Dead Man's Folly - Agatha Christie [67]
‘Girls like a bit of finery,’ said Mr Tucker indulgently. ‘I don’t mind a few bright colours myself, but I won’t have this ’ere mucky lipstick.’
‘A bit sharp I was with her,’ said Mrs Tucker, her eyes suddenly misty, ‘and her gorn in that terrible way. Wished afterwards I hadn’t spoken so sharp. Ah, nought but trouble and funerals lately, it seems. Troubles never come singly, so they say, and ’tis true enough.’
‘You have had other losses?’ inquired Poirot politely.
‘The wife’s father,’ explained Mr Tucker. ‘Come across the ferry in his boat from the Three Dogs late at night, and must have missed his footing getting on to the quay and fallen in the river. Of course he ought to have stayed quiet at home at his age. But there, yu can’t do anything with the old ’uns. Always pottering about on the quay, he was.’
‘Father was a great one for the boats always,’ said Mrs Tucker. ‘Used to look after them in the old days for Mr Folliat, years and years ago that was. Not,’ she added brightly, ‘as Father’s much loss, as you might say. Well over ninety, he was, and trying in many of his ways. Always babbling some nonsense or other. ’Twas time he went. But, of course, us had to bury him nice – and two funerals running costs a lot of money.’
These economic reflections passed Poirot by – a faint remembrance was stirring.
‘An old man – on the quay? I remember talking to him. Was his name –?’
‘Merdell, sir. That was my name before I married.’
‘Your father, if I remember rightly, was head gardener at Nasse?’
‘No, that was my eldest brother. I was the youngest of the family – eleven of us, there were.’ She added with some pride, ‘There’s been Merdells at Nasse for years, but they’re all scattered now. Father was the last of us.’
Poirot said softly:
‘There’ll always be Folliats at Nasse House.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
‘I am repeating what your old father said to me on the quay.’
‘Ah, talked a lot of nonsense, Father did. I had to shut him up pretty sharp now and then.’
‘So Marlene was Merdell’s granddaughter,’ said Poirot. ‘Yes, I begin to see.’ He was silent for a moment, an immense excitement was surging within him. ‘Your father was drowned, you say, in the river?’
‘Yes, sir. Took a drop too much, he did. And where he got the money from, I don’t know. Of course he used to get tips now and again on the quay helping people with boats or with parking their cars. Very cunning he was at hiding his money from me. Yes, I’m afraid as he’d had a drop too much. Missed his footing, I’d say, getting off his boat on to the quay. So he fell in and was drowned. His body was washed up down at Helmmouth the next day. ’Tis a wonder, as you might say, that it never happened before, him being ninety-two and half blinded anyway.’
‘The fact remains that it did not happen before –’
‘Ah, well, accidents happen, sooner or later –’
‘Accident,’ mused Poirot. ‘I wonder.’
He got up. He murmured:
‘I should have guessed. Guessed long ago. The child practically told me –’
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
‘It is nothing,’ said Poirot. ‘Once more I tender you my condolences both on the death of your daughter and on that of your father.’
He shook hands with them both and left the cottage. He said to himself:
‘I have been foolish – very foolish. I have looked at everything the wrong way round.’
‘Hi – mister.’
It was a cautious whisper. Poirot looked round. The fat child Marilyn was standing in the shadow of the cottage wall. She beckoned him to her and spoke in a whisper.
‘Mum don’t know everything,’ she said. ‘Marlene didn’t get that scarf off of the lady down at the cottage.’
‘Where did she get it?’
‘Bought it in Torquay. Bought some lipstick, too, and some scent – Newt in Paris – funny