Dead Man's Folly - Agatha Christie [33]
‘Who’s this Monsieur Poirot, sir?’
‘You’d describe him probably as a scream,’ said Inspector Bland. ‘Kind of music hall parody of a Frenchman, but actually he’s a Belgian. But in spite of his absurdities, he’s got brains. He must be a fair age now.’
‘What about this De Sousa?’ asked the constable. ‘Think there’s anything in that, sir?’
Inspector Bland did not hear the question. He was struck by a fact which, though he had been told it several times, was only now beginning to register.
First it had been Sir George, irritated and alarmed. ‘My wife seems to have disappeared. I can’t think where she has got to.’ Then Miss Brewis, contemptuous: ‘Lady Stubbs was not to be found. She’d got bored with the show.’ And now Mrs Oliver with her theory that Lady Stubbs was hiding.
‘Eh? What?’ he asked absently.
Constable Hoskins cleared his throat.
‘I was asking you, sir, if you thought there was anything in this business of De Sousa – whoever he is.’
Constable Hoskins was clearly delighted at having a specific foreigner rather than foreigners in the mass introduced into the case. But Inspector Bland’s mind was running on a different course.
‘I want Lady Stubbs,’ he said curtly. ‘Get hold of her for me. If she isn’t about, look for her.’
Hoskins looked slightly puzzled but he left the room obediently. In the doorway he paused and fell back a little to allow Hercule Poirot to enter. He looked back over his shoulder with some interest before closing the door behind him.
‘I don’t suppose,’ said Bland, rising and holding out his hand, ‘that you remember me, M. Poirot.’
‘But assuredly,’ said Poirot. ‘It is – now give me a moment, just a little moment. It is the young sergeant – yes, Sergeant Bland whom I met fourteen – no, fifteen years ago.’
‘Quite right. What a memory!’
‘Not at all. Since you remember me, why should I not remember you?’
It would be difficult, Bland thought, to forget Hercule Poirot, and this not entirely for complimentary reasons.
‘So here you are, M. Poirot,’ he said. ‘Assisting at a murder once again.’
‘You are right,’ said Poirot. ‘I was called down here to assist.’
‘Called down to assist?’ Bland looked puzzled. Poirot said quickly:
‘I mean, I was asked down here to give away the prizes of this murder hunt.’
‘So Mrs Oliver told me.’
‘She told you nothing else?’ Poirot said it with apparent carelessness. He was anxious to discover whether Mrs Oliver had given the inspector any hint of the real motives which had led her to insist on Poirot’s journey to Devon.
‘Told me nothing else? She never stopped telling me things. Every possible and impossible motive for the girl’s murder. She set my head spinning. Phew! What an imagination!’
‘She earns her living by her imagination, mon ami,’ said Poirot dryly.
‘She mentioned a man called De Sousa – did she imagine that?’
‘No, that is sober fact.’
‘There was something about a letter at breakfast and a yacht and coming up the river in a launch. I couldn’t make head or tail of it.’
Poirot embarked upon an explanation. He told of the scene at the breakfast table, the letter, Lady Stubbs’ headache.
‘Mrs Oliver said that Lady Stubbs was frightened. Did you think she was afraid, too?’
‘That was the impression she gave me.’
‘Afraid of this cousin of hers? Why?’
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
‘I have no idea. All she told me was that he was bad – a bad man. She is, you understand, a little simple. Subnormal.’
‘Yes, that seems to be pretty generally known round here. She didn’t say why she was afraid of this De Sousa?’ ‘No.’
‘But you think her fear was real?’
‘If it was not, then she is a very clever actress,’ said Poirot dryly. ‘I’m beginning to have some odd ideas about this case,’ said Bland. He got up and walked restlessly to and fro. ‘It’s that cursed woman’s fault, I believe.’
‘Mrs Oliver’s?’
‘Yes. She’s put a lot of melodramatic ideas into my head.’
‘And you think they may be true?’
‘Not all of them – naturally – but one or two of them mightn’t be as wild as they sounded. It all depends…’ He broke off