Taken at the Flood - Agatha Christie [55]
‘So back we come — Rosaleen and David Hunter are the only two people who have a motive. Rosaleen Cloade was in London. But David, we know, was in Warmsley Vale that day. He arrived at 5.30 at Warmsley Heath station.’
‘So now we have Motive, written very big and the fact that at 5.30 and onward to some unspecified time, he was on the spot.’
‘Exactly. Now take Beatrice Lippincott’s story. I believe that story. She overheard what she says she overheard, though she may have gingered it up a little, as is only human.’
‘Only human as you say.’
‘Apart from knowing the girl, I believe her because she couldn’t have invented some of the things. She’d never heard of Robert Underhay before, for instance. So I believe her story of what passed between the two men and not David Hunter’s.’
‘I, too,’ said Poirot. ‘She strikes me as a singularly truthful witness.’
‘We’ve confirmation that her story is true. What do you suppose the brother and sister went off to London for?’
‘That is one of the things that has interested me most.’
‘Well, the money position’s like this. Rosaleen Cloade has only a life interest in Gordon Cloade’s estate. She can’t touch the capital — except, I believe, for about a thousand pounds. But jewellery, etc., is hers. The first thing she did on going to town was to take some of the most valuable pieces round to Bond Street and sell them. She wanted a large sum of cash quickly — in other words she had to pay a blackmailer.’
‘You call that evidence against David Hunter?’
‘Don’t you?’
Poirot shook his head.
‘Evidence that there was blackmail, yes. Evidence of intent to commit murder, no. You cannot have it both ways, mon cher. Either that young man was going to pay up, or else he was planning to kill. You have produced evidence that he was planning to pay.’
‘Yes — yes, perhaps that is so. But he may have changed his mind.’
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
‘I know his type,’ said the Superintendent thoughtfully. ‘It’s a type that’s done well during the war. Any amount of physical courage. Audacity and a reckless disregard of personal safety. The sort that will face any odds. It’s the kind that is likely to win the V.C.— though, mind you, it’s often a posthumous one. Yes, in wartime, a man like that is a hero. But in peace — well, in peace such men usually end up in prison. They like excitement and they can’t run straight, and they don’t give a damn for society — and finally they’ve no regard for human life.’
Poirot nodded.
‘I tell you,’ the Superintendent repeated, ‘I know the type.’
There was some few minutes of silence.
‘Eh bien,’ said Poirot at last. ‘We agree that we have here the type of a killer. But that is all. It takes us no further.’
Spence looked at him with curiosity.
‘You’re taking a great interest in this business, M. Poirot?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why, if I may ask?’
‘Frankly,’ Poirot spread out his hands, ‘I do not quite know. Perhaps it is because when two years ago, I am sitting very sick in my stomach (for I did not like air raids, and I am not very brave though I endeavour to put up the good appearance) when, as I say, I am sitting with a sick feeling here,’ Poirot clasped his stomach expressively, ‘in the smoking-room of my friend’s club, there, droning away, is the club bore, the good Major Porter, recounting a long history to which nobody listens; but me, I listen, because I am wishful to distract myself from the bombs, and because the facts he is relating seem to me interesting and suggestive. And I think to myself that it is possible that some day something may come of the situation he recounts. And now something has come of it.’
‘The unexpected has happened, eh?’
‘On the contrary,’ Poirot corrected him. ‘It is the expected that has happened — which in itself is sufficiently remarkable.’
‘You expected murder?’ Spence asked sceptically.
‘No, no, no! But a wife remarries. Possibility that first husband is still alive? He is alive. He may turn up? He does turn up! There may be blackmail. There is blackmail! Possibility, therefore, that blackmailer may be silenced? Ma foi, he is