The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding - Agatha Christie [85]
‘Voilà,’ he said. ‘That is what Cornworthy held in the lazy-tongs against Farley’s window. You remember, he hated cats? Naturally he rushed to the window.’
‘Why on earth didn’t Cornworthy come out and pick it up after he’d dropped it?’
‘How could he? To do so would have been definitely suspicious. After all, if this object were found what would anyone think – that some child had wandered round here and dropped it.’
‘Yes,’ said Stillingfleet with a sigh. ‘That’s probably what the ordinary person would have thought. But not good old Hercule! D’you know, old horse, up to the very last minute I thought you were leading up to some subtle theory of high-falutin’ psychological “suggested” murder? I bet those two thought so too! Nasty bit of goods, the Farley. Goodness, how she cracked! Cornworthy might have got away with it if she hadn’t had hysterics and tried to spoil your beauty by going for you with her nails. I only got her off you just in time.’
He paused a minute and then said:
‘I rather like the girl. Grit, you know, and brains. I suppose I’d be thought to be a fortune hunter if I had a shot at her . . . ?’
‘You are too late, my friend. There is already someone sur le tapis. Her father’s death has opened the way to happiness.’
‘Take it all round, she had a pretty good motive for bumping off the unpleasant parent.’
‘Motive and opportunity are not enough,’ said Poirot. ‘There must also be the criminal temperament!’
‘I wonder if you’ll ever commit a crime, Poirot?’ said Stillingfleet. ‘I bet you could get away with it all right. As a matter of fact, it would be too easy for you – I mean the thing would be off as definitely too unsporting.’
‘That,’ said Poirot, ‘is a typical English idea.’
Greenshaw’s Folly
I
The two men rounded the corner of the shrubbery.
‘Well, there you are,’ said Raymond West. ‘That’s it.’
Horace Bindler took a deep, appreciative breath.
‘But my dear,’ he cried, ‘how wonderful.’ His voice rose in a high screech of æsthetic delight, then deepened in reverent awe. ‘It’s unbelievable. Out of this world! A period piece of the best.’
‘I thought you’d like it,’ said Raymond West, complacently.
‘Like it? My dear –’ Words failed Horace. He unbuckled the strap of his camera and got busy. ‘This will be one of the gems of my collection,’ he said happily. ‘I do think, don’t you, that it’s rather amusing to have a collection of monstrosities? The idea came to me one night seven years ago in my bath. My last real gem was in the Campo Santo at Genoa, but I really think this beats it. What’s it called?’
‘I haven’t the least idea,’ said Raymond.
‘I suppose it’s got a name?’
‘It must have. But the fact is that it’s never referred to round here as anything but Greenshaw’s Folly.’
‘Greenshaw being the man who built it?’
‘Yes. In eighteen-sixty or seventy or thereabouts. The local success story of the time. Barefoot boy who had risen to immense prosperity. Local opinion is divided as to why he built this house, whether it was sheer exuberance of wealth or whether it was done to impress his creditors. If the latter, it didn’t impress them. He either went bankrupt or the next thing to it. Hence the name, Greenshaw’s Folly.’
Horace’s camera clicked. ‘There,’ he said in a satisfied voice. ‘Remind me to show you No. 310 in my collection. A really incredible marble mantelpiece in the Italian manner.’ He added, looking at the house, ‘I can’t conceive of how Mr Greenshaw thought of it all.’
‘Rather obvious in some ways,’ said Raymond. ‘He had visited the châteaux of the Loire, don’t you think? Those turrets. And then, rather unfortunately, he seems to have travelled in the Orient. The influence of the Taj Mahal is unmistakable. I rather like the Moorish wing,’ he added, ‘and the traces of a Venetian palace.’
‘One wonders how he ever got hold of an architect to carry out these ideas.’
Raymond shrugged his shoulders.
‘No difficulty about that, I expect,’ he said. ‘Probably the architect retired with a good income for life while poor old Greenshaw went bankrupt.