Dead Man's Folly - Agatha Christie [52]
‘Eh bien,’ said Poirot to himself, ‘is this a murderer I have seen, or is it not?’
The young man had certainly been at the fête yesterday and had scowled when he had collided with Poirot, and just as certainly therefore he must know quite well that there was no through path by way of the woods to the ferry. If, indeed, he had been looking for a path to the ferry he would not have taken this path by the Folly, but would have kept on the lower level near the river. Moreover, he had arrived at the Folly with the air of one who has reached his rendezvous, and who is badly startled at finding the wrong person at the meeting place.
‘So it is like this,’ said Poirot to himself. ‘He came here to meet someone. Who did he come to meet?’ He added as an afterthought, ‘And why?’
He strolled down to the bend of the path and looked at it where it wound away into the trees. There was no sign of the young man in the turtle shirt now. Presumably he had deemed it prudent to retreat as rapidly as possible. Poirot retraced his steps, shaking his head.
Lost in thought, he came quietly round the side of the Folly, and stopped on the threshold, startled in his turn. Sally Legge was there on her knees, her head bent down to the cracks in the flooring. She jumped up, startled.
‘Oh, M. Poirot, you gave me such a shock. I didn’t hear you coming.’
‘You were looking for something, Madame?’
‘I – no, not exactly.’
‘You had lost something, perhaps,’ said Poirot. ‘Dropped something. Or perhaps…’ He adopted a roguish, gallant air, ‘Or perhaps, Madame, it is a rendezvous. I am, most unfortunately, not the person you came to meet?’
She had recovered her aplomb by now.
‘Does one ever have rendezvous in the middle of the morning?’ she demanded, questioningly.
‘Sometimes,’ said Poirot, ‘one has to have a rendezvous at the only time one can. Husbands,’ he added sententiously, ‘are sometimes jealous.’
‘I doubt if mine is,’ said Sally Legge.
She said the words lightly enough, but behind them Poirot heard an undertone of bitterness.
‘He’s so completely engrossed in his own affairs.’
‘All women complain of that in husbands,’ said Poirot. ‘Especially in English husbands,’ he added.
‘You foreigners are more gallant.’
‘We know,’ said Poirot, ‘that it is necessary to tell a woman at least once a week, and preferably three or four times, that we love her; and that it is also wise to bring her a few flowers, to pay her a few compliments, to tell her that she looks well in her new dress or new hat.’
‘Is that what you do?’
‘I, Madame, am not a husband,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘Alas!’ he added.
‘I’m sure there’s no alas about it. I’m sure you’re quite delighted to be a carefree bachelor.’
‘No, no, Madame, it is terrible all that I have missed in life.’
‘I think one’s a fool to marry,’ said Sally Legge.
‘You regret the days when you painted in your studio in Chelsea?’
‘You seem to know all about me, M. Poirot?’
‘I am a gossip,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘I like to hear all about people.’ He went on, ‘Do you really regret, Madame?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She sat down impatiently on the seat. Poirot sat beside her.
He witnessed once more the phenomenon to which he was becoming accustomed. This attractive, redhaired girl was about to say things to him that she would have thought twice about saying to an Englishman.
‘I hoped,’ she said, ‘that when we came down here for a holiday away from everything, that things would be the same again…But it hasn’t worked out like that.’ ‘No?’
‘No. Alec’s just as moody and – oh, I don’t know – wrapped up in himself. I don’t know what’s the matter with him. He’s so nervy and on edge. People ring him up and leave queer messages for him and he won’t tell me anything. That’s what makes me mad. He won’t tell me anything! I thought at first it was some other woman, but I don’t think it is. Not really…’
But her voice held a certain doubt which Poirot was quick to notice.
‘Did you enjoy your