Taken at the Flood - Agatha Christie [56]
‘Well,’ said Spence, eyeing Poirot rather doubtfully. ‘I suppose these things run pretty close to type. It’s a common sort of crime — blackmail resulting in murder.’
‘Not interesting, you would say? Usually, no. But this case is interesting, because, you see,’ said Poirot placidly, ‘it is all wrong.’
‘All wrong? What do you mean by all wrong?’
‘None of it is, how shall I put it, the right shape?’
Spence stared. ‘Chief Inspector Japp,’ he remarked, ‘always said you have a tortuous mind. Give me an instance of what you call wrong?’
‘Well, the dead man, for instance, he is all wrong.’
Spence shook his head.
‘You do not feel that?’ Poirot asked. ‘Oh, well, perhaps I am fanciful. Then take this point. Underhay arrives at the Stag. He writes to David Hunter. Hunter receives that letter the next morning — at breakfast time?’
‘Yes, that’s so. He admits receiving a letter from Arden then.’
‘That was the first intimation, was it not, of the arrival of Underhay in Warmsley Vale? What is the first thing he does — bundles his sister off to London!’
‘That’s quite understandable,’ said Spence. ‘He wants a clear hand to deal with things his own way. He may have been afraid the woman would have been weak. He’s the leading spirit, remember. Mrs Cloade is entirely under his thumb.’
‘Oh, yes, that shows itself plainly. So he sends her to London and calls on this Enoch Arden. We have a pretty clear account of their conversation from Beatrice Lippincott, and the thing that sticks out, a mile, as you say, is that David Hunter was not sure whether the man he was talking to was Robert Underhay or not. He suspected it, but he didn’t know.’
‘But there’s nothing odd about that, M. Poirot. Rosaleen Hunter married Underhay in Cape Town and went with him straight to Nigeria. Hunter and Underhay never met. Therefore though, as you say, Hunter suspected that Arden was Underhay, he couldn’t know it for a fact — because he had never met the man.’
Poirot looked at Superintendent Spence thoughtfully.
‘So there is nothing there that strikes you as — peculiar?’ he asked.
‘I know what you’re driving at. Why didn’t Underhay say straight out that he was Underhay? Well, I think that’s understandable, too. Respectable people who are doing something crooked like to preserve appearances. They like to put things in such a way that it keeps them in the clear — if you know what I mean. No — I don’t think that that is so very remarkable. You’ve got to allow for human nature.’
‘Yes,’ said Poirot. ‘Human nature. That, I think, is perhaps the real answer as to why I am interested in this case. I was looking round the Coroner’s Court, looking at all the people, looking particularly at the Cloades — so many of them, all bound by a common interest, all so different in their characters, in their thoughts and feelings. All of them dependent for many years on the strong man, the power in the family, on Gordon Cloade! I do not mean, perhaps, directly dependent. They had all their independent means of existence. But they had come, they must have come, consciously or unconsciously, to lean on him. And what happens — I will ask you this, Superintendent — What happens to the ivy when the oak round which it clings is struck down?’
‘That’s hardly a question in my line,’ said Spence.
‘You think not? I think it is. Character, mon cher, does not stand still. It can gather strength. It can also deteriorate. What a person really is, is only apparent when the test comes — that is, the moment when you stand or fall on your own feet.’
‘I don’t really know what you are getting at, M. Poirot.’ Spence looked bewildered. ‘Anyway, the Cloades are all right now. Or will be, once the legal formalities are through.’
That, Poirot reminded him, might take some time. ‘There is still Mrs Gordon Cloade’s evidence to shake. After all, a woman should know her own husband when she sees him?’
He put his head a little on one side and gazed inquiringly at the big Superintendent.
‘Isn’t it worth while to a woman not to recognize her husband if the income of a couple of million pounds