff of moral superiority and dismiss her from your mind.

It was something she did to people. Father, now, Father was quite different…

She puzzled over it. Father coming down to take her out from school. Father taking her once for a cruise. And Father at home – with Arlena there. All – all sort of bottled up and not – and not there.

Linda thought:

'And it'll go on like this. Day after day – month after month. I can't bear it.'

Life stretched before her – endless – in a series of days darkened and poisoned by Arlena's presence. She was childish enough still to have little sense of proportion. A year, to Linda, seemed like an eternity.

A big dark burning wave of hatred against Arlena surged up in her mind. She thought:

'I'd like to kill her. Oh! I wish she'd die…'

She looked out above the mirror on to the sea below.

This place was really rather fun. Or it could be fun. All those beaches and coves and queer little paths. Lots to explore. And places where one could go off by oneself and muck about. There were caves, too, so the Cowan boys had told her.

Linda thought:

'If only Arlena would go away, I could enjoy myself.'

Her mind went back to the evening of their arrival. It had been exciting coming from the mainland. The tide had been up over the causeway. They had come in a boat. The hotel had looked exciting, unusual. And then on the terrace a tall dark woman had jumped up and said:

'Why, Kenneth!'

And her father, looking frightfully surprised, had exclaimed:

'Rosamund!'

Linda considered Rosamund Darnley severely and critically in the manner of youth.

She decided that she approved of Rosamund. Rosamund, she thought, was sensible. And her hair grew nicely – as though it fitted her – most people's hair didn't fit them. And her clothes were nice. And she had a kind of funny amused face – as though it were amused at herself, not at you. Rosamund had been nice to her, Linda. She hadn't been gushing or said things. (Under the term of 'saying things' Linda grouped a mass of miscellaneous dislikes.) And Rosamund hadn't looked as though she thought Linda a fool. In fact she'd treated Linda as though she was a real human being. Linda so seldom felt like a real human being that she was deeply grateful when any one appeared to consider her one.

Father, too, had seemed pleased to see Miss Darnley.

Funny – he'd looked quite different, al of a sudden. He'd looked – he'd looked – Linda puzzled it out – why, young, that was it! He'd laughed – a queer boyish laugh. Now Linda came to think of it, she'd very seldom heard him laugh.

She felt puzzled. It was as though she'd got a glimpse of quite a different person. She thought:

'I wonder what Father was like when he was my age…'

But that was too difficult. She gave it up.

An idea flashed across her mind.

What fun it would have been if they'd come here and found Miss Darnley, here – just she and Father.

A vista opened out just for a minute. Father, boyish and laughing, Miss Darnley, herself – and all the fun one could have on the island – bathing – caves—

The blackness shut down again.

Arlena. One couldn't enjoy oneself with Arlena about. Why not? Well, she Linda, couldn't anyway. You couldn't be happy when there was a person there you – hated. Yes, hated. She hated Arlena.

Very slowly again that black burning wave of hatred rose up again.

Linda's face went very white. Her lips parted a little. The pupils of her eyes contracted. And her fingers stiffened and clenched themselves…

III

Kenneth Marshall tapped on his wife's door. When her voice answered, he opened the door and went in.

Arlena was just putting the finishing touches to her toilet. She was dressed in glittering green and looked a little like a mermaid. She was standing in front of the glass applying mascara to her eyelashes. She said:

'Oh, it's you, Ken.'

'Yes. I wondered if you were ready.'

'Just a minute.'

Kenneth Marshall strolled to the window. He looked out on the sea. His face, as usual, displayed no emotion of any kind. It was pleasant and ordinary.

Turning round, he said:

'Arlena?'

'Yes?'

'You've met Redfern before, I gather?'

Arlena said easily:

'Oh yes, darling. At a cocktail party somewhere. I thought he was rather a pet.'

'So I gather. Did you know that he and his wife were coming down here?'

Arlena opened her eyes very wide.

'Oh no, darling. It was the greatest surprise!'

Kenneth Marshall said quietly:

'I thought, perhaps, that that was what put the idea of this place into your head. You were very keen we should come here.'

Arlena put down the mascara. She turned towards him. She smiled – a soft seductive smile. She said:

'Somebody told me about this place. I think it was the Rylands. They said it was simply too marvellous – so unspoilt! Don't you like it?'

Kenneth Marshall said:

'I'm not sure.'

'Oh, darling, but you adore bathing and lazing about. I'm sure you'll simply adore it here.'

'I can see that you mean to enjoy yourself.'

Her eyes widened a little. She looked at him uncertainly.

Kenneth Marshall said:

'I suppose the truth of it is that you told young Redlfern that you were coming here?'

Arlena said:

'Kenneth darling, you're not going to be horrid, are you?'

Keneth Marshall said:

'Look here, Arlena. I know what you're like. They're rather a nice young couple. That boy's fond of his wife, really. Must you upset the whole blinking show?'

Arlena said:

'It's so unfair blaming me. I haven't done anything – anything at all. I can't help it if – '

He prompted her.

'If what?'

Her eyelids fluttered.

'Well, of course. I know people do go crazy about me. But it's not my doing. They just get like that.'

'So you do admit that young Redfern is crazy about you?'

Arlena murmured:

'It's really rather stupid of him.'

She moved a step towards her husband..

'But you know, don't you, Ken, that I don't really care for any one but you?'

She looked up at him through her darkened lashes.

It was a marvellous look – a look that few men could have resisted.

Kenneth Marshall looked down at her gravely. His face was composed. His voice quiet. He said:

'I think I know you pretty well, Arlena…'

IV

When you came out of the hotel on the south side the terraces and the bathing beach were immediately below you. There was also a path that led off round the cliff on the south—west side of the island. A little way along it, a few steps led down to a series of recesses cut into the cliff and labelled on the hotel map of the island as Sunny Ledge. Here cut out of the cliff were niches with seats in them.

To one of these, immediately after dinner, came Patrick Redfern and his wife. It was a lovely clear night with a bright moon.

The Redferns sat down. For a while they were silent.

At last Patrick Redfern said:

'It's a glorious evening, isn't it, Christine?'

'Yes.'

Something in her voice may have made him uneasy. . He sat without looking at her.

Christine Redfern asked in her quiet voice:

'Did you know that woman was going to be here?'

He turned sharply. He said:

'I don't know what you mean.'

'I think you do.'

'Look here, Christine. I don't know what has come over you – '

She interrupted. Her voice held feeling now. It trembled.

'Over me? It's what has come over you!'

'Nothing's come over me.'

'Oh! Patrick! It has! You insisted so on coming here. You were quite vehement. I wanted to go to Tintagel again where – where we had our honeymoon. You were bent on coming here.'

'Well, why not? It's a fascinating spot.'

'Perhaps. But you wanted to come here because she was going to be here.'

'She? Who is she?'

'Mrs. Marshall. You – you're infatuated with her.'

'For God's sake, Christine. Don't make a fool of yourself. It's not like to be jealous.'

His bluster was a little uncertain. He exaggerated it.

She said:

'We've been so happy.'

'Happy? Of course we've been happy! We are happy. But we shan't go on being happy if I can't even speak to another woman without you kicking up a row.'

'It's not like that.'

'Yes, it is. In marriage one has got to have – well – friendships with other people. This suspicious attitude is all wrong. I – I can't speak to a pretty woman without your jumping to the conclusion that I'm in love with her – '

He stopped. He shrugged his shoulders.

Christine Redfern said:

'You are in love with her…'

'Oh, don't be a fool, Christine! I've – I've barely spoken to her.'

'That's not true.'

'Don't for goodness' sake get into the habit of being jealous of every pretty woman we come across.'

Christine Redfern said:

'She's not just any pretty woman! She's – she's different! She's a bad lot! Yes, she is. She'll do you harm, Patrick, please, give it up. Let's go away from here.'

Patrick Redfern stuck out his chin mutinously. He looked, somehow, very young as he said defiantly:

'Don't be ridiculous, Christine. And – and don't let's quarrel about it.'

'I don't want to quarrel.'

'Then behave like a reasonable human being. Come on, let's go back to the hotel.'

He got up. There was a pause, then Christine Redfern got up too.

She said:

'Very well…'

In the recess adjoining, on the seat there, Hercule Poirot sat and shook his head sorrowfully.

Some people might have scrupulously removed themselves from earshot of a private conversation. But not Hercule Poirot. He had no scruples of that kind.

'Besides,' as he explained to his friend Hastings at a later date, 'it was a question of murder.'

Hastings said, staring:

'But the murder hadn't happened, then.'

Hercule Poirot sighed. He said:

'But already, mon cher, it was very clearly indicated.'

'Then why didn't you stop it?'

And Hercule Poirot, with a sigh, said as he had said once before in Egypt, that if a person is determined to commit murder it is not easy to prevent them. He does not blame himself for what happened. It was, according to him inevitable.

接着chapter 3

CHAPTER 3
I

Rosamund Darnley and Kenneth Marshall sat on the short springy turf of the cliff overlooking Gull cove. This was on the east side of the island. People came here in the morning sometimes to bathe when they wanted to be peaceful.

Rosamund said:

'It's nice to get away from people.'

Marshall murmured inaudibly:

'M – m, yes.'

He rolled over, sniffing at the short turf.

'Smells good. Remember the downs at Shipley?'

'Rather.'

'Pretty good, those days.'

'Yes.'

'You've not changed much, Rosamund.'

'Yes, I have. I've changed enormously.'

'You've been very successful and you're rich and all that, but you're the same old Rosamund.'

Rosamund murmured:

'I wish I were.'

'What's that?'

'Nothing. It's a pity, isn't it, Kenneth, that we can't keep the nice natures and high ideals that we had when we were young”'

'I don't know that your nature was ever particularly nice, my child. You used to get into the most frightful rages. You half-choked me once when you flew at me in a temper.'

Rosamund laughed. She said:

'Do you remember the day that we took Toby down to get water rats?'

They spent some minutes in recalling old adventures.

Then there came a pause.

Rosamund's fingers played with the clasp of her bag. She said at last:

'Kenneth?'

'Um.' His reply was indistinct. He was still lying on his face on the turf.

'If I say something to you that is probably outrageously impertinent will you never speak to me again?'

He rolled over and sat up.

'I don't think,' he said seriously, 'that I would ever regard anything you said as impertinent. You see, you belong.'

She nodded in acceptance of all that last phrase meant. She concealed only the pleasure it gave her.

'Kenneth, why don't you get a divorce from your wife?'

His face altered. It hardened – the happy expression died out of it. He took a pipe from his pocket and began filling it.

Rosamund said:

'I'm sorry if I've offended you.'

He said quietly:

'You haven't offended me.'

'Well then, why don't you?'

'You don't understand, my dear girl.'

'Are you – so frightfully fond of her?'

'It's not just a question of that. You see, I married her.'

'I know. But she's – pretty notorious.'

He considered that for a moment, ramming in the tobacco carefully.

'Is she? I suppose she is.'

'You could divorce her, Ken.'

'My dear girl, you've got no business to say a thing like that. Just because men lose their heads about her a bit isn't to say that she loses hers.'

Rosamund bit off a rejoinder. Then she said:

'You could fix it so that she divorced you – if you prefer it that way.'

'I dare say I could.'

'You ought to, Ken. Really, I mean it. There's the child.'

'Linda?'

'Yes, Linda.'

'What's Linda to do with it?'

'Arlena's not good for Linda. She isn't really. Linda, I think, feels things a good deal.'

Keneth Marshall applied a match to his pipe. Between puffs he said:

'Yes – there's something in that. I suppose Arlena and Linda aren't very good for each other. Not the right thing for a girl perhaps. It's a bit worrying.'

Rosamund said:

'I like Linda – very much. There's something – fine about her.'

Kenneth said:

'She's like her mother. She takes things hard like Ruth did.'

Rosamund said:

'Then don't you think – really – that you ought to get rid of Arlena?'

'Fix up a divorce?'

'Yes. People are doing that all the time.'

Keneth Marshall said with sudden vehemence:

'Yes, and that's just what I hate.'

'Hate?' She was startled.

'Yes. Sort of attitude to life there is nowadays. If take on a thing and don't like it, then you get yourself out of it as quick as possible! Dash it all, there's got to be such a thing as good faith. If you marry a woman and engage yourself to look after her, well it's up to you to do it. It's your show. You've taken it on. I'm sick of quick marriage and easy divorce. Arlena's my wife, that's all there is to it.'

Rosamund leaned forward. She said in a low voice:

'So it's like that with you? "Till death do us part"?'

Kenneth Marshall nodded his head.

He said:

'That's just it.'

Rosamund said:

'I see.'

II

Mr. Horace Blatt, returning to Leathercombe Bay down a narrow twisting lane, nearly ran down Mrs. Redfern at a corner.

As she flattened herself into the hedge, Mr. Blatt brought his Sunbeam to a halt buy applying the brakes vigorously.

'Hullo-ullo-ullo,' said Mr. Blatt cheerfully.

He was a large man with a red face and a fringe of reddish hair round a shining bald spot.

It was Mr. Blatt's apparent ambition to be the life and soul of any place he happened to be in. The Jolly Roger Hotel, in his opinion, given somewhat loudly, needed brightening up. He was puzzled at the way people seemed to melt and disappear when he himself arrived on the scene.

'Nearly made you into strawberry jam, didn't I?' said Mr. Blatt gaily.

Christine Redfern said:

'Yes, you did.'

'Jump in,' said Mr. Blatt.

'Oh, thanks – I think I'll walk.'

'Nonsense,' said Mr. Blatt. 'What's a car for?'

Yielding to necessity Christine Redfern got in.

Mr. Blatt restarted the engine which had stopped owing to the suddenness with which he had previously pulled up.

Mr. Blatt inquired:

'And what are you doing walking about all alone? That's all wrong, a nice-looking girl like you.'

Christine said hurriedly:

'Oh! I like being alone.'

Mr. Blatt gave her a terrific dig with his elbow, nearly sending the car into the hedge at the same time.

'Girls always say that, he said. 'They don't mean it. You know, that place, the Jolly Roger, wants a bit of livening up. Nothing jolly about it. No life in it. Of course there's a good amount of duds staying there. A lot of kids, to begin with and a lot of old fogeys too. There's that old Aglo-Indian bore and that athletic parson and those yapping Americans and that foreigner with the moustache – makes me laugh that moustache of his! I should say he's a hairdresser, something of that sort.'

Christine shook hr head.

'Oh no, he's a detective.'

Mr. Blatt nealy let the car go into the hedge again.

'A detective? D'you mea he's I disguise?'

Christine smiled faintly.

She said:

'Oh no, he really is like that. He's Hercule Poirot. You must have heard of him.'

Mr. Blatt said:

'Didn't catch his name properly. Oh yes, I've heard of him. But I thought he was dead. Dash it, he ought to be dead. What's he after down here?'

'He's not after anything – he's just on a holiday.'

'Well, I suppose that might be so,' Mr. Blatt seemed doubtful about it. 'Looks a bit of bounder, doesn't her?'

'Well,' said Christine and hesitated. 'Perhaps a little peculiar.'

'What I say is,' said Mr. Blatt, 'what's wrong with Scotland Yard? Buy British every time for me.'

He reached the bottom of the hill and with a triumphant fanfare of the horn ran the car into the Jolly Roger's garage which was situated, for tidal reasons, on the mainland opposite the hotel.

III

Linda Marshall was in the small shop which catered for the wants of visitors to Leathercombe Bay. One side of it was devoted to shelves on which were books which cold be borrowed for the sum of twopence. The newest of them was ten years old, some were twenty years old and others older still.

Linda took first one and the another doubtfully from the shelf and glanced into it. She decided that she couldn't possibly read The Four Feathers or Vice Versa. She took out a small squat volume in brown calf.

The time passed…

With a start Linda shoved the book back I the shelf as Christine Redfern's voice said:

'What are you reading, Linda?'

Linda said hurriedly:

'Nothing. I'm looking for a book.'

She pulled out The Marriage of William Ashe at random and advanced to the counter fumbling for twopence.

Christine said:

'Mr. Blatt just drove me home – after nearly running over me first. I really felt I couldn't walk all across the causeway with him, so I said I had to buy some things.'

Linda said:

'He's awful, isn't he? Always saying how rich he is and making the most terrible jokes.'

Christine said:

'Poor man. One really feels rather sorry for him.'

Linda didn't agree. She didn't see anything to be sorry for in Mr. Blatt. She was young and ruthless.

She walked with Christine Redfern out of the shop and down towards the causeway.

She was busy with her own thoughts. She liked Christine Redfern. She and Rosamund Darnley were the only bearable people on the island in Linda's opinion. Neither of them talked much to her for one thing. Now, as they walked, Christine didn't say anything. That, Linda thought, was sensible. If you hadn't anything worth saying why go chattering all the time?

She lost herself in her own perplexities.

She said suddenly:

'Mrs. Redfern, have you ever felt that everything's so awful- so terrible – that you'll – oh, burst…?'

The words were almost comic, but Linda's face, drawn and anxious, was not. Christine Redfern, looking at her at first vaguely, with scarcely comprehending eyes, certainly saw nothing to laugh at…

She caught her breath sharply.

She said:

'Yes – yes – I have felt – just that…'