ONE FOR THE MONEY Thirteen of the finest spellbinders that Agatha Christie ever wrote. TWO FOR THE SHOW Here is the pleasure of the marvelous plotmaking of the mistress of mystery coupled with the irresistible personalities of her star sleuths. THREE TO GET READY You'll want to lock, bolt, and chain your door for a triple guarantee that no one will interrupt your enjoyment of these riveting gems of suspense. FOUR TO GO :. Hercule Poirot, Miss Jane Marple, Harley Quin, and Mr. Parker Pyne join forces to form a matchless quartet of crime solvers supremely qualified to be your guide through the darkest realms of evil and most dazzling triumphs of mind over menace. Surprise! Surprise! AGATHA CHRISTIE A DELL BOOK lit- ?.j ^ ' ||P.'" ^ Published by / yS:. ' i ':K t ^Si^: ^: DELL PUBLISHING CO., INC. '"" <--' K' ^ ' l 1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza ' ; New York, New York 10017 ?1? Copyright © 1965 by Christie Copyrights Trust Copyright © 1924, 1928,1929, 1932,1940,1942,1944, 1957 by Agatha Christie Copyright 1930, by Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc. Copyright renewed 1952, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1968, 1970, 1975 by Agatha Christie Mallowan. All rights reserved. For information contact Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc. 79 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016. Dell ® TM 681510, Dell Publishing Co., Inc. . ^ ISBN: 0440183898 Reprinted by arrangement with Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc. .-/' ' ;: Printed in the United States of America Previous Dell Edition #8389 New Dell Edition First printing--January 1979 Contents DOUBLE SIN From Double Sin and Other Stories 9 THE ARCADIAN DEER From The Labors of Hercules 24 THE ADVENTURE OF JOHNNIE WAVERLY From Three Blind Mice and Other Stories 40 WHERE THERE'S A Will From The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories 54 GREENSHAW'S FOLLY From Double Sin and Other Stories 69 THE CASE OF THE PERFECT MAID From Three Blind Mice and Other Stories 93 AT THE BELLS AND MOTLEY From The Mysterious Mr. Quin 106 THE CASE OF THE DISTRESSED LADY From Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective 124 THE THIRD FLOOR FLAT From Three Blind Mice and Other Stories 135 THE PLYMOUTH EXPRESS From The Under Dog and Other Stories 154 THE MYSTEBT OF THE SPANISH SHAWL From The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories 169 THE CORNISH MYSTERY ^ '' From The Under Dog and Other Stories ' 187 THE WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION From The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories 202 iff. ''Ss. PREFACE in this uniqub collection of mystery stories, a superb raconteur presents thirteen surprise-ending masterpieces. In each of them she leads the reader gently down the garden path of her tale, planting clues right and left before his eyes while she deftly diverts his attention elsewhere. And each conclusion comes as a surprise, as logical as it is unexpected. Young people, good and bad as in real life, play an important part in these stories, and young readers will enjoy matching wits with them in these thirteen baffling mysteries. R.T.B. ^M ' -(^'^1?% ^'"""'iggr S-sS'ee'f;^ '''*§ GfS^i'l || DOUBLE SIN I had called in at my friend Poirot's rooms to find him sadly overworked. So much had he become the rage that every rich woman who had mislaid a bracelet or lost a pet kitten rushed to secure the services of the great Hercule Poirot. My little friend was a strange mixture of Flemish thrift and artistic fervor. He accepted many cases in which he had little interest owing to the first instinct being predominant. He also undertook cases in which there was a little or no monetary reward sheerly because the problem involved interested him. The result was that, as I say, he was overworking himself. He admitted as much himself, and I found little difficulty in persuading him to accompany me for a week's holiday to that well-known South Coast resort, Ebermouth. We had spent four very agreeable days when Poirot came to me, an open letter in his hand. "Mon ami, you remember my friend Joseph Aarons, the theatrical agent?" I assented after a moment's thought. Poirot's friends are so many and so varied, and range from dustmen to dukes. "Eh bien, Hastings, Joseph Aarons finds himself at Charlock Bay. He is far from well, and there is a little affair that it seems is worrying him. He begs me to go over and see him. I think, mon ami, that I must accede to his request. He is a faithful friend, the good Joseph Aarons, and has done much to assist me in the past." "Certainly, if you think so," I said. "I believe Charlock Bay is a beautiful spot, and as it happens I've never been there." . . - " '? 10 AGATHA CHRISTIE "Then we combine business with pleasure," said Poiri "You will inquire the trains, yes?" "It will probably mean a change or two," I said with grimace. "You know what these cross-country lines a To go from the South Devon coast to the North Dev coast is sometimes a day's journey." However, on inquiry, I found that the journey could accomplished by only one change at Exeter and that 1 trains were good. I was hastening back to Poirot With t information when I happened to pass the offices of t Speedy cars and saw written up: Tomorrow. All-day excursion to Charlock Bay. Starting 8:30 through some of the most beautiful scenery in Devon. I inquired a few particulars and returned to the ho full of enthusiasm. Unfortunately, I found it hard to ma Poirot share my feelings. "My friend, why this passion for the motor coach? T train, see you, it is sure? The tires, they do not burst; 1 accidents, they do not happen. One is not incommoded too much air. The windows can be shut and no dra admitted." I hinted delicately that the advantage of fresh air v what attracted me most to the motor-coach scheme. "And if it rains? Your English climate is so uncertain." "There's a hood and all that. Besides, if it rains bad the excursion doesn't take place." "Ah!" said Poirot. "Then let us hope that it rains." ^ "Of course, if you feel like that and ..." "No, no, man ami. I see that you have your heart set the trip. Fortunately, I have my great coat with me a two mufflers." He sighed. "But shall we have sufficient til at Charlock Bay?" "Well, I'm afraid it means staying the night there. Y see, the tour goes round by Dartmoor. We have lunch Monkhampton. We arrive at Charlock Bay about fc o'clock, and the coach starts back at five, arriving here at < o'clock." .,/" DOUBLE SIN ; 11 "So!" said Poirot. "And there are people who do this for pleasure! We shall, of course, get a reduction of the fare since we do not make the return journey?" "I hardly think thafs likely." ';i? .,„ , „ "You must insist." ' "Come now, Poirot, don't be mean. You know you're. coming money." "My friend, it is not the meanness. It is the business „ sense. If I were a millionaire, I would pay only what was; just and right." . |H As I had foreseen, however, Poirot'was doomed to fail in this respect. The gentleman who issued tickets at the Speedy office was calm and unimpassioned but adamant. His point was that we ought to return. He even implied that we ought to pay extra for the privilege of leaving the coach at Charlock Bay. Defeated, Poirot paid over the required sum and left the office. ^ "The English, they have no sense of money," he grumbled. "Did you observe a young man, Hastings, who paid over the full fare and yet mentioned his intention of leaving the coach at Monkhampton?" :'1:"' ';5^'- W^ff. "S^ "I don't .think I did. As a matter of fact;. ." ""''"' v!" "You were observing the pretty young lady who booked No. 5, the next seat to ours. Ah! Yes, my friend, I saw you. And that is why when I was on the point of taking seats No. 13 and 14--which are in the middle and as well sheltered as it is possible to be--you rudely pushed yourself forward and said that 3 and 4 would be better." "Really, Poirot," I said, blushing. " " "Auburn hair--always the auburn hair!" "At any rate, she was more worth looking at than an odd young man." "That depends upon the point of view. To me, the young man was interesting." Something rather significant in Poirot's tone made me look at him quickly. "Why? What do you mean?" "Oh! Do not excite yourself. Shall I say that he interested me because he was trying to grow a mustache and as yet the result is poor." Poirot stroked his own magnificent 12 AGATHA CHRISTIE mustache tenderly. "It is an art," he murmured, "the grow ing of the mustache! I have sympathy for all who attemp it." It is always difficult with Poirot to know when he is se rious and when he is merely amusing himself at one's ex pense. I judged it safest to say no more. The following morning dawned bright and sunny. / really glorious day! Poirot, however, was taking n( chances. He wore a woolly waistcoat, a mackintosh, i heavy overcoat, and two mufflers, in addition to wearing hi thickest suit. He also swallowed two tablets of "Anti grippe" before starting and packed a further supply. We took a couple of small suitcases with us. The pretty girl we had noticed the day before had a small suitcase and so did the young man whom I gathered to have beei the object of Poirot's sympathy. Otherwise, there was n< luggage. The four pieces were stowed away by the driver and we all took our places. Poirot, rather maliciously, I thought, assigned me thi outside place as "I had the mania for the fresh air" an< himself occupied the seat next to our fair neighbor. Pres ently, however, he made amends. The man in seat 6 was i noisy fellow, inclined to be facetious and boisterous, anc Poirot asked the girl in a low voice if she would like t( change seats with him. She agreed gratefully, and th< change having been effected, she entered into conversatiol with us and we were soon all three chattering together mer rily. She was evidently quite young, not more than nineteen and as ingenuous as a child. She soon confided to us th< reason for her trip. She was going, it seemed, on busines for her aunt who kept a most interesting antique shop ii Ebermouth. This aunt had been left in very reduced circumstance; on the death of her father and had used her small capita and a houseful of beautiful things which her father had lef to start in business. She had been extremely successful am had made quite a name for herself in the trade. Thi: girl, Mary Durrant, had come to be with her aunt an< learn the business and was very excited about it—mud DOUBLE SIN 13 preferring it to the other alternative--becoming a nursery governess or companion. Poirot nodded interest and approval to all this. "Mademoiselle will be successful, I am sure," he said gallantly. "But I will give her a little word of advice. Do;j,|^ not be too trusting, mademoiselle. Everywhere in the world''1"'-" there are rogues and vagabonds, even it may be on this very coach of ours. One should always be on the guard, suspicious!" She stared at him open-mouthed, and he noddedntw sapiently. "But yes, it is as I say. Who knows? Even I who speak to you may be a malefactor of the worst description." And he twinkled more than ever at her surprised face. We stopped for lunch at Monkhampton, and, after a few words with the waiter, Poirot managed to secure us a small table for three close by the window. Outside, in a big courtyard, about twenty char-a-bancs were parked--chara-bancs which had come from all over the county. The hotel dining room was full, and the noise was rather considerable, il "One can have altogether too much of the holiday spirit," I said with a grimace. Mary Durrant agreed. "Ebermouth is quite spoiled in the summers nowadays. My aunt says it used to be quite different. Now one can hardly get along the pavements for the crowd." ,"But it is good for business, mademoiselle." "Not home, mademoiselle. For your headache you tried the change of air, did you not? The air of Charlock Bay is very bracing, I believe." He took me by the arm and drew me toward the door. He paused there and spoke over his shoulder. "You must comprehend, I know everything. This little-- farce--it must cease." There was a menace in his tone. Miss Penn, her fao ghastly white, nodded mutely. Poirot turned to the girl. "Mademoiselle," he said gently, "you are young anc charming. But participating in these little affairs will lea< to that youth and charm being hidden behind prison wall --and I, Hercule Poirot, tell you that that will be a pity." Then he stepped out into the street and I followed him bewildered. "From the first, won ami, I was interested. When tha young man booked his place as far as Monkhampton only I saw the girl's attention suddenly riveted on him. Nov why? He was not of the type to make a woman look at bin for himself alone. When we started on that coach, I had i feeling that something would happen. Who saw the youn; man tampering with the luggage? Mademoiselle and made moiselle only, and remember she chose that seat--a sea facing the window--a most unfeminine choice. |%a "And then she comes to us with the tale of robbery--th< dispatch box forced which makes not the common sense as I told you at the time. "And what is the result of it all? Mr. Baker Wood ha; paid over good money for stolen goods. The miniature will be returned to Miss Penn. She will sell them and wil have made a thousand pounds instead of five hundred. / make the discreet inquiries and learn that her business is ii a bad state--touch and go. I say to myself--the aunt anc niece are in this together." "Then you never suspected Norton Kane?" . "Mon ami! With that mustache? A criminal is eithel clean shaven or he has a proper mustache that can he re' ^~ moved at will. But what an opportunity for the clever Mis; Penn--a shrinking elderly lady with a pink-andwhifa complexion as we saw her. But if she holds herself erect wears large boots, alters her complexion with a few un seemly blotches and--crowning touch--adds a few spars< hairs to her upper lip. What then? A masculine woman says Mr. Wood, and--'a man in disguise' say we at once." "She really went to Charlock yesterday?" i" "Assuredly. The train, as you may remember telling me left here at eleven and got to Charlock Bay at two o'clock DOUBLE SIN 23 Then the return train is even quicker--the one we came by. It leaves Charlock at four:five and gets here at six; fifteen. Naturally, the miniatures were never in the dispatch case at all. That was artistically forced before being packed. Mademoiselle Mary has only to find a couple of mugs who will be sympathetic to her charm and champion beauty in distress. But one of the mugs was no mug--he was Hercule Poirot!" I hardly liked the inference. I said hurriedly: "Then, when you said you were helping a stranger, you. were willfully deceiving me. That's exactly what you were doing." "Never do I deceive you, Hastings. I only permit you to deceive yourself. I was referring to Mr. Baker Wood--a stranger to these shores." His face darkened. "Ah! When I think of that imposition, that iniquitous overcharge; the same fare single to Charlock as return, my blood boils to protect the visitor! Not a pleasant man, Mr. Baker Wood, not, as you would say, sympathetic. But a visitorl And we visitors, Hastings, must stand together. Me, I am all for the visitors!" fc-^ I' . ' £, c^- The ARCADIAN DEER hercule poirot stamped his feet, seeking to war them. He blew upon his fingers. Flakes of snow melted ai dripped from the corners of his mustache. There was a knock at the door and a chambermaid a peared. She was a slow-breathing, thickset country girl an she stared with a good deal of curiosity at Hercule Poiro It was possible that she had never seen anything quite lik him before. She asked, "Did you ring?" | "I did. Will you be so good as to light the nre?" She went out and came back again immediately with ps per and sticks. She knelt down in front of the big Victoria grate and began to lay a fee. Hercule Poirot continued to stamp his feet, swing hi arms, and blow on his fingers. He was annoyed. His car--an expensive Messarro Gral --had not behaved with that mechanical perfection whic he expected of a car. His chauffeur, a young man who er joyed a handsome salary, had not succeeded in puttin things right The car had staged a final refusal in a seeoi dary road a mile and a half from anywhere with a fall c snow beginning. Hercule'Poirot, wearing his usual srnai patent leather shoes, had been forced to walk that mile an a half to reach the riverside village of Hartly Dene--a vi lage which, though showing every sign of animation i summertime, was completely moribund in winter. Th Black Swan had registered something like dismay at the a] rival of a guest The landlord had been almost eloquent s he pointed out that the local garage could supply a car i which the gentleman could continue his journey. ' THE ARCADIAN DEER 25 Hercule Poirot repudiated the suggestion. His Latin thrift was offended. Hire a car? He already had a car--a large car--an expensive car. In that car and no other he proposed to continued his journey back to town. And in any case, even if repairs to it could be quickly effected, he was not going on in this snow until next morning. He demanded a room, a fire, and a meal. Sighing, the landlord , ?' showed him to the room, sent the maid to supply the fire, and then retired to discuss with his wife the problem of the meal. An hour later, his feet stretched out toward the comforting blaze, Hercule Poirot reflected leniently on the dinner he had just eaten. True, the steak had been both tough and , „ full of gristle, the Brussels sprouts had been large, pale, and definitely watery, the potatoes had had hearts of [stone. Nor was there much to be said for the portion of * stewed apple and custard which had followed. The cheese had been hard and the biscuits soft. Nevertheless, thought Hercule Poirot, looking graciously at the leaping flames, and sipping delicately at a cup of liquid mud euphemistically called coffee, it was better to be full than empty, and after tramping snowbound lanes in patent leather shoes, to sit in front of the fire was Paradise! < i5K ; . jsfc There was a knock on the door and the chambermaid appeared. ^ "Please, sir, the man from the garage is here and would like to see you." 's!i? '; Hercule Poirot replied amiably, "Let him mount." The girl giggled and retired. Poirot reflected kindly that her account of him to her friends would provide entertainment for many winter days to come. There was another knock--a different knock--and Poirot called: "Come in." ; He looked up with approval at the young man who entered and stood there looking ill at ease, twisting his cap in his hands. Here, he thought, was one of the handsomest specimens of humanity he had ever seen, a simple young man with the outward semblance of a Greek god. ' agatha CHR1S11E g| The young man said in a low, liusky voice, "About the car, sir, we've brought it in. And we've got at the trouble. It's a matter of an hour's work or so." »; Poirot said, "What is wrong witi it?" || The young man plunged eageiV into technical details. Poirot nodded his head gently, lit he was not listening. Perfect physique was a thing he admired greatly. There were, he considered, too many rat in spectacles about. He said to himself approvingly. Yes, a Greek God--a young shepherd in Arcady. The man stopped abruptly. II was then that Hercule Poirot's brows knitted themselves for a second. His first reaction had been esthetic, his seond was mental. His eyes narrowed themselves curiously as e looked up. He said, "I comprehend. Yes, I;omprehend." He paused and then added, "My chauffeur he has already told me that which you have just said." || He saw the flush that came to ie other's cheek, saw the fingers grip the cap nervously. The young man stammered "Yes--er--yes, sir. I know." Hercule Poirot went on smcthly: "But you thought that you would also come and teltne yourself?" "Er--yes, sir, I thought I'd betr." "That," said Hercule Poirot, was very conscientious of you. Thank you." There was a faint but unmissable note of dismissal in the last words but he did not ex^ct the other to go and he^ was right. The young man did nonove. |||. His fingers moved convulsive, crushing the tweed cap, and he said ia a still lower, embaassed voice: "Er--excuse me, sir--but it'tme, isn't it, that you're the detective gentleman--you'r Mr. Hercules Pwamt?" He said the name carefully. Poirot said, "That is so." Red crept up the young man'sice. He said, "I read a piece abouPU in the paper." "Yes?" The boy was now scarlet. Th< was distress in his eyes- distress and appeal. Hercule Pot came to his aid. THE ARCADIAN DEER 27 He said gently, "Yes? What is it you want to ask me?" The words came with a rush now. "I'm afraid you may think it's awful cheek of me, sir. But your coming here by chance like this--well, it's too good to be missed. Having read about you and the clever things you've done, anyway, I said as after all I might as well ask you. There's no harm in asking, is there?" Hereule Poirot shook his head. He said, "You want my help in some way?" w!&! ®" The other nodded. He said, his voice husky and embar" rassed, "It's--it's about a young lady. If--if you could find her for me." "Find her? Has she disappeared, then?" ^ "That's right, sir." .p.^< t- , »,^ Hereule Poirot sat up in his chair?^ ' ' ;<, . '.a He said sharply, "I could help you, perhaps, yes. But the proper people for you to go to are the police. It is their job and they have far more resources at their disposal than I have." ,... ,,,„ ,.^,,^ ...,_.,,:,,,. The boy shuffled his feet. '? ^v. ^-lyN^ ^.sS^flw.. He said awkwardly, "I couldn't do that, sir. It's not like that at all. It's all rather peculiar, so to speak." Hereule Poirot stared at him. Then he indicated a chair. "Eh bien, then, sit down--what is your name?" "Williamson, sir, Ted Williamson." ^w *» "Sit down, Ted. And tell me all about it." "Thank you, sir." -He drew forward the chair and sat down carefully on the edge of it. His eyes had still that appealing doglike look. Hereule Poirot said gently, 'Tell me." Ted Williamson drew a deep breath. "Well, you see, sir, it was like this. I never saw her but the once. And I don't know her right name nor anything. But it's queer like, the whole thing, and my letter coming back and everything." "Start," said Hereule Poirot, "at the beginning. Do not fayrry yourself. Just tell me everything that occurred." ? ^ "Yes, sir. Well, perhaps you know Grasslawn, sir, that big house down by the river past the bridge?" "I know nothing at all." 28 AGATHA CHRISTIE "Belongs to Sir George Sanderfield, it does. He uses it in the summertime for week-ends and parties--rather a gay lot he has down as a rule. Actresses and that. Well, it was in last June--and the radio was out of order and they sent me up to see to it." Poirot nodded. "So I went along. The gentleman was out on the river with his guests and the cook was out and his manservant had gone along to serve the drinks and all that on the launch. There was only this girl in the house--she was the lady's-maid to one of the guests. She let me in and showed me where the set was, and stayed there while I was working on it. And so we got to talking and all that. Nita her name was, so she told me, and she was lady's-maid to a Russian dancer who was staying there." |; "What nationality was she, English?" ' fe "No, sir, she'd be French, I think. She'd a funny sort of accent. But she spoke English all right. She--she was friendly and after a bit I asked her if she could come out that night and go to the pictures, but she said her lady would be needing her. But then she said as how she could get off early in the afternoon because as how they wasn't going to be back off the river till late. So the long and the short of it was that I took the afternoon off without asking (and nearly got the sack for it too) and we went for a walk along by the river." |, He paused. A little smile hovered on his lips. His eyes were dreamy, gg; / Poirot said gently, "And she was pretty, yes?" £ "She was just the loveliest thing you ever saw. Her hair was like gold--it went up each side like wings--and she had a gay kind of way of tripping along. I--I--well, I fell for her right away, sir. I'm not pretending anything else." Poirot nodded. The young man went on: "She said as how her lady would be coming down again in a fortnight and we fixed up to meet again then." He paused. "But she never came. I waited for her at the spot she'd said, but not a sign of her, and at last I made bold to go up to the house and ask for her. The Russian lady was staying there all right and her ? THE ARCADIAN DEER 29 maid, too, they said. Sent for her, they did, but when she came, why, it wasn't Nita at all! Just a dark, catty-looking girl--a bold lot if there ever was one. Marie, they called her. 'You want to see me?' she says, simpering all over. She must have seen I was took aback. I said was she the Russian lady's-maid and something about her not being the one I'd seen before, and then she laughed and said that the last maid had been sent away sudden. 'Sent away?' I said. 'What for?' She sort of shrugged her shoulders and stretched out her hands. 'How should I know?' she said. 'I was not there.' "Well, sir, it took me aback. At the moment I couldn't think of anything to say. But afterward I plucked up courage and I got to see this Marie again and asked her to get me Nita's address. I didn't let on to her that I didn't even know Nita's last name. I promised her a present if she did. what I asked--she was the kind as wouldn't do anything for you for nothing. Well, she got it all right for me--an address in North London, it was, and I wrote to Nita there --but the letter came back after a bit--sent back through the post office with no longer at this address scrawled on it." Ted Williamson stopped. His eyes, those deep blue steady eyes, looked across at Poirot. He said: "You see how it is, sir? It's not a case for the police. But I want to find her. And I don't know how to set about it K--if you could find her for me." His color deepened. "I've--I've a bit put by. I could manage five pounds--or even ten." Poirot said gently, "We need not discuss the financial side for the moment. First reflect on this point--this girl, this Nita--she knew your name and where you worked?"-;" "Oh, yes, sir." ^ "She could have communicated with you if she had wanted to?" w ; Ted said iD01^ slowly, "Yes, sir." '-v- ,,,.;> Poirot look^1 at him thoughtfully, lISt".' He rnumii"'®'1. "And you still want very much to find her?" The color s^Sed up in Ted Williamson's face. ; 30 AGATHA CHRISTIE He said, "Yes, I do, and that's that! I want to marry her if she'll have me. If you'll only try and find her for me, sir?" Hercule Poirot smiled. He said to himself, "Hair like wings of gold." Yes, I think this is the third Labor of Hercules. If I remember rightly, that happened in Arcady. ' Hercule Poirot looked thoughtfully at the sheet of paper on which Ted Williamson had laboriously inscribed a name and address. Miss Valetta, 17 Upper Renfrew Lane, VI.15. He wondered if he would learn anything at that address. Somehow he fancied not. But it was the only help Ted could give him. Seventeen Upper Renfrew Lane was a dingy but respectable street. A stout woman with bleary eyes opened the door to Poirot's knock. "Miss Valetta?" " i "Gone away a long time ago, she has." Poirot advanced a step into the doorway just as the door was about to close. . ^ "You can give me, perhaps, her address?" & "Couldn't say, I'm sure. She didn't leave one." ' "When did she go away?" "Last summer it was." gy "Can you tell me exactly when?" . SSk A clinking noise came from Poirot's right hand where two half crowns jostled each other in friendly fashion. The bleary-eyed woman softened in an almost magical manner. She became graciousness itself. "Well, I'm sure I'd like to help you, sir. Let me see now. August, no, before that--July--yes, July it must have been. About the third week in July. Went off in a hurry, she did. Back to Italy, I believe." . "She was an Italian, then?" "That's right, sir." "And she was at one time lady's-maid to a Russian dancer, was she not?" "That's right. Madame Semoulina or some such name. THE ARCADIAN DEER 31 Danced at the Thespian in this Bally everyone's so wild about. One of the stars, she was." poirot said, "Do you know why Miss Valetta left her post?" The woman hesitated a moment before saying, "I |couldn't say, I'm sure." ^>. "She was dismissed, was she not?" "Well--I believe there was a bit of a dust up! But mind you, Miss Valetta didn't let on much about it. She wasn't one to give things away. But she looked wild about it. Wicked temper she had--real Eyetalian--her black eyes all snapping and looking as if she'd like to put a knife into you. I wouldn't have crossed her when she was in one of her moods!" ajs^- ^S;:' y1'...' < "And you are quite sure you do not know Miss Valeria's present address?" The half crowns clinked again encouragingly. The answer rang true enough: "I wish I did, sir. I'd be only too glad to tell you. But there--she went off in a hurry and there it is!" .;., ;, Poirot said to. himself thoughtfully. Yes, there, it m,, t;;*' 1§^ I??' ^ Mis y^''. Ambrose Vahdel, diverted from his enthusiastic account of the decor he was designing for a forthcoming ballet, supplied information easily enough. "Sanderfield? George Sanderfield? Nasty fellow. Rolling in money but they say he's a crook. Dark horse! Affair with a dancer? But of course, my dear--with Katrina. Katrina Samoushenka. You must have seen her? Oh, my dear --too delicious. Lovely technique. The Swan of Tuolela-- you must have seen that? My decor! And the other thing of Debussy, or is it Mannine, 'La Biche au Bois'? She danced it with Michael Novgin. He's so marvelous, isn't he?" "And she was a friend of Sir George Sanderfield?" "Yes, she used to week-end with him at his house on the river. Marvelous parties I believe he gives." "Would it be possible, mon cher, for you to introduce me to Mademoiselle Samoushenka?" "But, my dear, she isn't here any longer. She went to 32 AGATHA CHRISTIE ^1 Paris or somewhere quite suddenly. You know, they do say that she was a Russian spy or something--not that I believe it myself--you know people love saying things like that. Katrina always pretended that she was a White Russian--her father was a prince or a grand duke--the usual thing! It goes down so much better." Vandel paused and | returned to the absorbing subject of himself. "Now as I I was saying, if you want to get the spirit of Bathsheba ' you've got to steep yourself in the Semitic tradition. I ex- ; press it by--" K| He continued happily. The interview that Hercule Poirot managed to arrange with Sir George Sanderfield did not start too auspiciously. The "dark horse," as Ambrose Vandel had called him, was slightly ill at ease. Sir George was a short square man with dark coarse hair and a roll of fat in his neck. He said, "Well, M. Poirot, what can I do for you? Er-- we haven't met before, I think?" 1,-- "No, we have not met." l' "Well, what is it? I confess, I'm quite curious." "Oh, it is very simple--a mere matter of information." The other gave an uneasy laugh. "Want me to give you some inside dope, eh? Didn't know you were interested in finance." "It is not a matter of les affaires. It is a question of a certain lady." "Oh, a woman." Sir George Sanderfield leaned back in his armchair. He seemed to relax. His voice held an easier note. Poirot said, "You were acquainted, I think, with Mademoiselle Katrina Samoushenka?" Sanderfield laughed. "Yes. An enchanting creature. Pity she's left London." "Why did she leave London?" "My dear fellow, I don't know. Row with the management, I believe. She was temperamental, you know--very Russian in her moods. I'm sorry that I can't help you but I haven't the least idea where she is now. I haven't kept up with her at all." THE ARCADIAN DEER 33 There was a note of dismissal in his voice as he rose to his feet. Poirot said, "But it is not Mademoiselle Samoushenka that I am anxious to trace." "It isn't?" "No, it is a question of her maid." "Her maid?" Sanderfield stared at him. Poirot said, "Do you--perhaps--remember her maid?" All Sanderfield's uneasiness had returned. He said awkwardly, "No, how should I? I remember she had one, of course. Bit of a bad lot, too, I should say. Sneaking, prying sort of girl. If I were you I shouldn't put any faith in a word that girl says. She's the kind of girl who's a born liar." Poirot murmured, "So actually you remember quite a lot about her?" Sanderfield said hastily, "Just an impression, that's all. Don't even remember her name. Let me see, Marie something or other--no, I'm afraid I can't help you to get hold of her. Sorry." Poirot said gently, "I have already got the name of Marie Hellin from the Thespian Theater--and her address. But I am speaking, Sir George, of the maid who was with Mademoiselle Samoushenka before Marie Hellin. I am speaking of Nita Valetta." Sanderfield stared. He said, "Don't remember her at all. Marie's the only one / remember. Little dark girl with a nasty look in her eye." Poirot said, 'The girl I mean was at your house, Grasslawn, last July." ' Sanderfield said sulkily, "Well, all I can say is I don't remember her. Don't believe she had a maid with her. I think you're making a mistake." Hercule Poirot shook his head. He did not think he was making a mistake. Marie Hellin looked swiftly at Poirot out of small intelli- 34 AGATHA CHRISTIE gent eyes and as swiftly away again. She said in smooth, even tones: "But I remember perfectly, Monsieur. I was engaged by Madame Samoushenka the last week in July. Her former maid had departed in a hurry." :. 1 "Did you ever hear why that maid left?" ' "She went--suddenly--that is all I know! It may have been illness--something of that kind. Madame did not say." Poirot said, "Did you find your mistress easy to get on with?" The girl shrugged her shoulders. "She had great moods. She wept and laughed in turns. Sometimes she was so despondent she would not speak or eat. Sometimes she was wildly gay. They are like that, these dancers. It is temperament." "And Sir George?" The girl looked up alertly. An unpleasant gleam came into her eyes. "Ah, Sir George Sanderfield? You would like to know about him? Perhaps it is that that you really want to know? The other was only an excuse, eh? Ah, Sir George, I could tell you some curious things about him, I could tell you--" Poirot interrupted. "It is not necessary." She stared at him, her mouth open. Angry disappointment showed in her eyes. , ;-;, „ "I always say you know everything, Alexis Pavlovitch." Hercule Poirot murmured the words with his most flattering intonation. , He was reflecting to himself that this third Labor of Hercules had necessitated more traveling and more interviews than could have been imagined possible. This little matter of a missing lady's-maid was proving one of the Ion- , gest and most difficult problems he had ever tackled. Every i clue, when examined, led exactly nowhere, j It had brought him this evening to the Samovar Restaurant in Paris whose proprietor. Count Alexis Pavlovitch, prided himself on knowing everything that went on in the artistic world. THE ARCADIAN DEER 35 He nodded now complacently. "Yes, yes, my friend, / know--I always know. You ask me where she is gone--the little Samoushenka, the exquisite dancer? Ah! she was the real thing, that little one." He kissed his finger tips. "What fire--what abandon! She would have gone far--she would have been the Premiere Ballerina of her day--and then suddenly it all ends--she creeps away--to the end of the world--and soon, ah! so soon, they forget her." "Where is she then?" demanded Poirot. "In Switzerland. At Vagray les Alpes. It is there that they go, those who have the little dry cough and who grow thinner and thinner. She will die, yes, she will die! She has a fatalistic nature. She will surely die." Poirot coughed to break the tragic spell. He wanted information. "You do not, by chance, remember a maid she had? A maid called Nita Valetta?" "Valetta? Valetta I remember seeing a maid once--at the station when I was seeing Katrina off to London. She was an Italian from Pisa, was she not? Yes, I am sure she was an Italian who came from Pisa." Hercule Poirot groaned. "In that case," he said, "I must now journey to Pisa." Hercule Poirot stood in the Campo Santo at Pisa and looked down on a grave. So it was here that his quest had come to an end--here by this humble mound of earth. Underneath it lay the joyous creature who had stirred the heart and imagination of a simple English mechanic. Was this perhaps the best end to that sudden, strange romance? Now the girl would live always in the young man's memory as he had seen her for those few enchanted hours of a July afternoon. The clash of opposing nationalities, of different standards, the pain of disillusionment, all that was ruled out forever. Hercule Poirot shook his head sadly. His mind went ^ck to his conversation with the Valetta family. The 36 " AGATHA CHRISTIE mother, with her broad peasant face; the upright, griefstricken father; the dark, hard-lipped sister. "It was sudden, Signore, it was very sudden. Though for; many years she had had pains on and off. The doctor gave us no choice--he said there must be an operation immediately for the appendicitis. He took her off to the hospital then and there. Si, si, it was under the anesthetic she died. She never recovered consciousness." The mother sniffed, murmuring, "Bianca was always such a clever girl. It is terrible that she should have died so young." ;«< ^ Hercule Poirot repeated to himself, She died young. '- & That was the message he must take back to the young man who had asked for his help so confidingly. ; '; She is not for you, my friend. She died young. " His quest had ended--here where the Leaning Tower was silhouetted against the sky and the first spring flowers were showing pale and creamy with their promise of life and joy to come. Was it the stirring of spring that made him feel so rebelliously disinclined to accept this final verdict? Or was it something else? Something stirring at the back of his brain --words--a phrase--a name? Did not the whole thing finish too neatly--dovetail too obviously? Hercule Poirot sighed. He must take one more journey to put things beyond any possible doubt. He must go to Vagray les Alpes. w|fe| "''s ay y. Here, he thought, really was the world's end. This shelf of snow--these scattered huts and shelters in each of which lay a motionless human being fighting an insidious death. So he came at last to Katrina Samoushenka. When he saw her, lying there with hollow cheeks in each of which was a vivid red stain, and long, thin, emaciated hands stretched out on the coverlet, a memory stirred him. He had not remembered her name, but he had seen her dance --had been carried away and fascinated by the supreme art that can make you forget art. He remembered Michael Novgin, the Hunter, leaping and THE ARCADIAN DEER 37 twirling m mat outrageous and fantastic forest that the brain of Ambrose Vandel had conceived. And he remembered the lovely flying Hind, eternally pursued, eternally desirable--a golden beautiful creature with horns on her head and twinkling bronze feet. He remembered her final collapse, shot and wounded, and Michael Novgin standing bewildered, with the body of the slain Deer in his arms. Katrina Samoushenka was looking at him with faint curiosity. She said, "I have never seen you before, have I? What is it you want of me?" ; Hercule Poirot made her a little bow. "First, I wish to thank you--for your art which made for me once an evening of beauty." She smiled faintly. * "But also I am here on a matter of business. I have been looking, for a long time for a certain maid of yours--her name was Nita." "Nita?" She stared at him. Her eyes were large and startled. She said, "What do you know about--Nita?" "I will teU you." ?,^, He told her of the evening when his car had broken down and of Ted Williamson standing there twisting his cap between his fingers and stammering out his love and his pain. She listened with close attention. She said when he had finished, "It is touching, that-- yes, it is touching." Hercule Poirot nodded. $a '; "Yes," he said. "It is a tale of Arcady, is it not? What can you tell me, Madame, of this girl?" Katrina Samoushenka sighed. "I had a maid--Juanita. She was lovely, yes--gay, light of heart. It happened to her what happens so often to those the gods favor. She died young." They had been Poirot's own words--final words--irrevo- cable words. Now he heard them again--and yet he persisted. He asked, "She is dead?" "Yes, she is dead." 38 AGATHA CHRISTIE Hercule Poirot was silent a minute, then he said: "Yet there is one thing I do not quite understand. I asked Sir George Sanderfield about this maid of yours and he seemed afraid. Why was that?" There was a faint expression of disgust on the dancer's face. "You just said a maid of mine. He thought you meant Marie--the girl who came to me after Juanita left. She tried to blackmail him, I believe, over something that she found out about him. She was an odious girl--inquisitive^ always prying into letters and locked drawers." , Poirot murmured, "Then that explains that" i-^ He paused a minute, then he went on, still persistent: ' "Juamta's other name was Valetta and she died of an | operation for appendicitis in Pisa. Is that correct?" a " am He noted the hesitation, hardly perceptible but nevertheless there, before the dancer bowed her head. ,. sw , "Yes, that is right" ' ' BiBl | Poirot said meditatively, "And yet--there is still a little point--her people spoke of her, not as Juanita but as Bianca." ., , Katrina shrugged her thin shoulders. ;?'4 || She said, "Bianca--Juanita, does it matter? I suppose her real name is Bianca but she thought the name of Juanita was more romantic and so chose to call herself by it" "Ah, you think that?" He paused and then, his voice changing, he said, "For me, there is another explanation." "What is it?" - j Poirot leaned forward. He said, 'The girl that Ted Williamson saw had hair that he described as being like wings of gold." He leaned still a little farther forward. His finger just touched the two springing waves of Katrina's hair. "Wings of gold, horns of gold? It is as you look at it, it is whether one sees you as devil or as angel! You might be either. Or are they perhaps only the golden horns of the stricken deer?" 'll.-' Katrina murmured, "The stricken deer . . ." and her voice was the voice of one without hope. | Poirot said, "All along Ted Williamson's description, THE ARCADIAN DEER 39 has worried me--it brought something to my mind--that something was you, dancing on your twinkling bronze feet through the forest. Shall I tell you what I think, Mademoiselle? I think there was a week when you had no maid, when you went down alone to Grasslawn, for Bianca Valetta had returned to Italy and you had not yet engaged a new maid. Already you were feeling the illness which has since overtaken you, and you stayed in the house one day when the others went on an all-day excursion on the river. There was a ring at the door and you went to it and you saw--shall I tell you what you saw? You saw a young man who was as simple as a child and as handsome as a god! And you invented for him a girl--not Juanita--but incognita--- and for a few hours you walked with him in Arcady." There was a long pause. Then Katrina said in a low hoarse voice: "In one thing at least I have told you the truth. I have given you the right end of the story. Nita will die young." "Ah, non!" Hercule Poirot was transformed. He struck his hand on the table. He was suddenly prosaic, mundane, practical. He said, "It is quite unnecessary! You need not die. You can fight for your life, can you not, as well as another?" She shook her head--sadly, hopelessly. ' "What life is there for me?" "Not the life of the stage, bien entendu! But think, there is another life. Come now, Mademoiselle, be honest, was your father really a prince or a grand duke, or even a general?" She laughed suddenly. ' She said, "He drove a lorry." 'Very good! And why should you not be the wife of a garage hand in a country village? And have children as beautiful as gods, and with feet, perhaps, that will dance as you once danced." Katrina caught her breath. "But the whole idea is fantastic!" "Nevertheless," said Hercule Poirot with great self-satisf action, "I believe it is going to come true!" ^ w l-'E'yL ' '"'" I '^l ^Ai.^: THE ADVENTURE OF JOHNNIE WAVERLY iM^'' a^ '; "you can understand the feelings of a mother," said Mrs. Waverly for perhaps the sixth time. She looked appealingly at Poirot. My little friend, always sympathetic to motherhood in distress, gesticulated reassuringly. "But yes, but yes, I comprehend perfectly. Have faith in Papa Poirot." "The police--" began Mr. Waverly. '^:, His wife waved the interruption aside. "I won't have anything more to do with the police. We , trusted to them and look what happened! But I'd heard so much of M. Poirot and the wonderful things he'd done, that I felt he might possibly be able to help us. A mother's feelings--" Poirot hastily stemmed the reiteration with an eloquent gesture. Mrs. Waverly's emotion was obviously genuine, but it assorted strangely with her shrewd, rather hard type of countenance. When I heard later that she was the daughter of a prominent steel manufacturer of Birmingham who had worked his way up in the world from an office boy to his present eminence, I realised that she bad inherited many of the paternal qualities. Mr. Waverly was a big florid jovial looking man. He stood with his legs straddled wide apart and looked the Ugl type of the country squire. "I suppose you know all about this business, M. Poirot?" The question was almost superfluous. For some days past the paper had been full of the sensational kidnapping of little Johnnie Waverly, the three-year-old son and heir THE ADVENTURE OF JOHNNIE WAVERLY 41 of Marcus Waverly, Esq., of Waverly Court, Surrey, one of the oldest families in England. "The main facts I know, of course, but recount to me the whole story, Monsieur, I beg of you. And in detail if you please." "Well, I suppose the beginning of the whole thing was about ten days ago when I got an anonymous letter-- beastly things, anyway--that I couldn't make head or tail of. The writer had the impudence to demand that I should pay him twenty-five thousand pounds--twenty-five thousand pounds, M. Poirot!--Failing my agreement, he threatened to kidnap Johnnie. Of course I threw the thing into the waste paper basket without more ado. Thought it was some silly joke. Five days later I got another letter. 'Unless you pay, your son will be kidnapped on the twentyninth,' That was on the twenty-seventh. Ada was worried, but I couldn't bring myself to treat the matter seriously. After all, we're in England. Nobody goes -about kidnapping children and holding them up to ransom." ^r? "It is not a common practice, certainly," said Poirot." "Proceed, Monsieur." "Well, Ada gave me no peace, so--feeling a bit of a fool --I laid the matter before Scotland Yard. They didn't seem to take the thing very seriously--inclined to my view that it was some silly joke. On the 28th I got a third letter. 'You have not paid. Your son will be taken from you at twelve o'clock noon to-morrow, the twenty-ninth. It will cost you fifty thousand pounds to recover him.' Up I drove to Scoty, land Yard again. This time they were more impressed.^: They inclined to the view that the letters were written by a^ii; lunatic, and that in all probability an attempt of some kind would be made at the hour stated. They assured me that they would take all due precautions. Inspector McNeil and a sufficient force would come down to Waverly on the morrow and take charge, it4p; "I went home much relieved in my tmind. Yet we already had the feeling of being in a state of siege. I gave orders that no stranger was to be admitted, and that no one was to leave the house. The evening passed off without any untoward incident, but on the following morning my wife 42 AGATHA CHRISTIE | was seriously unwell. Alarmed by her condition, I sent for Doctor Dakers. Her symptoms appeared to puzzle him. Whilst hesitating to suggest that she had been poisoned, I could see that that was what was in his mind. There was no danger, he assured me, but it would be a day or two before she would be able to get about again. Returning to my own room, I was startled and amazed to find a note pinned to my pillow. It was in the same handwriting as the others and contained just three words: 'At twelve o'clock.' "I admit, M. Poirot, that then I saw red! Someone in the house was in this--one of the servants. I had them all up, blackguarded them right and left. They never split on each other; it was Miss Collins, my wife's companion, who informed me that she had seen Johnnie's nurse slip down the drive early that morning. I taxed her with it, and she broke down. She had left the child with the nursery maid and stolen out to meet a friend of hers--a man! Pretty goings on! She denied having pinned the note to my pillow--she may have been speaking the truth, I don't know. I felt I couldn't take the risk of the child's own nurse being in the plot. One of the servants was implicated--of that I was sure. Finally I lost my temper and sacked the whole bunch, nurse and all. I gave them an hour to pack their boxes and get out of the house. Mr. Waverly's red face was quite two shades redder as he remembered his just wrath. "Was not that a little injudicious. Monsieur?" suggested ^Poirot. "For all you know, you might have been playing into the enemy's hands." Mr. Waverly stared at him. "I don't see that. Send the whole lot packing, that was my idea. I wired to London for a fresh lot to be sent down that evening. In the meantime, there'd be only people I could trust in the house, my wife's secretary, Miss Collins, and Tredwell, the butler, who had been with me since I was a boy." "And this Miss Collins, how long has she been with you?" "Just a year," said Mrs. Waverly. "She has been myalu- THE ADVENTURE OF JOHNNIE WAVERLY 43 able to me as a secretary companion, and is also a very efficient housekeeper." - ^ "The nurse?" ^ --s "She has been with me six months. She came to me with excellent references. All the same I never really liked her, although Johnnie was quite devoted to her." "Still, I gather she had already left when the catastrophe occurred. Perhaps, Monsieur Waverly, you will be so kind as to continue." ' ^ Mr. Waverly resumed his narrative. "Inspector McNeil arrived about 10:30. The servants had all left then. He declared himself quite satisfied with the internal arrangements. He had various men posted in the Park outside, guarding all the approaches to the house, and he assured me that if the whole thing were not a hoax, we should undoubtedly catch my mysterious correspondent. " "I had Johnnie with me, and he and I and the Inspector went together into a room we call the Council Chamber. The Inspector locked the door. There is a big grandfather clock there, and as the hands drew near to twelve I don't mind confessing that I was as nervous as a cat. There was a whirring sound, and the clock began to strike. I clutched Johnnie. I had a feeling a man might drop from the skies. The last stroke sounded, and as it did so, there was a great commotion outside--shouting and running. The Inspector ^lung up the window and a constable came running up. | " "We've got him, sir,' he panted. 'He was sneaking up through the bushes. He's got a whole dope outfit on him.' "We hurried out on the terrace where two constables were holding a ruffianly looking fellow in shabby clothes, who was twisting and turning in a vain endeavour to escape. One of me policemen held out an unrolled parcel which they'had wrested from their captive. It contained a pad of cotton wool and a bottle of chloroform. It made my blood boil to see it. There was a note, too, addressed to me. I tore it open. It bore the following words: 'You should have paid up. To ransom your son will now cost you fifty thousand. In spite of all your precautions he has been abducted at twelve o'clock on the 29th as I said.' ^ 44 AGATHA CHRISTIE i "I gave a great laugh, the laugh of relief, but as I did so I heard the hum of a motor and a shout. I turned my head. | Racing down the drive toward the South Lodge at a furi- '' ous speed was a low, long grey car. It was the man who drove it who had shouted, but that was not what gave me a shock of horror. It was the sight of Johnnie's flaxen curls. The child was in the car beside him. ; "The Inspector let go a shout. "The child was here not a minute ago,' he cried. His eyes swept over us. We were all there, myself, Tredwell, Miss Coffins. 'When did you see him last, Mr. Waverly?' "I cast my mind back, trying to remember. When the constable had called us, I had run out with the Inspector, forgetting all about Johnnie. 1 "And then there came a sound that startled us, the chim"lg of a church clock from the village. With an exclamation the Inspector pulled out his watch. It was exactly twelve o'clock. With one common accord we ran to the Council Chamber, the clock there marked the hour as ten minutes past. Someone must have deliberately tampered with it, for I have never known it gain or lose before. It is a perfect timekeeper." Mr. Waverly paused. Poirot smiled to himself and straightened a little mat which the anxious father had pushed askew. "A pleasing little problem, obscure and charming," murmured Poirot. "I will investigate it for you with pleasure. Truly it was planned a merveille." Mrs. Waverly looked at him reproachfully. "But my boy," she wailed. Poirot hastily composed his face and looked the picture of earnest sympathy again. "He is safe, Madame, he is unharmed. Rest assured, these miscreants will take the greatest care of him. Is he not to them the turkey--no, the goose--that lays the golden eggs?" "M. Poirot, I'm sure there's only one thing to be done-- Pay up. I was all against it at first--but now! A mother's feelings--" THE ADVENTURE OF JOHNNIE WAVERLY 45 "But we have interrupted Monsieur in his history," cried poirot hastily. "I expect you know the rest pretty well from the papers," said Mr. Waverly. "Of course. Inspector McNeil got on to the telephone immediately. A description of the car and the man was circulated all round, and it looked at first as though everything was going to turn out all right. A car, answering to the description, with a man and a small boy, had passed through various villages, apparently making for London. At one place they had stopped, and it was noticed that the child was crying and obviously afraid of his companion. When Inspector McNeil announced that the car had been spotted and the man and boy detained, I was almost ill with relief. You know the sequel. The boy was not Johnnie, and the man was an ardent motorist, fond of children, who had picked up a small child playing in the streets of Edenswell, a village about fifteen miles from us, and was kindly giving him a ride. Thanks to the cocksure blundering of the police, all traces have disappeared. Had they not persistently followed the wrong car, they might by now have found the boy." "i;»!»j "Calm yourself, Monsieur. The police are a brave and intelligent force of men. Their mistake was a very natural one. And altogether it was a clever scheme. As to the man they caught in the grounds, I understand that his defence has consisted all along of a persistent denial. He declares that the note and parcel were given to him to deliver at Waverly Court. The man who gave them to him handed him a ten shilling note and promised him another if it were delivered at exactly ten minutes to twelve. He was to approach the house through the grounds and knock at the side door." "I don't believe a word of it," declared Mrs. Waverly hotly. "Ifs aH a parcel of lies." "En verite, it is a thin story," said Poirot reflectively. "ut so far they have not shaken it. I understand also that he made a certain accusation?" His glance interrogated Mr. Waverly. The latter got rather red again. 46 AGATHA CHRISTIE | "The fellow had the impertinence -to pretend that he recognized in Tredwell the man who gave him the parcel. 'Only the bloke has shaved off his moustache.' Tredwell, who was born on the estate!" Poirot smiled a little at the country gentleman's indignation. "Yet you yourself suspect an inmate of the house to have been accessory to the abduction." "Yes, but not Tredwell." 3 "And you, Madame?" asked Poirot, suddenly turning to her. "It could not have been Tredwell who gave this tramp the letter and parcel--if anybody ever did, which I don't believe-- It was given him at ten o'clock, he says. At ten o'clock, Tredwell was with my husband in the smoking room." "Were you able to see the face of the man in the car, Monsieur? Did it resemble that of Tredwell in any way?" "It was too far away for me to see his face." "Has Tredwell a brother, do you know?" "He had several, but they are all dead. The last one was killed in the war." "I am not yet clear as to the grounds of Waverly Court. The car was heading for the South Lodge. Is there another entrance?" "Yes, what we call the East Lodge. It can be seen from the other side of the house." "It seems to me strange that nobody saw the car entering the grounds." "There is a right of way through, and access to a small chapel. A good many cars pass through. The man must have stopped the car in a convenient place, and run up to the house just as the alarm was given and attention attracted elsewhere." "Unless he was already inside the house," mused Poirot. "Is there any place where he could have hidden?" "Well, we certainly didn't make a thorough search of the house beforehand. There seemed no need. I suppose he might have hidden himself somewhere, but who would have let him in?" THE ADVENTURE OF JOHNNIE WAVERLY 47 "We shall come to that later. One thing at a time--let us be methodical. There is no special hiding place in the house? Waverly Court is an old place, and there are sometimes 'Priests' Holes,' as they call them." "By Gad, there is a Priest's Hole. It opens from one of the panels in the hall." "Near the Council Chamber?" , '. "Just outside the door." s^'; . "Voild!" "But nobody knows of its existence except my wife and myself." "Tredwell?" ^; ^^ >,,-,;4.- ,- . "Well--he might have heard of it." isp^a"^ ' "Miss CoUins?" ' SSS!^?h : .„.„,,„,..,,, "I have never mentioned it to her." fate^ Poirot reflected for a minute. ^, ;<1 "Well, Monsieur, the next thing is for me to come down ' to Waverly Court. If I arrive this afternoon, will it suit you?" "Oh! as soon as possible, please. Monsieur Poirot," cried Mrs. Waverly. "Read this once more." She thrust into his bands the last missive from the enemy which had reached the Waverlys that morning and which had sent her post haste to Poirot. It gave clever and explicit directions for the paying over of the money, and ' ended with a threat that the boy's life would pay for any, .;.;;' treachery. It was dear that a love of money warred with the®3l essential mother love of Mrs. Waverly, and that the latter was at last gaining the day. Poirot detained Mrs. Waverly for a minute behind her husband. "Madame, the troth, if you please. Do you share your husband's faith in the butler, Tredwell?" "I have nothing against him. Monsieur Poirot, I cannot see how he can have been concerned in this, but--well, I have never liked him--never!" , "~ "One other thing, Madame, can you give me the address of the child's nurse?" "149 Netberall Road, Hammersmith. You doa't imagine--" ..'y:, A.:, AGATHA CHRISTIE - lever do I imagine. Only--I employ the little "New And sometimes, just sometimes, I have a little idea-^i cells. Ai)irot came back to me as the door closed. | Poiro;o Madame has never liked the butler. It is intoro..- "Sol eh, Hastings?" ^^ that, ehrefused to be drawn. Poirot has deceived me so oft I refij now go warily. There is always a catch somewhere that I nifter completing an elaborate toilet, we set off for Nerii Aftei Road. We were fortunate enough to find Miss Jessie erall R*iers at home. She was a pleasant faced woman of thir. Witherive, capable and superior. I could not believe that she ty-five, d be mixed up in the affair. She was bitterly resentful could the way she had been dismissed, but admitted that she of the been in the wrong. She was engaged to be married to a had beiiter and decorator who happened to be in the neigh. pamtermood, and she had run out to meet him. The thing bourhoned natural enough. I could not quite understand. seemed'01. All his questions seemed to me quite irrelevant. Poirot.;y were concerned mainly with the daily routine of her They N at Waverly Court. I was frankly bored, and glad when life at rot took his departure. Poirot'Kidnapping is an easy job, man ami," he observed, a '^"hailed a taxi in the Hammersmith Road and ordered it he haL drive to Waterloo. "That child could have been to driucted with the greatest ease any day for the last three abducts." years.'*! don't see that that advances us much," I remarked "I i|§| where a real housemaid called you in the morning, all crack-; ^y ^ ling in a print dress and a cap. Yes, my boy, really--a 4' -i '^^ cap. Muslin with streamers. No, perhaps it was the parlor- j'^^llS maid who had the streamers. But anyway she was a reality housemaid and she brought in an enormous brass can of hot water. What an exciting day we're having." The figure in the print dress had straightened up and turned toward them, trowel in hand. She was a sufficiently startling figure. Unkempt locks of iron-grey fell wispily on vff, ' her shoulders and a straw hat, rather like the hats that 'ft^ horses wear in Italy, was crammed down on her head. The ; .;; colored print dress she wore fell nearly to her ankles. Out ;:^^ of a weather-beaten, not too clean face, shrewd eyes sur- ;^ . veyed them appraisingly. 1 ^ "I must apologize for trespassing. Miss Greenshaw," said Raymond West, as he advanced toward her, "but Mr. Horace Bindler who is slaying with me--" ?;§! Ife Horace bowed and removed his hat. ' *' "sl ,-, ;; "--is most interested in--er--ancient history and--er-- ys:% fine buildings." : , ,; ^ Raymond West spoke with the ease of a famous author (^ who knows that he is a celebrity, that he can venture where ' other people may not. Miss Greenshaw looked up at the sprawling exuberance behind her. "It is a fine house," she said appreciatively. "My grandfather built it--before my time, of course. He is reported as having said that he wished to astonish the natives." "I'll say he did that, ma'am," said Horace Bindler. "Mr. Bindler is the well-known literary critic," said Raymond West. Miss Greenshaw had clearly no reverence for literary cntlcs- She remained unimpressed. ^_I consider it," said Miss Greenshaw, referring to the 72 AGATHA CHRISTIE house, "as a monument to my grandfather's genius. Silly fools come here and ask me why I don't sell it and go and live in a flat. What would / do in a flat? It's my home and I live in it," said Miss Greenshaw. "Always have lived here." She considered, brooding over the past. "There were three of us. Laura married the curate. Papa wouldn't give her any money, said clergymen ought to be unworldly. She died, having a baby. Baby died, too. Nettie ran away with the riding master. Papa cut her out of his will, of course. Handsome fellow, Harry Fletcher, but no good. Don't think Nettie was happy with him. Anyway, she didn't live long. They had a son. He writes to me sometimes, but of course he isn't a Greenshaw. I'm the last of the Greenshaws." She drew up her bent shoulders with a certain pride, and readjusted the rakish angle of the straw hat. Then, turning, she said sharply: ,,,; "Yes, Mrs. Cresswell, what is it?" -; ' ||* Approaching them from the house was a figure that, seen side by side with Miss Greenshaw, seemed ludicrously dissimilar. Mrs. Cresswell had a marvelously dressed head of well-blued hair towering upward in meticulously arranged curls and rolls. It was as though she had dressed her head to go as a French marquise to a fancy dress party. The rest of her middle-aged person was dressed in what ought to have been rustling black silk but was actually one of the shinier varieties of black rayon. Although she was not a large woman, she had a well-developed and sumptuous bosom. Her voice, when she spoke, was unexpectedly deep. She spoke with exquisite diction--only a slight hesitation over words beginning with "h" and the final pronunciation of them with an exaggerated aspirate gave rise to a suspicion that at some remote period in her youth she might have had trouble over dropping her h's. "The fish, madam," said Mrs. Cresswell, "the slice of cod. It has not arrived. I have asked Alfred to go down for it and he refuses." Rather unexpectedly, Miss Greenshaw gave a cackle of laughter. "Refuses, does he?" "Alfred, madam, has been most disobliging." : >?.' GREENSHAW'S FOLLY - i* 73 Miss Greenshaw raised two earth-stained fingers to her lips, suddenly produced an ear-splitting whistle and at the same time yelled, "Alfred. Alfred, come here." Round the corner of the house a young man appeared in answer to the summons, carrying a spade in his hand. He had a bold, handsome face and as he drew near he cast an unmistakably malevolent glance toward Mrs. Cresswell. "You want me, miss?" he said. "Yes, Alfred. I hear you've refused to go down for the | fish. What about it, eh?" ||| Alfred spoke in a surly voice. "I'll go down for it if you wants it, miss. You've only got to say." , ,^y "I do want it. I want it for my supper." ; g^ "Right you are, miss. I'll go right away." . He threw an insolent glance at Mrs. Cresswell, who | flushed and murmured below her breath. "Now that I think of it," said Miss Greenshaw, "a couple of strange visitors are just what we need, aren't they, Mrs. Cresswell?" : ; Mrs. Cresswell looked puzzled. , ^i"'^1"1*-^ "I'm sorry, madam--" ||N ^ '''::' | "For you-know-what," said Miss Greenshaw, nodding her head. "Beneficiary to a will mustn't witness it. That's right, isn't it?" She appealed to Raymond West. "Quite correct," said Raymond. "I know enough law to know that," said Miss Greenshaw, "and you two are men of standing." > She flung down the trowel on her weeding basket. ! "Would you mind coming up to the library with me?" "Delighted," said Horace eagerly. She led the way through French windows and through a vast yellow and gold drawing-room with faded brocade on fte walls and dust covers arranged over the furniture, then through a large dim hall, up'a staircase, and into a room ^1 the second floor. . ,' ^B "My grandfather's library," she announced. : Horace looked round with acute pleasure. It was a room from his point of view quite full of monstrosities. The eads of sphinxes appeared on the most unlikely pieces of "., furniture, , ^m ww^ representing, he thought, Acre was a colossal br^ ^^ ^ ^ classical nA^ and V^'--d to take a photograph. L "A fine ^ifs of which he Songe Raymo^ of books," said miss_0r ^ ^^ ^ ^he could ^ d was already looking ^^ ^ ^ book her<;l of any re^e from a ^so^f? book which appeared to have been{i interest or, ^^^^biy bound sets of the classics a^ read. They were all sup ^ ^^ a gentleman's fV supplied ninety years B eriod were included. ^rary. Some no^ ° ^^ „ having been read. }ut they too showeo Miss C} -. ,, ;_ the drawers of a vast desk. Fin^eenshaw was fEumbli^; ^ ^^nt. "MY vvXally she pulled cout ^rf^^ ^ oney to someoneA^ffl," she explaimed^ Go ^^ ^ ^ I suppose that^__or so they sazy. H 1^ „. Handsome fel. low, Ha^ ^n of a horse, cope w°" ^ ^ Don't se^ry Fletcher, biut a ^^ ^is place. No, she went o^^hy hi. son should m^i ^ "I-ve ma^::, as though ar^eri S 0^ „ cresswell." ^ "You^, deupmymindi.lmlea b _ "Yes. ^C ho^ekeeper?'" ^ ^ will leaving h< all I've -Crve explainedl it ^^m^ her any ^ Saves n,C ^ and then I don^^^ ,, ,eeps heP; the mar^, ^ a lot in cunrent expen ^ ^ ai^ minute.^C,. ^o ^."^hat^ ther wa^i very ^-dl-d^w&^ a very small w nothing;^1^ a working P1^1"^ ^^ BY n.Cgt° ^eberse^;^^^ded ^^ Picking .,,y now Miss Q168^11^ ,1 in the iri^ "^i^s^^^^ ^r^,^^^^^^ momert Vghe handed the pen w _' repulsion "nk"0'''1. asked t{^t. feeling atnunexp^^ ^ ^. to^P^ W to do. Then. he ^y ^ ^ y_ least si^^^ h, for whiclh his mo ^« '^ast six requests. ^ ™^ GREENSHAWS pg^y 75 Horace took the pen from him ^ ^ded his own minute signature. That's done," said Miss Gree^haw. . She moved across to the book^gg ^ g^od looking at them uncertainly, then she opener 3 g^ joor, took out a book, and slipped the folded pare)^^ inside. "I've my own places for keeping things," she said. ;: "Lady Audley's Secret," Raymond West remarked, catching sight of the title as she re^^^gd the book. Miss Greenshaw gave another c^le of laughter. "Best-seller in its day," she relinked. "But not like your hooks, eh?" She gave Raymond a sudden friendly nudge in the ribs. Raymond was rather surprised ^hat she even knew he , wrote books. Although Raymond ^^ ^ ^ "b,g name" S tt literature, he could hardly be ascribed as a bestseller. Ttough softening a little with the advent of middle-age, his , ^ dealt bleakly with the sordic) g^g of life ' ^wonder," Horace demanded breathlessly, "if I might „ ^e a photograph of the cloc^ „ "?^ Syall means," said Miss Gr6^shaw;^"It came, I be- "from the Paris Exhibition." ^.y probably," said Horace. ^ fo^ his picture. a room s not been used m^ ,^ grandfather's / »dM,ss Greenshaw. "This desk's full of old diaries^ m my tt^? tblnk.1 ^^"'t ^ eyesl^ to "' was?" d Iget them Published, but I sup would have to work on th,, ., ., . „ could « ^m a good deal. wuia engage someone to ., „ „ ., „ i do that, said Raymond ld I really, n, an idea, y^ ^ ^ ^ ^: °_ West glanced at his w^,, ^"t trespass on your fc?011- I - kindness any longer, he [to have seen you" sai, r0"^ you were the t} s Greenshaw gfs-.,- , |HM the corner of th-^^^ when I ^^1$ ^1'ceman?" demand house" ' luestions. a Horace, who never AGATHA CHRISTIE Miss Greenshaw responded unexpectedly. "If you want to know the time, ask a policeman' carolled, and with this example of Victorian wit sh> nudged Horace in the ribs and roared with laughter. "It's been a wonderful afternoon," sighed Horace they walked home. "Really, that place has everything. The' only thing the library needs is a body. Those old-fashioned detective stories about murder in the library--that's just the kitd of library I'm sure the authors had in mind." "If you want to discuss murder," said Raymond, "you must talk to my Aunt Jane." "Your Aunt Jane? Do you mean Miss Marple?" Horace felt a little at a loss. The charming old-world lady to whom he had been introduced the night before seemed the last person to be mentioned in connection with murder. "Oh, yes," said Raymond. "Murder is a specialty of hers." s "But my dear, how intriguing! What do you really mean?" "I rnean just that," said Raymond. He paraphrased: "Some commit murder, some get mixed up in murders, others have murder thrust upon them. My Aunt Jane comes into the third category." 'H m "You are joking." " ^ "Not in the least. I can refer you to the former Commissioner of Scotland Yard, several Chief Constables, and one or two hard-working inspectors of the C.I.D." Horace said happily that wonders would never cease. Over the tea table they gave Joan West, Raymond's wife- Louise Oxiey, her niece, and old Miss Marple, a resume ^ the afternoon's happenings, recounting in detail everytriin? that Miss Greenshaw had said to them. "But I do think," said Horace, "that there is somethinga little sinister about the whole setup. That duchess-like creature, the: housekeeper--arsensic, perhaps, in the teapot, "0< that she knows her mistress has made the will in her favor?" "Tell us. Aunt Jane," said Raymond. "Will there beI murder or won't there? What do you think?" I GREENSHAW'S FOLLY 77 „ think," said Miss Marple, winding up her wool with a , severe air, "that you shouldn't joke about these ihinas as much as you do, Raymond. Arsenic is, of course, unite a possibility. So easy to obtain. Probably present in the tool shed already in the form of weed killer." "Oh, really, darling." said Joan West, affectionately. "Wouldn't that be rather too obvious?" "It's all very well to make a will," said Raymond. "I don't suppose the poor old thing has anything to leave except that awful white elephant of a house, and who would | want that?" '' : "A film company possibly," said Horace, "or a hotel or an institution?" "They'd expect to buy it for a song," said Raymond, but Miss Marple was shaking her head. "You know, dear Raymond, I cannot agree with you there. About the money, I mean. The grandfather was evidently one of those lavish spenders who make money easily Bbut can't keep it. He may have gone broke, as you say, but hardly bankrupt or else his son would not have had the house. Now the son, as is so often the case, was of an entirely different character from his father. A miser. A Bman who saved every penny. I should say that in the course of his lifetime he probably put by a very good sum. B^is Miss Greenshaw appears to have taken after him--to islike spending money, that is. Yes, I should think it quite likely that she has quite a substantial sum tucked away." "In that case," said Joan West, "I wonder now--what about Louise?" They looked at Louise as she sat, silent, by the fire. Louise was Joan West's niece. Her marriage had recent- 'Y' as she herself put it, come unstuck, leaving her with two young children and bare sufficiency of money to keep ttena on. "I mean," said Joan, "if this Miss Greenshaw really ^nts someone to go through diaries and get a book ready wr publication ..." "It's an idea," said Raymond. Louise said in a low voice, "It's work I could do--and I "link I'd enjoy it." 78 AGATHA CHRISTIE | "I'll write to ter," said Raymond. | "I wonder," said Miss Marple thoughtfully, "what th» old lady meant b^ that remark about a policeman?" "Oh, it was ju;t a joke." | "It reminded tie," said Miss Marple, nodding her head vigorously, "yes, it reminded me very much of Mr Naysmith." ?„,;> "Who was Mr. Naysmith?" asked Raymond, curiously. | "He kept bees," said Miss Marple, "and was very good ?at doing the acrostics in the Sunday papers. And he likec" giving people falsa impressions just for fun. But sometimes it led to trouble." ' '-3» . Everybody was silent for a moment, considering Mr Naysmith, but as ihere did not seem to be any points of re semblance between him and Miss Greenshaw, they decidei that dear Aunt Jane was perhaps a little bit disconnected ii hey old age. .;;-;., ys.*, - •-.•• • .•-. ^ Horace Bindler went back to London without havin collected any more monstrosities and Raymond West wrot a letter to Miss Greenshaw telling her that he knew of Mrs. Louise Oxiey who would be competent to undertak work on the diaries. After a lapse of some days a letter ai rived, written in spidery old-fashioned handwriting, i which Miss Greenshaw declared herself anxious to ava herself of the services of Mrs. Oxiey, and making an a pointment for Mrs. Oxiey to come and see her. Louise duly kept the appointment, generous terms we) arranged, and she started work the following day. "I'm awfully grateful to you," she said to Raymond. " will fit in beautifully. I can take the children to school, g on to Greenshaw's Folly, and pick them up on my wa back. How fantastic the whole setup is! That old woma has to be seen to be believed." On the evening of her first day at work she returns and described her day. "I've hardly seen the housekeeper," she said. "She cair in with coffee and biscuits at half-past eleven with hi mouth pursed up very prunes and prisms, and would ban ly speak to me. I think she disapproves deeply of my ha' eaged." She went on, "It seems there's quite a ing been e - ^gr and the gardener, Alfred. He's a local boy feud betwe ^ ^ should imagine, and he and the house- and won't speak to each other. Miss Greenshaw said in keepe1..^ grand way. There have always been feuds as far herra^ remember between the garden and the house staff. as as go in my grandfather's time. There were three men d a boy in the garden then, and eight maids in the house, W there was always friction.' " On the next day Louise returned with another piece of news. "Just fancy," she said, "I was asked to ring up the nephew today." 'Miss Greenshaw's nephew?" 'Yes. It seems he's an actor playing in the stock company that's doing a summer season at Boreham-on-Sea. I rang up the theater and left a message asking him to lunch tomorrow. Rather fun, really. The old girl didn't want the housekeeper to know. I think Mrs. Cresswell has done something that's annoyed her." "Tomorrow another installment of this thrilling serial," murmured Raymond. "It's exactly like a serial, isn't it? Reconciliation with the nephew, blood is thicker than water--another will to be made and the old will destroyed." "Aunt Jane, you're looking very serious." "Was I, my dear? Have you heard any more about the l policeman?" I Louise looked bewildered. "I don't know anything about a policeman." "That remark of hers, my dear," said Miss Marple, "must have meant something." Louise arrived at her work the following day in a cheerful mood. She passed through the open front door--the doors and windows of the house were always open. Miss Greenshaw appeared to have no fear of burglars, and was Probably justified, as most things in the house weighed sev- ^al tons and were of no marketable value. Louise had passed Alfred in the drive. When she first Boticed him he had been leaning against a tree smoking a AGATHA CHRISTIE a5 soon as he had caught sight of her he had idle young ^ ^ ^ go^gone ^s she passed through the tures renun ^,^y upstairs to the library, she glanced at the hall on ne ^ Nathaniel Greenshaw which presided over large pi0 e, showing him in the acme of Victorian ing on the ^ yp ^.g^ yie stomach to the face with its .her glan ^g bushy eyebrows and its flourishing black .heavy ]ovvis^ thought occurred to her that Nathaniel mustac , ^^gt have been handsome as a young man. He Greenshaw p^-haps, a little like Alfred . . . had looke , ^^ ^ library on the second floor, shut the <"le . i her, opened her typewriter, and got out the di. ^m be (be drawer at the side of her desk. Through the ;; anes ° , w she caught a glimpse of Miss Greenshaw be- open wi y^e-colored sprigged print, bending over the low, in .gding assiduously. They had had two wet days, rockery^ w ^^ ^ ^^ ^ advantage. of wbictt ^ ^wn-bred girl, decided that if she ever had a Louls.' (voii^ never contain a rockery which needed gar en b, band. Then she settled down to her work. weedlng ,(rs. Cresswell entered the library with the coffee h t-P3®1 s^^f' s^e was clearly in a very bad term- tta5r ^i. tinged the tray down on the table and observed per. t>"6 c .,. "prsC. to Ae uni^ ^ ^^_^ ^y^^g -^ ^g house! What i° .osed to do, I should like to know? And no sign am i supi "tt w^ sweeping m the drive when I got here," Louise °TLay. A nice soft job." : ?S ':M 1 (fesswell swept out of the room, slamming the s' ,.»d her- Louise grinned to herself. She wondered door .thf^P11^" would be like' ch ftftbed he1' coffee and settled down to her work . e Ttivas so absorbing that time passed quickly. ?' agaln 1 (reeoshaw, when he started to keep a diary, bad GREENSHAW'S FOLLY 81 succumbed to the pleasures of frankness. Typing out a passage relating to the personal charms of a barmaid in the neighboring town, Louise reflected that a good deal of editing would be necessary. As she was thinking this, she was startled by a scream from the garden. Jumping up, she ran to the open window. Below her Miss Greenshaw was staggering away from the rockery toward the house. Her hands were clasped to her breast and between her hands there protruded a feathered shaft that Louise recognized with stupefaction to be the shaft of an arrow. Miss Greenshaw's head, in its battered straw hat, fell forward on her breast. She called up to Louise in a failing voice: ". . . shot ... he shot me . . . with an arrow . . . get help . . ." Louise rushed to the door. She turned the handle, but the door would not open. It took a moment or two of futile endeavor to realize that she was locked in. She ran back to the window and called down. "I'm locked in!" Miss Greenshaw, her back toward Louise and swaying a little on her feet, was calling up to the housekeeper at a window farther along. " "Ring police . . . telephone ..." Then, lurching from side to side like a drunkard. Miss Greenshaw disappeared from Louise's view through the window and staggered into the drawing-room on the ground floor. A moment later Louise heard a crash of broken china, a heavy fall, and then silence. Her imagination reconstructed the scene. Miss Greenshaw must have ''tumbled blindly into a small table with a Sevres tea set on it. Desperately Louise pounded on the library door, calling ^d shouting. There was no creeper or drainpipe outside the ^ndow that could help her to get out that way. »k ed at last °^ ^^'"S on the door> Louise returned to "e window. From the window of her sitting-room farther a ""g, the housekeeper's head appeared. ^'Come and let me out, Mrs. Oxiey. I'm locked in." ^o am I." 82 AGATHA CHRISTIE . "Oh, dear, isn't it awful? I've telephoned ths~por -- There's an extension in this room, but what I can't und e stand, Mrs. Oxiey, is our .being locked .in. / never heard ' key turn, did you?" ; i|«y- "No. I didn't hear anything at all. Oh, dear, what shall we do? Perhaps Alfred might hear us." Louise shouted at the top of her voice, "Alfred, Alfred." / "Gone to his dinner as likely as not. What time is it?" .Louise glanced at her watch. |§§8 ^ i 'Twenty-five past twelve." te"? "He's not supposed to go until half-past, but he sneaks off earlier whenever he can." "Do you think--do you think--" Louise meant to ask "Do you think she's dead?"--but the words stuck in her throat. There was nothing to do but wait. She sat down on the window sill. It seemed an eternity before the stolid helmeted figure of a police constable came round the corner of the house. She leaned out of the window and he looked up at her, shading his eyes with his hand. "What's going on here?" he demanded, y^. I From their respective windows, Louise and Mrs. Cresswell -poured a flood of excited information down on him. The constable produced a notebook and a pencil. "You ladies ran upstairs and locked yourselves in? Can I have your names, please?" .-,« _ "Somebody locked us-tn. Come and let us out." H , The constable said reprovingly, "All in good time," and disappeared through the French window below. Once again time seemed infinite. Louise heard the sound of a car arriving, and, after what seemed an hour, but was actually only three minutes, first Mrs. Cresswell and then Louise were released by a police sergeant more alert than the original constable. "Miss Greenshaw?" Louise's voice faltered. "What-- what's happened?" ^ 9 The sergeant cleared his throat. "I'm sorry to have to tell you, madam," he said, "wba* as GREENSHAW'S FOLLY 83 , *oid Mrs. Cresswell here. Miss Greenshaw is fve a^'ea"y Murdered," said Mrs. Cresswell. "That's what it is-- II'u_e sergeant said dubiously, "Could have been an accident--some country lads shooting arrows." ..: j:^ ^Again there was the sound of a car arriving. ^The sergeant said, "That'll be the M.O." and he started downstairs, lift.'. -?y UBut it was not the M.O. As Louise and Mrs. Cresswell ^"ne down the stairs, a young man stepped hesitatingly through the front door and paused, looking round him with a somewhat bewildered air. ^ lit :^ Then, speaking in a pleasant voice that in some way seemed familiar to Louise--perhaps it reminded her of Miss Greenshaw's--he asked, "Excuse me, does--er--does Miss Greenshaw live here?" IIH;'?'^ "May I have your name if you please," said the sergeant, advancing upon him. "Fletcher," said the young man. "Nat Fletcher. I'm Miss Greenshaw's nephew, as a matter of fact." "Indeed, sir, well--I'm sorry--" ;a* "Has anything happened?" asked Nat Fletcher. " "There's been an--accident. Your aunt was shot with an arrow--penetrated the jugular vein--" Mrs. Cresswell spoke hysterically and without her usual refinement: "Your h'aunt's been murdered, that's what's 'appened. Your h'aunt's been murdered." Inspector Welch drew his chair a little nearer to the table and let his gaze wander from one to the other of the lour people in the room. It was evening of the same day. "e had called at Wests' house to take Louise Oxiey °nce more over her statement. "You are sure of the exact words? Shot--he shot me-- w" an arrow--get help?" ^-ouise nodded. . - off-S? - , ^And the time?" , „ looked at my watch a minute or two later--it was ^n 12:25-' ... ^ :..^, 84 AGATm chf "Your watch keeps good tinK11'1181^ "I looked at the clock as wel"®7" her accuracy, ell." Louise left no doubt of The Inspector turned to j^yc | "It appears, sir, that about ay"10"11 west- Horace Bindler were witnesses t a week ago you and a Mr" Briefly, Raymond recounted f- to Miss Greenshaw's will?" visit he and Horace Binder 3 Ae events of the afternoon Folly, r had paid to Greenshaw's "This testimony of yo^rs Welch. "Miss Greenshaw distin? "^V be ""P01'1'1"1'" said her will was being made ^ f^i^tly told you, did she, that housekeeper, and that she was favor of Mrs- cresswell> the any wages in view of the e^pec^ not P^"^ Mrs' cresswe11 of profiting by her death?" pectations Mrs. Cresswell had "That is what she told nig_} ' J "Would you say that Mrs Cn—ves-" of these facts?" ' Cresswell was definitely aware ^ "I should say undoubtedly j^ ', erence in my presence to bene- Miss Greenshaw made a rewitness a will and Mrs. Cressw's"6601"168 not being she meant by it. Moreover ^sswell clearly understood wna me that she had come t^' th Miss Greenshaw hersellto Cresswell." this arrangement with M • "So Mrs. Cresswell had i-easo „ in. terested pany. Motive clear enoi^011 to believe she was an ^ say she'd be our chief susp^t nenough in her case' a i, ?act that she was securely locked in^ now if it wasn>t for Q^ei here, and also that Miss Green3 in her room like Mrs' .nan shot her—" reenshaw definitely said a "She definitely was looker in "Oh, yes. Sergeant Cayley ]gt 1 m "hsr room?" ^ ioned lock with a big old-fash? let her out- Itls a big Jas r the lock and there's not a char^1110"^ key' The key be0 turned from inside or any ^an^charlce that u could "avA. ? you can take it definitely that "wky-panky of that kin _^ inside that room and couldn't c^1 Mrs- Ci'6'5'^11 wasere '* bows and arrows in the ro?"'1 S^ out- And there ^ couldn't in any case have been ' ro<>m an(^ ^lss . Arsw^ angle forbids it. No, Mrs.Ci-essw^" shot from her resswell's out." ^ &- GREENSHAW'S FOLLY / 85 He paused, then went on: "Would you say that Miss Greenshaw, in your opinion, was a practical joker?" fow^;: H Miss Marple looked up sharply from her corner. "So the will wasn't in Mrs. Cresswell's favor after all?" she said. Inspector Welch looked over at her in a rather surprised fashion. "That's'a very clever guess of yours, madam," he said. "No. Mrs. Cresswell isn't named as beneficiary." "Just like Mr. Naysmith," said Miss Marple, nodding her head. "Miss Greenshaw told Mrs. Cresswell she was going to leave her everything and so got out of paying her wages; and then she left her money to somebody else. No doubt she was vastly pleased with herself. No wonder she chortled when she put the will away in Lady Audley's Secret." "It was lucky Mrs. Oxiey was able to tell us about the will and where it was put," said the Inspector. "We might have had a long hunt for it otherwise." "A Victorian sense of humor," murmured Raymond West. "So she left her money to her nephew after all," said Louise. The Inspector shook his head. "No," he said, "she didn't leave it to Nat Fletcher. The story goes around here--of course I'm new to the place ^d I only get the gossip that's second-hand--but it seems hat in the old days both Miss Greenshaw and her sister ^ere set on the handsome young riding master, and the sisF"^ got him. No, she didn't leave the money to her ephew--." Inspector Welch paused, rubbing his chin. "She ^ it to Alfred," he said. Alfred--the gardener?" Joan spoke in a surprised ^Yes, Mrs. West. Alfred Pollock." ^fe | ^ why?" cried Louise. ; IthonT "^Tie coughed and murmured, "I would imagine, I what ^"^P8 I ^1 wrong, that there may have been-- I ^e might call family reasons." | tor. ou could call them that in a way," agreed the Inspec- ---- s quite well-known in the village, it seems, that 86 AGATHA CHRISTIE j Thomas Pollock, Alfred's grandfather, was one of oJrt x" Greenshaw's by-blows." "Of course," cried Louise, "the resemblance!" [ She remembered how after passing Alfred she had en into the house and looked up at old Greenshaw's portraii "I daresay," said Miss Marple, "that she thought Alfrf Pollock might have a pride in the house, might even wai to live in it, whereas her nephew would almost certain have no use for it whatever and would sell it as soon as) could possibly do so. He's an actor, isn't he? What play e j actly is he acting in at present?" Trust an old lady to wander from the point, thought I spector Welch; but he replied civilly, "I believe madai they are doing a season of Sir James M. Barrie's plays." jj "Barrie," said Miss Marple thoughtfully. "What Every Woman Knows," said Inspector Wek and then blushed. "Name of a play," he said quickly. "I' not much of a theater-goer myself," he added, "but f wife went along and saw it last week. Quite well done, s said it was." "Barrie wrote some very charming plays," said M Marple, "though I must say that when I went with an c friend of mine. General Easterly, to see Barrie's Lit Mary—" she shook her head sadly "—neither of us kn - where to look." The Inspector, unacquainted with the play Little Ma seemed completely fogged. Miss Marple explained: "When I was a girl. Inspect nobody ever mentioned the word stomach." The Inspector looked even more at sea. Miss Marple v murmuring titles under her breath. "The Admirable Chrichton. Very clever, Mary Rosecharming play. I cried, I remember. Quality Street I did care for so much. Then there was A Kiss for Cinderella. (. of course!" Inspector Welch had no time to waste on theatrical c cussion. He returned to the matter at hand. "The question is," he said, "did Alfred Pollock know i old lady had made a will in his favor? Did she tell bin He added, "You see—there's an Archery Club over at Be GREENSHAW'S FOLLY 87 "W Pollock's a member. He's a good shot in910~~^a. bow and arrow." d£ed wl n't your case quite clear?" asked Raymond ""The" ^ould fit in with the doors being locked on the "vt men--he'd know just where they were in the 'e Inspector looked at him. He spoke with deep melancholy. ^.} ? "He's got an alibi," said the Inspector. "I always think alibis are definitely suspicious," Raymond remarked. "Maybe, sir," said Inspector Welch. "You're talking as a writer." "I don't write detective stories," said Raymond West, horrified at the mere idea. "Easy enough to say that alibis are suspicious," went on Inspector Welch, "but unfortunately we've got to deal with facts." He sighed. "We've got three good suspects," he went on. 'Three people who, as it happened, were very close upon the scene at the time. Yet the odd thing is that it looks as though none of the three could have done it. The housekeeper I've already dealt with; the nephew, Nat Fletcher, at the moment Miss Greenshaw was shot, was a couple of miles away filling up his car at a garage and asking his way; as for Alfred Pollock, six people will swear that he entered the Dog and Duck at twenty past twelve and was there for an hour having his usual bread and cheese and beer." -^ ^it^ "Deliberately establishing an alibi," said Raymond West hopefully. "Maybe," said Inspector Welch, "but if so, he did establish it." ;; , :^ There was a long silence. Then Raymond turned his Pead to where Miss Marple sat upright and thoughtful. "It's up to you. Aunt Jane," he said. "The Inspector's psffled, the Sergeant's baffled, I'm baffled, Joan's baffled, ^ouise is baffled. But to you. Aunt Jane, it is crystal clear. Am I right?" "I wouldn't say that," said Miss Marple, "not crystal ear. And murder, dear Raymond, isn't a game. I don't sup i 00 AGATHA CHRISTIE ||j pose poor Miss Greenshaw wanted to die, and it was a par. ticulariy brutal murder. Very well-planned and quite cold|| blooded. It's not'a thing to make jokes about." "I'm sorry," said Raymond. "I'm not really as callous as I sound. One treats a thing lightly to take away from the- well, the horror of it." I "That is, I believe, the modern tendency," said Miss Marple. "All these wars, and having to joke about funerals. 1 Yes, perhaps I was thoughtless when I implied that you I'll were callous." 1 "It isn't," said Joan, "as though we'd known her at all I welL" I'll "That is very true," said Miss Marple. "You, dear Joan, did not know her at all. I did not know her at all. Ray„ mond gathered an impression of her from one afternoon's " conversation. Louise knew her for only two days." "Come now. Aunt Jane," said Raymond, "tell us your views. You don't mind. Inspector?" "Not at all," said the Inspector politely. ^ "Well, my dear, it would seem that we have three people who had--or might have thought they had--a motive to kill the old lady. And three quite simple reasons why none of the three could have done so. The housekeeper could not have killed Miss Greenshaw because she was locked in her room and because her mistress definitely stated that a man shot her. The gardener was inside the Dog and Duck at the time, the nephew at the garage." ^ | "Very clearly put, madam," said the Inspector. "And since it seems most unlikely that any outsider should have done it, where, then, are we?" "That's what the Inspector wants to know," said RaY" mond West. "*|| A " "One so often looks at a thing the wrong way round, said Miss Marple apologetically. "If we can't alter the movements or the positions of those three people, then couldn't we perhaps alter the time of the murder?" "You mean that both my watch and the clock were wrong?" asked Louise. "No, dear," said Miss Marple, "I didn't mean that at all- ^ GREENSHAW'S FOLLY ] mean that the murder didn't occur when you tho1^"1 ri occurred." "But I saw it," cried Louise. "Well, what I have been wondering, my dea<'' was whether you weren't meant to see it. I've been aski^S "myself, you know, whether that wasn't the real reasf0 ^V you were engaged for this job." "What do you mean. Aunt Jane?" "Well, dear, it seems odd. Miss Greenshaw did t^ like spending money--yet she engaged you and agree*? I11116 willingly to the terms you asked. It seems to me tn91 P01" haps you were meant to be there in that library on t^ sec" and floor, looking out of the window so that you c^" e the key witness--someone from outside of irrepro? v good character--to fix a definite time and place f01 e murder." "But you can't mean," said Louise, incredulously' l Miss Greenshaw intended to be murdered." "What I mean, dear," said Miss Marple, "is th01 you didn't really know Miss Greenshaw. There's no real ('eason' is there, why the Miss Greenshaw you saw when ycft went up to the house should be the same Miss Greenshaw th^1 Rav" mond saw a few days earlier? Oh, yes, I know," sti6 went on, to prevent Louise's reply, "she was wearing tW P^"" liar old-fashioned print dress and the strange str^ hat' and had unkempt hair. She corresponded exactly to the description Raymond gave us last weekend. But tW56 two women, you know, were much the same age, heig^1' a size. The housekeeper, I mean, and Miss Greenshaw.' "But the housekeeper is fat!" Louise exclaimed. " e s got an enormous bosom." Miss Marple coughed. "But my dear, surely, nowadays I have seen--ev^~tnem "lyself in shops most indelicately displayed. It is vel^ easv for anyone to have a--a bosom--of any size and dimff11510"- "What are you trying to say?" demanded Raymori-- "I was just thinking that during the two days Lou'5® was ^'orking there, one woman could have played botf P811"^You said yourself, Louise, that you hardly saw the house- kseper, except for the one minute in the morning wt^" sne 90 AGATHA CHRISTIE brought you the tray with coffee. One sets those cl * artists on the stage coming in as different AaracteM tr only a moment or two to spare, and I am sure the ch could have been effected quite easily. That narquise he°? dress could be just a wig slipped on and off." "Aunt Jane! Do you mean that Miss Greenshaw wa dead before I started work there?" "Not dead. Kept under drugs, I should saj. A very easy Job for an unscrupulous woman like the housikeeper to do. Then she made the arrangements with you aad got you to telephone to the nephew to ask him to lunci at a definite time. The only person who would have known that this Miss Greenshaw was not Miss Greenshaw would have been Alfred. And if you remember, the first two days you were working there it was wet, and Miss Greenshaw stayed in the house. Alfred never came into the house because of his feud with the housekeeper. And on the last morning Alfred wasB in the drive, while Miss Greenshaw was working on thel rockery--I'd like to have a look at that rockery." | "Do you mean it was Mrs. Cresswell whc killed Miss Greenshaw?" "I think that after bringing you your coffee, the housekeeper locked the door on you as she went out, then carried the unconscious Miss Greenshaw down to the drawing-room, then assumed her 'Miss Greenshaw' disguise anda went out to work on the rockery where you could see her! from the upstairs window. In due course she screamed and came staggering to the house clutching an arrow as though it had penetrated her throat. She called for help and was careful to say 'he shot me' so as to remove suspicion from the housekeeper--from herself. She also called up to the housekeeper's window as though she saw her there. Then, once inside the drawing-room, she threw over a table with porcelain on it, ran quickly upstairs, put on her marquise wig, and was able a few moments later to lean her head out of the window and tell you that she, too, was locked in." I?":. | "But she was locked in," said Louise. "I know. That is where the policeman comes in." , "What policeman?" ..,.,- w."_ |fc;| GREENSHAW'S FOLLY 91 ^""^v--what policeman? I wonder. Inspector, if you ™ ^xa d telling me how and when you arrived on the ^linspector looked a little puzzled. B"At 12-29 we received a telephone call from Mrs. rresswell, housekeeper to Miss Greenshaw, stating that her istress had been shot. Sergeant Cayley and myself went there at once in a car and arrived at the house at I?-35. We found Miss Greenshaw dead and the two ladies locked in their rooms." "So, you see, my dear," said Miss Marple to Louise. "The police constable you saw wasn't a real police constable at all. You never thought of him again--one doesn't--one just accepts one more uniform as part of the Law." "But who--why?" "As to who--well, if they are playing A Kiss for Cinderella, a policeman is the principal character. Nat Fletcher would only have to help himself to the costume he wears on the stage. He'd ask his way at a garage, being careful to call attention to the time--12:25; then he would drive on quickly, leave his car round a corner, slip on his police uniform, and do his 'act.' " "But why--why?" "Someone had to lock the housekeeper's door on the outside, and someone had to drive the arrow through Miss Greenshaw's throat. You can stab anyone with an arrow just as well as by shooting it--but it needs force." "You mean they were both in it?" "Oh, yes, I think so. Mother and son as likely as not." "But Miss Greenshaw's sister died long ago." "Yes, but I've no doubt Mr. Fletcher married again--he sounds like the sort of man who would. I think it possible that the child died too, and that this so-called nephew was the second wife's child, and not really a relation at all. The woman got the post as housekeeper and spied out the land. fhen he wrote to Miss Greenshaw as her nephew and proposed to call on her--he may have even made some joking reference to coming in his policeman's uniform--remem"w, she said she was expecting a policeman. But I think Miss Greenshaw suspected the truth and refused to see 92 AGATHA CHRISTIE 1 lla- He Would have been her heir if she had died without : a "S a will--but of course once she had made a will ig e housekeeper's favor, as they thought, then it was cleai sailing" But why use an arrow?" objected Joan. "So very far. Etched." ^^ "Not far-fetched at all, dear. Alfred belonged to an rchery Club--Alfred was meant to take the blame. Thf a(:t ttiat he was in the pub as early as 12:20 was most un. "tunate from their point of view. He always left a littii . fore his proper time and that would have been jus "Sht." She shook her head. "It really seems all wrong-- °rally, I mean, that Alfred's laziness should Jhave save< his life." g^; j The Inspector cleared his throat. 'Well, madam, these suggestions of yours are very inter ^'ng. I shall, of course, have to investigate--" ^,,,,^ l&ii&;^j wtiss Marple and Raymond West stood by the rocker an(! looked down- at a gardening basket full of dyin relation. ,.„„„.,„ ,„ ^iss Marple rnurmured: ^SS 1 Alyssuin, saxifrage, cystis, thimbie campanula , . es, that's all the proof / need. Whoever was weeding hei '^terday morning was no gardener--she pulled up plan as Well as weeds. So now I know I'm right. Thank you, de, ^Qiond, for bringing me here. I wanted to see the pla( Iot myself." 1 She and Raymond both looked up at the outrageous pi 0 Greenshaw's Polly. i A cough made them turn. A handsome young man w Iffl " so ^"^^g at the monstrous house. I ' ^laguey big place," he said. "Too big for nowadays-- j so they say. I dunno about that. If I won a football po j b^ made a lot of money, that's the kind of house I'd lil . to build." ill the smiled bashfully at them, then rumpled his hair. I h 'Reckotl ][ can say so now--that there house was bu I h only ^Bt-grandfather," said Alfred Pollock. "And a fi |j °^se it is, for an they call it Greenshaw's Folly!" ,.| THE CASE OF THE PERFECT MAID "oh, if you please, Madam, could I speak to you a loment?" It might be thought that this request was in the nature of an absurdity, since Edna, Miss Marple's little maid, was actually speaking to her mistress at the moment. Recognizing the idiom, however. Miss Marple said promptly: "Certainly, Edna, come in and shut the door. What is it?" Obediently shutting the door, Edna advanced into the room, pleated the corner of her apron between her fingers and swallowed once or twice. | "Yes, Edna?" said Miss Marple encouragingly. | "Oh please, M'am, it's my cousin Gladdie. You see, she's lost her place." "Dear me, I am sorry to hear that. She was at Old Hall, wasn't she, with the Miss--Misses--Skinners?" | "Yes, M'am, that's right, M'am. And Gladdie's very upset about it--very upset indeed." "Gladys has changed places rather often before, though, hasn't she?" |_ "Oh yes, M'am. She's always one for a change. Gladdie 's. She never seems to get really settled, if you know what I "^an. But she's always been the one to give the notice, you see!" And this time it's the other way round?" asked Miss Marple drily. "iar I o_ Yes, M'am, and it's upset Gladdie something awful." Miss Marple looked slightly surprised. Her recollection "Gladys, who had occasionally come to drink tea in the 94 AGATHA CHRISTIE kitchen on her 'days out,' was a stout, giggling girl of unsha ably equalle temperament. Edna wsnt on: "You see, M'am, it's the way it happened --the way Miss Skinner looked." "How," inquired Miss Marple patiently, "did Miss Sicin^ ner look?" This time Edna got well away with her news bulletin. H "Oh M'am, it was ever such a shock to Gladdie. You see, one of Miss Emily's brooches was missing and such a hue and cry for it as never was, and of course, nobody likes a thing like that to happen; it's upsetting, M'am, if you know what I mean. And Gladdie's helped search everywhere and there was Miss Lavinia saying she was going ; to the police about it, and then it turned up again, pushed ' right to the back of a drawer in the dressing table, and very thankful Gladdie was. "And the very next day as ever was a plate got broken, and Miss Lavinia she bounced out right away and told Gladdie to take a month's notice. And what Gladdie feels is it couldn't have been the plate and that Miss Lavinia was just making an excuse of that, and that it must be because of the brooch and they think as she took it and put it back when the police was mentioned, and Gladdie wouldn't do such a thing, not never she wouldn't, and what she feels is as it will get around and tell against her and it's a very , serious thing for a girl as you know, M'am." Miss Marple nodded. Though having no particular liking for the bouncing, self-opinioned Gladys, she was quite sure of the girl's intrinsic honesty and could well imagine that the affair must have upset her. Edna said wistfully: "I suppose, M'am, there isn't anything you could do about it? Gladdie's in ever such a taking." "Tell her not to be silly," said Miss Marple crisply. "^ she didn't take the brooch--which I'm sure she didn't--" then she has no cause to be upset." m } "It'll get about," said Edna dismally. Miss Marple said. "I--er--am going up that way this W ^ ternoon. I'll have word with the Misses Skinners." | "Oh, thank you. Madam," said Edna. 'f I THE CASE OF THE PERFECT MAID 95 Old Hall was a big Victorian house surrounded by woods and parkland. Since it had been proved unlettable and unsalable as it was, an enterprising speculator had divided it into four flats with a central hot water system, and the use of 'the grounds' to be held in common by the tenants. The experiment had been satisfactory. A rich and eccentric old lady and her maid occupied one flat. The old lady had a passion for birds and entertained a feathered gathering to meals every day. A retired Indian judge and his wife rented a second. A very young couple, recently married, occupied the third, and the fourth had been taken only two months ago by two maiden ladies of the name of Skinner. The four sets of tenants were only on the most distant terms with each other, since none of them had anything in common. The landlord had been heard to say that this was an excellent thing. What he dreaded were friendships followed by estrangements and subsequent complaints to him. Miss Marple was acquainted with all the tenants, though she knew none of them well. The elder Miss Skinner, Miss | Lavinia, was what might be termed the working member of *the firm. Miss Emily, the younger, spent most of her time in bed suffering from various complaints which, in the opinion of St. Mary Mead, were largely imaginary. Only Miss I Lavinia believed devoutly in her sister's martyrdom and patience under affliction, and willingly ran errands and trotted up and down to the village for things, that "my sister „ had suddenly fancied." ^.-. '181 | It was the view of St. Mary Mead that if Miss Emily' suffered half as much as she said she did, she would have sent for Doctor Haydock long ago. But Miss Emily, when Ais was hinted to her, shut her eyes in a superior way and murmured that her case was not a simple one--the best Socialists in London had been baffled by it--and that a wonderful new man had put her on a most revolutionary course of treatment and that she really hoped her health Would improve under it. No humdrum G.P. could possibly I understand her case. "And it's my opinion," said the outspoken Miss Hart- nel!, "that she's very wise not to send for him. Dear Doctor AGATHA CHRIST!; Haydock, in that breezy manner qfhis^ tbar^ "----^ * aiiing such arbitrary treatment, however. Miss EniBv continued to lie on sofas, to surroind herself with strange little pill boxes, and to reject nearty everything that had been cooked for her and ask for something else--usually something difficult and inconvenient :o get. ;en panitioned into a dining -- n aid h"'"^"1'"'"''1' " -- . -, .---, jy^vm, y^/uy J I a gruff voice and an abrupt manner. i to see you," she said. "Enily's lr»i» _»^-l- ------J~~~~~~~ ar, she's wonderfully patient." - !d_ nnlitAh?-- Cow"^*^ ------i----'-- -- -- . v^^j »» ^a ^ n*^ iiialu conversation in St. Mary Mead so it was not Miss Lavinia nodded. ' "Wednesday week. Broke things, you know. Can't have that."..----- -..^oya.-n-was so dimcult to get girls to come to Jtry. Did Miss Skinner really think it was wise to part with Gladys? "Know it's difficult to get servants," admitted Miss La- vmia.. "The Deaererm--k^,--2_^------------------------------ ider I Then the Larkins have just lost their maid. THE CASE OF THE PERFECT MAID 97 Larkin always fussing, I don't wonder at that, eiMrs Carmichael's Janet is a fixture, of course-- ther. y1 opinion she's the most disagreeable woman, y^^^1^- .. "Then don't you think you might reconsider your deciahout Gladys. She really is a nice girl. I know all her sion <*"-- - . .) family; very honest and superior. ^ ^ ^ Miss Lavinia shook her head. ^ ^^ . ^ "I've got my reasons," she said importantly. Miss Marple murmured: "You missed a brooch, I un"derstand--" "Now who has been talking? I suppose the girl has. Quite frankly, I'm almost certain she took it. And then got frightened and put it back--but of course one can't say anything unless one is sure." She changed the subject. "Do come and see Miss Emily, Miss Marple. I'm sure it would do her good." y^ Miss Marple followed meekly to where Miss Lavinia knocked on a door; was bidden enter and ushered her guest into the best room in the flat, most of the light of which was excluded by half-drawn blinds. Miss Emily was lying in bed, apparently enjoying the half gloom and her own indefinite sufferings. The dim light showed her to be a thin, indecisive looking creature, with a good deal of grayish yellow hair untidily wound around her head and erupting into curls, the whole thing looking like a bird's nest of which no self-respecting bird could be proud. There was a smell in the room of eaude-cologne, stale biscuits and camphor. With half-closed eyes and in a thin, weak voice, Emily Skinner explained that this was "one of her bad days." | "The worst of ill-health is," said Miss Emily in a melancholy tone, "that one knows what burden one is to everyone around one. 'Lavinia is very good to me. Lavvie dear, I do so hate giving trouble but if my hot water bottle could only be "Ued in the way I like it--too full it weighs on me so--on the other hand, if it is not sufficiently filled, it gets cold nediately!" ^mm, / disappearance, and, also like every other Briton ha' evolved his own theories. "Of course," he repeated. "It was at Kirtlington Mallet i happened." "It was at this house he stayed for the hunting las winter," said the landlord. "Oh! I knew him well. A mai; handsome young gentleman and not one that you'd thin had a care on his mind. He was done away with—that' my belief. Many's the time I've seen them come ridin home together—he and Miss Le Couteau, and all the vi' lage saying there'd be a match come of it—and sur enough, so it did. A very beautiful young lady, and we thought of, for all she was a Canadian and a stranger. At there's some dark mystery there. We'll never know rt rights of it. It broke her heart. It did, sure enough. You' heard as she's sold the place up and gone abroad; couldn abear to go on here with everyone staring and pointing a ter her—through no fault of her own, poor young dear? black mystery, that's what it is." He shook his head, then, suddenly recollecting his di ties, hurried from the room. "A black mystery," said Mr. Quin softly. His voice was provocative in Mr. Satterthwaite's ears. "Are you pretending that we can solve the myste; where Scotland Yard failed?" he asked sharply. The other made a characteristic gesture. "Why not? Time has passed. Three months. That mak a difference." "That is a curious idea of yours," said Mr. Satterthwai slowly. "That one sees things better afterward than at tl time." "The longer the time that has elapsed, the more thin fall into proportion. One sees them in their true relatic ship to one another." There was a silence which lasted for some minutes. " y vss AT THE BELLS AND MOTLEY Bl 111 not'sure," said Mr. Satterthwaite, in a hesitating "I ""that I remember the facts clearly by now." ^ ; "Tthink you do," said Mr. Quin quietly. It was all the encouragement Mr. Satterthwaite needed. ,. general role in life was that of listener and looker on. _Jniv in the company of Mr. Quin was the position re- ""rsed. There Mr. Quin was the appreciative listener, and Mr. Sattertbwaite took the center of the stage. "It was just over a year ago," he said, "that Ashley Grange passed into the possession of Miss Eleanor Le Couteau. It is a beautiful old house, but it had been negtected and allowed to remain empty for many years. It; could not have found a better chatelaine. Miss Le Couteau ? was a French Canadian, her forebears were emigres from the French Revolution, and had handed down to her a col- :.j lection of almost priceless French relics and antiques. She ,;;; was a buyer and a collector also, with a very fine and ?? discriminating taste, so much so that, when she decided to sell Ashley Grange and everything it contained after the tragedy, Mr. Cyrus G. Bradburn, the American millionaire, ; s made no bones about paying the fancy price of sixty thou- '& sand pounds for the Grange as it stood." ^|§; ;" Mr. Satterthwaite paused. "I mention these things," he said apologetically, "not because they are relevant to the story--strictly speaking, they are not--but to convey an atmosphere, the atmosphere of young Mrs. Harwell." Mr. Quin nodded. "Atmosphere is always valuable," he said gravely. "So we get a picture of this girl," continued the other. Just twenty-three, dark, beautiful, accomplished, nothing ^de and unfinished about her. And rich--we must not wget that. She was an orphan. A Mrs. St. Clair, a lady of """npeachable breeding and social standing, lived with her las duenna. But Eleanor Le Couteau had complete control 01 her own fortune. And fortune hunters are never hard o seek. At least a dozen impecunious young men were to ^e tound dangling around her on all occasions, in the hunting- "d, m the ballroom, wherever she went. Young Lord Lec- 112 AGATHA CH11""1^ ^, ths most eligible party in1111116 country is reported to have a,ked her to marry him, 1- but sheremamed ^^ That i, until the coming of Cap^10 Rlchard Harweu, "Captain Harwell had put l "P at the local run ^ the hunting He was a dashing ri"^ to hounds' a handsome laughing daredevil of a fellow.^- You "member the old saying, Mr Quin? -Happy the ^woomS that s not long doing.- The adage was carried out at11 leastmpart- At theend of two months, Richard Harwe611 an(l Eleanor Le Couteau ere engaged, three months afterward. The The marriage followed tl "" happy pair went abroad for a.B two weeks honeymoon, and then turned to take up then"- resldence at ^Y G^. The landlord has just told ^ that t wason B111^! of ^n ^uch as this that they^^ to their hom^ ^ nn- , , „ „,, ,„ ..ell. Be that as it may, the fol""'en, I wonder? Who can ",,,„. . - 'owing morning very ^y--^^^^--^^ tain iLwell was seen waiki^ n thegardenby one of the (,„., , , ,, ,,. ., Tile was bareheaded, and was gardeners, John Mathias. M . ' wh- ,. „, i- „* ,^ there, a picture of lightheart""ist ing. We have a picture . ," , T pri,, , i i. „,„,» And y^ from that minute, as eoness of careless happiness. / . ' fa. ' , ...r set eyes on Captain Richard lar as we know, no one eve ' r ~*arv?(>11 af?ain '* »,„... a pleasantly conscious of a draMr Satterthwaite paused, " ' . m»f * ti, i,^,ir,S glance of Mr. Quin gave him "^tic moment. The adminnf ° < & the tribute he needed, and h6^"10"- "The disappearance was remarka-ble-unaccoun^table It ^s not till the following ^ that the dstracted w^called i" the police. As you kno/' ^ have not succeeded w wiving the mystery." . - .„„..,, "There have, I suppose been theones?" ^ked Mr. QU!Sh! theories, I grant yc"- J1160^ No- l,that ^P13111 Harwell had been murder ,done ^ ^- ^ rf .so. Wh^re was the body? It c1;" hardly have been spirited aw^y. And besides, what r?^6^ there? As far as was known. Captain Harwell h3"01 an enemv m t^ world. He paused abruptly, a.110"?11 uncertam; Mr, Q"10 leaned forward. "You wthlT±mSn he said softly, of Young Stephen Grant." | AT THE BELLS AND MOTLEY 113 I am," admitted Mr. Satterthwaite. "Stephen Grant, if I remember rightly, had been in charge of Captain Harwell's horses, and had been discharged by his master for some trifling offence. On the morning after the homecoming, very early, Stephen Grant was seen in the vicinity of Ash- ley Grange, and could "give no good account of his presence there. He was detained by the police as being concerned in the disappearance of Captain Harwell, but nothing could be proved against him, and he was eventually discharged. It is true that he might be supposed to bear a grudge against Captain Harwell for his summary dismissal, but the motive was undeniably of the flimsiest. I suppose the police felt they must do something. You see, as I said just now. Captain Harwell had not an enemy in the world." "As far as was known," said Mr. Quin reflectively. Mr. Satterthwaite nodded appreciatively. "We are coming to that. What, after all, was known of Captain Harwell? When the police came to look into his antecedents they were confronted with a singular paucity of material. Who was Richard Harwell? Where did he come from? He had appeared literally out of the blue, as it seemed. He was a magnificent rider, and apparently well off. Nobody in Kirtlington Mallet had bothered to inquire further. Miss Le Couteau had had no parents or guardians to make inquiries into the prospects and standing of her fiance. She was her own mistress. The police theory at this point was clear enough. A rich girl and an impudent impostor. The _kl story! J"But it was not quite that. True, Miss Le Couteau had no parents or guardians, but she had an excellent firm of solicitors in London who acted for her. Their evidence "lade the mystery deeper. Eleanor Le Couteau had wished to settle a sum outright upon her prospective husband, but he had refused. He himself was well off, he declared. It ^as proved conclusively that Harwell never had a penny of his wife's money. Her fortune was absolutely intact. "He was, therefore, no common swindler; but was his °b]ect a refinement of the art? Did he propose blackmail at ^me future date if Eleanor Harwell should wish to marry 1144 AGATHA CHRISTIE d; |j| sorme other man? I will admit that something of that kind seeemed to me the most likely solution. It has always seeemed so to me--until tonight." Mr. Quin leaned forward, prompting him. "Tonight?" 'Tonight--I am not satisfied with that. How did he maanage to disappear so suddenly and completely--at that hoaur in the morning, with every laborer bestirring himself amd tramping to work? Bareheaded, too." "There is no doubt about that latter point--since the gairdener saw him?" "Yes--the gardener--John Mathias. Was there anything thoere, I wonder?" aj 'The police would not overlook him," said Mr. Quin. '" "They questioned him closely. He never wavered in his staatement. His wife bore him out. He left his cottage at sewen to attend to the greenhouses; he returned at twenty miinutes to eight. The servants in the house heard the front dcoor slam at about a quarter after seven. That fixes the tirme when Captain Harwell left the house. Ah! yes, I know wlhat you are thinking." fl "Do you, I wonder?" said Mr. Quin. "I fancy so. Time enough for Mathias to have made away with his master. But why, man, why? And if so, wlhere did he hide the body?" fe; ^IfSJN' H ' 'The landlord came in bearing a tray. ' || ; "Sorry to have kept you so long, gentlemen." 9 The odor from the dishes was pleasant to Mr. Satterthiwaite's nostrils. He felt gracious. "This looks excellent," he saiid. "Most excellent. We have been discussing the disappeearance of Captain Harwell. What became of the garden, err Mathias?" % "Took a place in Essex, I believe. Didn't care to stay heereabouts. There were some as looked askance at him, you understand. Not that I ever believed he had anything to) do with it." Mr. Satterthwaite helped himself. Mr. Quin followed smit. The landlord seemed disposed to linger and chat. Mr- Satterthwaite had no objection; on the contrary. "Tb_ MIathias now," he said. "What kind of a man was he?" IB once, but bent and crippled with rheumatism. He had that mortal, bad, was laid up many a time with it, unable to do any work. For my part, I think it was sheer kindness on Miss Eleanor's part to keep him on. He'd outgrown his usefulness as a gardener, though his wife managed to make herself useful up at the house. Been a cook, she had, and always willing to lend a hand." "What sort of a woman was she?" asked Mr. Satterthwaite, quickly, '^y- The landlord's answer disappointed him. "A plain body. Middle-aged, and dour-like in manner. Deaf, too. Not that I ever knew much of them. They'd only been here a month, you understand, when the thing happened. They say he'd been a rare good gardener in his time, though. Wonderful testimonials Miss Eleanor had with him." "Was she interested in gardening?" asked Mr. Quin softly. "No, sir, I couldn't say that she was, not like some of the ladies round here who pay good money to gardeners and spend the whole of their time grubbing about on their knees as well. Foolishness I call it. You see. Miss Le Couteau wasn't here very much except in the winter for the hunting. The rest of the time she was up in London and away in those foreign seaside places where they say the French ladies don't so much as put a toe into the water for fear of spoiling their costumes, or so I've heard." Mr. Satterthwaite smiled. "There was no--er--woman of any kind mixed up with Captain Harwell?" he asked. Though his first theory was disposed of, he nevertheless _ng to his idea. jMr. William Jones shook his head. "Nothing of that ^rt. Never a whisper of it. No, it's a dark mystery, that's what it is." "And your theory? What do you yourself think?" persisted Mr. Satterthwaite. "What do I think?" "Yes." "Don't know what to think. It's my belief as how he was 116 AGATHA CHRISTIE done in, but who by I can't say. I'll fetch you ppnn " the cheese." ^n 8entlen_ He stumped from the room bearing empty dishes TiP storm, which had been quieting down, suddenly broke with redoubled vigor. A flash of forked lightning and great clap of thunder close upon each other made little M Satterthwaite jump, and before the last echoes of the thun^ der had died away, a girl came into the room carrying the advertised cheese. She was tall and dark, and handsome in a sullen fashior of her own. Her likeness to the landlord of the Bells and Motley was apparent enough to proclaim her his daughter. "Good evening, Mary," said Mr. Quin. "A stormy night." She nodded. "I hate these stormy nights," she muttered. "You are afraid of thunder, perhaps?" said Mr. Satterthwaite kindly. "Afraid of thunder? Not me! There's little that I'm afraid of. No, but the storm sets them off. Talking, talking, the same thing over and over again, like a lot of parrots. Father begins it: 'It reminds me, this does, of the night poor Captain Harwell--' And so on, and so on." She turned on Mr. Quin. "You've heard how he goes on. What's the sense of it? Can't anyone let past things be?" "A thing is only past when it is done with," said Mr. Quin. "Isn't this done with? Suppose he wanted to disappear? These fine gentlemen do sometimes." wl '|fl "You think he disappeared of his own free will?" "Why not? It would make better sense than to suppose a kindhearted creature like Stephen Grant murdered him. What should he murder him for, I should like to know? Stephen had had a drop too much one day and spoke to him s'wcy like, and got the sack for it. But what of it? He got another place just as good. Is that a reason to murder a man in cold blood?" | "But surely," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "the police were quite satisfied of his innocence." 'The police! What do the police matter? When Stephen comes into the bar of an evening, every man looks at him ^^| AT THE BELLS AND MOTLEY 117 l'ke They don't really believe he murdered Harwell, ^they're not sure, and so they look at him sideways and °? away. Nice life for a man, to see people shrink away you^ as though you were something different from the t of the folks. Why won't Father hear of our getting married, Stephen and I? 'You can take your pigs to a better market, my girl. I've nothing against Stephen, but- well, we don't know, do we?' " She stopped, her breast heaving with the violence of her resentment. "It's cruel, cruel, that's what it is," she burst out. "Stephen, that wouldn't hurt a fly! And all through life there'll be people who'll think he did it. It's turning him queer and bitter like. I don't wonder, I'm sure. And the more he's like that, the more people think there must have been something in it." Again she stopped. Her eyes were fixed on Mr. Quin's face, as though something in it was drawing this outburst from her. "Can nothing be done?" said Mr. Satterthwaite. '; He was genuinely distressed. The thing was, he saw, inevitable. The very vagueness and unsatisfactoriness of the evidence against Stephen Grant made it the more difficult for him to disprove the accusation. The girl whirled round on him. "Nothing but the truth can help him," she cried. "If Captain Harwell were to be found, if he was to come back. If the true rights of it were only known--" She broke off with something very like a sob, and hurried quickly fom the room. "A fine-looking girl," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "A sad case altogether. I wish--I very much wish that something could be done about it." His kind heart was troubled. "We are doing what we can," said Mr. Quin. "There is still nearly half an hour before your car can be ready." Mr. Satterthwaite stared at him. "You think we can come at the truth by--talking it over like this?" "You have seen much of life," said Mr. Quin gravely. ore than most people." "Mi 118 AGATHA CHRISTIE "Life has passed me by," said Mr. S:erthwaite bitterly. "But in so doing has sharpened you/ision. Where others are blind you can see." "It is true," said Mr, SatterthwEg. "I am a great observer." ,f He plumed himself complacently. T; moment of bitter? ness was past. "I look at it like this," hsaid after a minute or two. "To get at the cause for a thin we must study the effect." ,, . 3.1 m ^ "Very good," said Mr. Quin approviny. :1"3 -- ; 'The effect in this case is that Miss^e Couteau--Mrs. Harwell, I mean--is a wife and yet nca wife. She is not '^ free--she cannot marry again. And lo^ at it as we will, II- we see Richard Harwell as a sinister ^ure, a man from '' nowhere with a mysterious past." "I agree," said Mr. Quin. "You see /hat all are bound to see, what cannot be missed, Captqi Harwell in the limelight, a suspicious figure." Mr. Satterthwaite looked at him doutfully. The words seemed somehow to suggest a faintly