Dead Man's Folly - Agatha Christie [61]
‘Yes. Of course it would let out De Sousa.’ The inspector looked dissatisfied. De Sousa was still his preferred suspect. ‘As you say, anyone who lived in the house, such as a servant or one of the family, might know about it. Someone just staying in the house would be less likely. People who only came in from outside, like the Legges, less likely still.’
‘The person who would certainly know about such a thing, and who could tell you if you asked her, would be Mrs Folliat,’ said Poirot.
Mrs Folliat, he thought, knew all there was to know about Nasse House. Mrs Folliat knew a great deal…Mrs Folliat had known straight away that Hattie Stubbs was dead. Mrs Folliat knew, before Marlene and Hattie Stubbs died, that it was a very wicked world and that there were very wicked people in it. Mrs Folliat, thought Poirot vexedly, was the key to the whole business. But Mrs Folliat, he reflected, was a key that would not easily turn in the lock.
‘I’ve interviewed the lady several times,’ said the inspector. ‘Very nice, very pleasant she’s been about everything, and seems very distressed that she can’t suggest anything helpful.’
Can’t or won’t? thought Poirot. Bland was perhaps thinking the same.
‘There’s a type of lady,’ he said, ‘that you can’t force. You can’t frighten them, or persuade them, or diddle them.’
No, Poirot thought, you couldn’t force or persuade or diddle Mrs Folliat.
The inspector had finished his tea, and sighed and gone, and Poirot had got out his jigsaw puzzle to alleviate his mounting exasperation. For he was exasperated. Both exasperated and humiliated. Mrs Oliver had summoned him, Hercule Poirot, to elucidate a mystery. She had felt that there was something wrong, and there had been something wrong. And she had looked confidently to Hercule Poirot, first to prevent it – and he had not prevented it – and, secondly, to discover the killer, and he had not discovered the killer. He was in a fog, in the type of fog where there are from time to time baffling gleams of light. Every now and then, or so it seemed to him, he had had one of those glimpses. And each time he had failed to penetrate farther. He had failed to assess the value of what he seemed, for one brief moment, to have seen.
Poirot got up, crossed to the other side of the hearth, rearranged the second square chair so that it was at a definite geometric angle, and sat down in it. He had passed from the jigsaw of painted wood and cardboard to the jigsaw of a murder problem. He took a notebook from his pocket and wrote in small neat characters:
‘Etienne de Sousa, Amanda Brewis, Alec Legge, Sally Legge, Michael Weyman.’
It was physically impossible for Sir George or Jim Warburton to have killed Marlene Tucker. Since it was not physically impossible for Mrs Oliver to have done so, he added her name after a brief space. He also added the name of Mrs Masterton since he did not remember of his own knowledge having seen Mrs Masterton constantly on the lawn between four o’clock and quarter to five. He added the name of Henden, the butler; more, perhaps, because a sinister butler had figured in Mrs Oliver’s Murder Hunt than because he had really any suspicions of the dark-haired artist with the gong stick. He also put down ‘Boy in turtle shirt’ with a query mark after it. Then he smiled, shook his head, took a pin from the lapel of his jacket, shut his eyes and stabbed with it. It was as good a way as any other, he thought.
He was justifiably annoyed when the pin proved to have transfixed the last entry.
‘I am an imbecile,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘What has a boy in a turtle shirt to do with this?’
But he also realized he must have had some reason for including this enigmatic character in his list. He recalled again the day he had sat in the Folly, and the surprise on the boy’s face at seeing him there. Not a very pleasant face, despite the youthful good looks. An arrogant ruthless face. The young man had come there for some purpose. He had come to meet someone, and it followed