Taken at the Flood - Agatha Christie [72]
He wanted very much to have a talk with Lynn Marchmont, and he suspected that Lynn Marchmont would not be averse to having a talk with him.
It was a lovely morning — one of those summer mornings in spring that have a freshness denied to a real summer’s day.
Poirot turned off from the main road. He saw the footpath leading up past Long Willows to the hillside above Furrowbank. Charles Trenton had come that way from the station on the Friday before his death. On his way down the hill, he had met Rosaleen Cloade coming up. He had not recognized her, which was not surprising since he was not Robert Underhay, and she, naturally, had not recognized him for the same reason. But she had sworn when shown the body that she had not even glanced at the face of the man she had passed on the footpath? If so, what had she been thinking about? Had she, by any chance, been thinking of Rowley Cloade?
Poirot turned along the small side road which led to the White House. The garden of the White House was looking very lovely. It held many flowering shrubs, lilacs and laburnums, and in the centre of the lawn was a big old gnarled apple tree. Under it, stretched out in a deck-chair, was Lynn Marchmont.
She jumped nervously when Poirot, in a formal voice, wished her ‘Good morning!’
‘You did startle me, M. Poirot. I didn’t hear you coming across the grass. So you are still here — in Warmsley Vale?’
‘I am still here — yes.’
‘Why?’
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
‘It is a pleasant out-of-the-world spot where one can relax. I relax.’
‘I’m glad you are here,’ said Lynn.
‘You do not say to me like the rest of your family, ‘When do you go back to London, M. Poirot?’ and wait anxiously for the answer.’
‘Do they want you to go back to London?’
‘It would seem so.’
‘I don’t.’
‘No — I realize that. Why, Mademoiselle?’
‘Because it means that you’re not satisfied. Not satisfied, I mean, that David Hunter did it.’
‘And you want him so much — to be innocent?’
He saw a faint flush creep up under her bronzed skin.
‘Naturally, I don’t want to see a man hanged for what he didn’t do.’
‘Naturally — oh, yes!’
‘And the police are simply prejudiced against him because he’s got their backs up. That’s the worst of David — he likes antagonizing people.’
‘The police are not so prejudiced as you think, Miss Marchmont. The prejudice against him was in the minds of the jury. They refused to follow the coroner’s guidance. They gave a verdict against him and so the police had to arrest him. But I may tell you that they are very far from satisfied with the case against him.’
She said eagerly:
‘Then they may let him go?’
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
‘Who do they think did do it, M. Poirot?’
Poirot said slowly: ‘There was a woman at the Stag that night.’
Lynn cried:
‘I don’t understand anything. When we thought the man was Robert Underhay it all seemed so simple. Why did Major Porter say it was Underhay if it wasn’t? Why did he shoot himself? We’re back now where we started.’
‘You are the third person to use that phrase!’
‘Am I?’ She looked startled. ‘What are you doing, M. Poirot?’
‘Talking to people. That is what I do. Just talk to people.’
‘But you don’t ask them things about the murder?’
Poirot shook his head.
‘No, I just — what shall we say — pick up gossip.’
‘Does that help?’
‘Sometimes it does. You would be surprised how much I know of the everyday life of Warmsley Vale in the last few weeks. I know who walked where, and who they met, and sometimes what they said. For instance, I know that the man Arden took the footpath to the village passing by Furrowbank and asking the way of Mr Rowley Cloade, and that he had a pack on his back and no luggage. I know that Rosaleen Cloade had spent over an hour at the farm with Rowley Cloade and that she had been happy there, unlike her usual self.’
‘Yes,’ said Lynn, ‘Rowley told me that. He said she was like someone having an afternoon out.’
‘Aha, he said that?’ Poirot paused and went on, ‘Yes, I know a lot of the comings and goings. And I have heard a lot about people’s difficulties — yours and your