Peril at End House - Agatha Christie [62]
‘Oh, well,’ said Challenger, ‘that is such a long time ago it hardly counts. You are going to get to the bottom of this, aren’t you?’
‘That I swear. On the word of Hercule Poirot. I am the dog who stays on the scent and does not leave it.’
‘Good. Got any ideas?’
‘I have suspicions of two people.’
‘I suppose I mustn’t ask you who they are?’
‘I should not tell you! You see, I might possibly be in error.’
‘My alibi is satisfactory, I trust,’ said Challenger, with a faint twinkle.
Poirot smiled indulgently at the bronzed face in front of him. ‘You left Devonport at a few minutes past 8.30. You arrived here at five minutes past ten—twenty minutes after the crime had been committed. But the distance from Devonport is only just over thirty miles, and you have often done it in an hour since the road is good. So, you see, your alibi is not good at all!’
‘Well, I’m—’
‘You comprehend, I inquire into everything. Your alibi, as I say, is not good. But there are other things beside alibis. You would like, I think, to marry Mademoiselle Nick?’
The sailor’s face flushed.
‘I’ve always wanted to marry her,’ he said huskily.
‘Precisely. Eh bien—Mademoiselle Nick was engaged to another man. A reason, perhaps, for killing the other man. But that is unnecessary—he dies the death of a hero.’
‘So it is true—that Nick was engaged to Michael Seton? There’s a rumour to that effect all over the town this morning.’
‘Yes—it is interesting how soon news spreads. You never suspected it before?’
‘I knew Nick was engaged to someone—she told me so two days ago. But she didn’t give me a clue as to whom it was.’
‘It was Michael Seton. Entre nous, he has left her, I fancy, a very pretty fortune. Ah! assuredly, it is not a moment for killing Mademoiselle Nick—from your point of view. She weeps for her lover now, but the heart consoles itself. She is young. And I think, Monsieur, that she is very fond of you…’
Challenger was silent for a moment or two.
‘If it should be…’ he murmured.
There was a tap on the door.
It was Frederica Rice.
‘I’ve been looking for you,’ she said to Challenger. ‘They told me you were here. I wanted to know if you’d got my wrist-watch back yet.’
‘Oh, yes, I called for it this morning.’
He took it from his pocket and handed it to her. It was a watch of rather an unusual shape—round, like a globe, set on a strap of plain black moiré. I remembered that I had seen one much the same shape on Nick Buckley’s wrist.
‘I hope it will keep better time now.’
‘It’s rather a bore. Something is always going wrong with it.’
‘It is for beauty, Madame, and not for utility,’ said Poirot.
‘Can’t one have both?’ She looked from one to the other of us. ‘Am I interrupting a conference?’
‘No, indeed, Madame. We were talking gossip—not the crime. We were saying how quickly news spreads—how that everyone now knows that Mademoiselle Nick was engaged to that brave airman who perished.’
‘So Nick was engaged to Michael Seton!’ exclaimed Frederica.
‘It surprises you, Madame?’
‘It does a little. I don’t know why. Certainly I did think he was very taken with her last autumn. They went about a lot together. And then, after Christmas, they both seemed to cool off. As far as I know, they hardly met.’
‘The secret, they kept it very well.’
‘That was because of old Sir Matthew, I suppose. He was really a little off his head, I think.’
‘You had no suspicion, Madame? And yet Mademoiselle was such an intimate friend.’
‘Nick’s a close little devil when she likes,’ murmured Frederica. ‘But I understand now why she’s been so nervy lately. Oh! and I ought to have guessed from something she said only the other day.’
‘Your little friend is very attractive, Madame.’
‘Old Jim Lazarus used to think so at one time,’ said Challenger, with his loud, rather tactless laugh.
‘Oh! Jim—’ She shrugged her shoulders, but I thought she was annoyed.
She turned