Dead Man's Folly - Agatha Christie [26]
‘So…’ he said. ‘That which you expected has happened.’
‘You don’t mean…’ Mrs Oliver’s eyes widened in horror. She grasped for one of the basket chairs and sat down. ‘You can’t mean…She isn’t dead?’
Poirot nodded.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘She is dead. Though not very long dead.’
‘But how –?’
He lifted the corner of the gay scarf bound round the girl’s head, so that Mrs Oliver could see the ends of the clothes line.
‘Just like my murder,’ said Mrs Oliver unsteadily. ‘But who? And why?’
‘That is the question,’ said Poirot.
He forebore to add that those had also been her questions.
And that the answers to them could not be her answers, since the victim was not the Yugoslavian first wife of an Atom Scientist, but Marlene Tucker, a fourteen-year-old village girl who, as far as was known, had not an enemy in the world.
Chapter 7
Detective-Inspector Bland sat behind a table in the study. Sir George had met him on arrival, had taken him down to the boathouse and had now returned with him to the house. Down at the boathouse a photographic unit was now busy and the fingerprint men and the medical officer had just arrived.
‘This do for you here all right?’ asked Sir George.
‘Very nicely, thank you, sir.’
‘What am I to do about this show that’s going on, tell ’em about it, stop it, or what?’
Inspector Bland considered for a moment or two.
‘What have you done so far, Sir George?’ he asked.
‘Haven’t said anything. There’s a sort of idea floating round that there’s been an accident. Nothing more than that. I don’t think anyone’s suspected yet that it’s – er – well, murder.’
‘Then leave things as they are just for the moment,’ decided Bland. ‘The news will get round fast enough, I dare say,’ he added cynically. He thought again for a moment or two before asking, ‘How many people do you think there are at this affair?’
‘Couple of hundred I should say,’ answered Sir George, ‘and more pouring in every moment. People seem to have come from a good long way round. In fact the whole thing’s being a roaring success. Damned unfortunate.’
Inspector Bland inferred correctly that it was the murder and not the success of the fête to which Sir George was referring.
‘A couple of hundred,’ he mused, ‘and any one of them, I suppose, could have done it.’
He sighed.
‘Tricky,’ said Sir George sympathetically. ‘But I don’t see what reason any one of them could have had. The whole thing seems quite fantastic – don’t see who would want to go murdering a girl like that.’
‘How much can you tell me about the girl? She was a local girl, I understand?’
‘Yes. Her people live in one of the cottages down near the quay. Her father works at one of the local farms – Paterson’s, I think.’ He added, ‘The mother is here at the fête this afternoon. Miss Brewis – that’s my secretary, and she can tell you about everything much better than I can – Miss Brewis winkled the woman out and has got her somewhere, giving her cups of tea.’
‘Quite so,’ said the inspector, approvingly. ‘I’m not quite clear yet, Sir George, as to the circumstances of all this. What was the girl doing down there in the boathouse? I understand there’s some kind of a murder hunt – or treasure hunt, going on.’
Sir George nodded.
‘Yes. We all thought it rather a bright idea. Doesn’t seem quite so bright now. I think Miss Brewis can probably explain it all to you better than I can. I’ll send her to you, shall I? Unless there’s anything else you want to know about first.’
‘Not at the moment, Sir George. I may have more questions to ask you later. There are people I shall want to see. You, and Lady Stubbs, and the people who discovered the body. One of them, I gather, is the woman novelist who designed this murder hunt as you call it.’
‘That’s right. Mrs Oliver. Mrs Ariadne Oliver.’
The inspector’s eyebrows went up slightly.
‘Oh – her!’ he said. ‘Quite a best-seller. I’ve read a lot of her books myself.’
‘She’s a bit upset at present,’ said Sir George, ‘naturally, I suppose. I’ll tell her you’ll be wanting her, shall I? I don’t