“Hattie? I don’t really know. She was quite near at hand when I came out of the fortune-telling tent to go to tea, but I didn’t speak to her. I don’t remember seeing her afterwards. Somebody told me just now that she’s missing. Is that true?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Oh, well,” said Sally Legge cheerfully, “she’s a bit queer in the top storey, you know. I dare say having a murder here has frightened her.”
“Well, thank you, Mrs. Legge.”
Mrs. Legge accepted the dismissal with promptitude. She went out, passing Hercule Poirot in the doorway.
III
Looking at the ceiling, the inspector spoke.
“Mrs. Legge says she was in the tea tent between four and four-thirty. Mrs. Folliat says she was helping in the tea tent from four o’clock on but that Mrs. Legge was not among those present.” He paused and then went on, “Miss Brewis says that Lady Stubbs asked her to take a tray of cakes and fruit juice to Marlene Tucker. Michael Weyman says that it’s quite impossible Lady Stubbs should have done any such thing—it would be most uncharacteristic of her.”
“Ah,” said Poirot, “the conflicting statements! Yes, one always has them.”
“And what a nuisance they are to clear up, too,” said the inspector. “Sometimes they matter but in nine times out of ten they don’t. Well, we’ve got to do a lot of spade work, that’s clear.”
“And what do you think now, mon cher? What are the latest ideas?”
“I think,” said the inspector gravely, “that Marlene Tucker saw something she was not meant to see. I think that it was because of what Marlene Tucker saw that she had to be killed.”
“I will not contradict you,” said Poirot. “The point is what did she see?”
“She might have seen a murder,” said the inspector. “Or she might have seen the person who did the murder.”
“Murder?” said Poirot. “The murder of whom?”
“What do you think, Poirot? Is Lady Stubbs alive or dead?”
Poirot took a moment or two before he replied. Then he said:
“I think, mon ami, that Lady Stubbs is dead. And I will tell you why I think that. It is because Mrs. Folliat thinks she is dead. Yes, whatever she may say now, or pretend to think, Mrs. Folliat believes that Hattie Stubbs is dead. Mrs. Folliat,” he added, “knows a great deal that we do not.”
Twelve
Hercule Poirot came down to the breakfast table on the following morning to a depleted table. Mrs. Oliver, still suffering from the shock of yesterday’s occurrence, was having her breakfast in bed. Michael Weyman had had a cup of coffee and gone out early. Only Sir George and the faithful Miss Brewis were at the breakfast table. Sir George was giving indubitable proof of his mental condition by being unable to eat any breakfast. His plate lay almost untasted before him. He pushed aside the small pile of letters which, after opening them, Miss Brewis had placed before him. He drank coffee with an air of not knowing what he was doing. He said:
“Morning, M. Poirot,” perfunctorily, and then relapsed into his state of preoccupation. At times a few ejaculatory murmurs came from him.
“So incredible, the whole damn’ thing. Where can she be?”
“The inquest will be held at the Institute on Thursday,” said Miss Brewis. “They rang up to tell us.”
Her employer looked at her as if he did not understand.
“Inquest?” he said. “Oh, yes, of course.” He sounded dazed and uninterested. After another sip or two of coffee he said, “Women are incalculable. What does she think she’s doing?”
Miss Brewis pursed her lips. Poirot observed acutely enough that she was in a state of taut nervous tension.
“Hodgson’s coming to see you this morning,” she remarked, “about the electrification of the milking sheds on the farm. And at twelve o’clock there’s the—”
Sir George interrupted.
“I can’t see anyone. Put ’em all off! How the devil d’you think a man can attend to business when he’s worried half out of his mind about his wife?”
“If you say so, Sir George.” Miss Brewis gave the domestic equivalent of a barrister saying “as your lordship pleases.” Her dissatisfaction was obvious.
“Never know,” said Sir George, “what women get into their heads, or what fool things they’re likely to do! You agree, eh?” he shot the last question at Poirot.
“Les femmes? They are incalculable,” said Poirot, raising his eyebrows and his hands with Gallic fervour. Miss Brewis blew her nose in an annoyed fashion.
“She seemed all right,” said Sir George. “Damn’ pleased about her new ring, dressed herself up to enjoy the fête. All just the same as usual. Not as though we’d had words or a quarrel of any kind. Going off without a word.”
“About those letters, Sir George,” began Miss Brewis.
“Damn the bloody letters to hell,” said Sir George, and pushed aside his coffee cup.
He picked up the letters by his plate and more or less threw them at her.
“Answer them any way you like! I can’t be bothered.” He went on more or less to himself, in an injured tone, “Doesn’t seem to be anything I can do…Don’t even know if that police chap’s any good. Very soft spoken and all that.”
“The police are, I believe,” said Miss Brewis, “very efficient. They have ample facilities for tracing the whereabouts of missing persons.”
“They take days sometimes,” said Sir George, “to find some miserable kid who’s run off and hidden himself in a haystack.”
“I don’t think Lady Stubbs is likely to be in a haystack, Sir George.”
“If only I could do something,” repeated the unhappy husband. “I think, you know, I’ll put an advertisement in the papers. Take it down, Amanda, will you?” He paused a moment in thought. “Hattie. Please come home. Desperate about you. George. All the papers, Amanda.”
Miss Brewis said acidly:
“Lady Stubbs doesn’t often read the papers, Sir George. She’s no interest at all in current affairs or what’s going on in the world.” She added, rather cattily, but Sir George was not in the mood to appreciate cattiness, “Of course you could put an advertisement in Vogue. That might catch her eye.”
Sir George said simply:
“Anywhere you think but get on with it.”
He got up and walked towards the door. With his hand on the handle he paused and came back a few steps. He spoke directly to Poirot.
“Look here, Poirot,” he said, “you don’t think she’s dead, do you?”
Poirot fixed his eyes on his coffee cup as he replied:
“I should say it is far too soon, Sir George, to assume anything of that kind. There is no reason as yet to entertain such an idea.”
“So you do think so,” said Sir George, heavily. “Well,” he added defiantly, “I don’t! I say she’s quite all right.” He nodded his head several times with increasing defiance, and went out banging the door behind him.
Poirot buttered a piece of toast thoughtfully. In cases where there was any suspicion of a wife being murdered, he always automatically suspected the husband. (Similarly, with a husband’s demise, he suspected the wife.) But in this case he did not suspect Sir George of having done away with Lady Stubbs. From his brief observation of them he was quite convinced that Sir George was devoted to his wife. Moreover, as far as his excellent memory served him (and it served him pretty well), Sir George had been present on the lawn the entire afternoon until he himself had left with Mrs. Oliver to discover the body. He had been there on the lawn when they had returned with the news. No, it was not Sir George who was responsible for Hattie’s death. That is, if Hattie were dead. After all, Poirot told himself, there was no reason to believe so as yet. What he had just said to Sir George was true enough. But in his own mind the conviction was unalterable. The pattern, he thought, was the pattern of murder—a double murder.
Miss Brewis interrupted his thoughts by speaking with almost tearful venom.
“
Men are such fools,” she said, “such absolute fools! They’re quite shrewd in most ways, and then they go marrying entirely the wrong sort of woman.”
Poirot was always willing to let people talk. The more people who talked to him, and the more they said, the better. There was nearly always a grain of wheat among the chaff.
“You think it has been an unfortunate marriage?” he demanded.
“Disastrous—quite disastrous.”
“You mean—that they were not happy together?”
“She’d a thoroughly bad influence over him in every way.”
“Now I find that very interesting. What kind of a bad influence?”
“Making him run to and fro at her beck and call, getting expensive presents out of him—far more jewels than one woman could wear. And furs. She’s got two mink coats and a Russian ermine. What could any woman want with two mink coats, I’d like to know?”
Poirot shook his head.
“That I would not know,” he said.
“Sly,” continued Miss Brewis. “Deceitful! Always playing the simpleton—especially when people were here. I suppose because she thought he liked her that way!”
“And did he like her that way?”
“Oh, men!” said Miss Brewis, her voice trembling on the edge of hysteria. “They don’t appreciate efficiency or unselfishness, or loyalty or any one of those qualities! Now with a clever, capable wife Sir George would have got somewhere.”
“Got where?” asked Poirot.
“Well, he could take a prominent part in local affairs. Or stand for Parliament. He’s a much more able man than poor Mr. Masterton. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard Mr. Masterton on a platform—a most halting and uninspired speaker. He owes his position entirely to his wife. It’s Mrs. Masterton who’s the power behind the throne. She’s got all the drive and the initiative and the political acumen.”
Poirot shuddered inwardly at the thought of being married to Mrs. Masterton, but he agreed quite truthfully with Miss Brewis’ words.
“Yes,” he said, “she is all that you say. A femme formidable,” he murmured to himself.
“Sir George doesn’t seem ambitious,” went on Miss Brewis; “he seems quite content to live here and potter about and play the country squire, and just go to London occasionally to attend to all his city directorships and all that, but he could make far more of himself than that with his abilities. He’s really a very remarkable man, M. Poirot. That woman never understood him. She just regards him as a kind of machine for tipping out fur coats and jewels and expensive clothes. If he were married to someone who really appreciated his abilities…” She broke off, her voice wavering uncertainly.
Poirot looked at her with a real compassion. Miss Brewis was in love with her employer. She gave him a faithful, loyal and passionate devotion of which he was probably quite unaware and in which he would certainly not be interested. To Sir George, Amanda Brewis was an efficient machine who took the drudgery of daily life off his shoulders, who answered telephone calls, wrote letters, engaged servants, ordered meals and generally made life smooth for him. Poirot doubted if he had ever once thought of her as a woman. And that, he reflected, had its dangers. Women could work themselves up, they could reach an alarming pitch of hysteria unnoticed by the oblivious male who was the object of their devotion.
“A sly, scheming, clever cat, that’s what she is,” said Miss Brewis tearfully.
“You say is, not was, I observe,” said Poirot.
“Of course she isn’t dead!” said Miss Brewis, scornfully. “Gone off with a man, that’s what she’s done! That’s her type.”
“It is possible. It is always possible,” said Poirot. He took another piece of toast, inspected the marmalade pot gloomily and looked down the table to see if there were any kind of jam. There was none, so he resigned himself to butter.
“It’s the only explanation,” said Miss Brewis. “Of course he wouldn’t think of it.”
“Has there—been any—trouble with men?” asked Poirot, delicately.
“Oh, she’s been very clever,” said Miss Brewis.
“You mean you have not observed anything of the kind?”
“She’d be careful that I shouldn’t,” said Miss Brewis.
“But you think that there may have been—what shall I say?—surreptitious episodes?”
“She’s done her best to make a fool of Michael Weyman,” said Miss Brewis. “Taking him down to see the camellia gardens at this time of year! Pretending she’s so interested in the tennis pavilion.”
“After all, that is his business for being here and I understand Sir George is having it built principally to please his wife.”
“She’s no good at tennis,” said Miss Brewis. “She’s no good at any games. Just wants an attractive setting to sit in, while other people run about and get hot. Oh, yes, she’s done her best to make a fool of Michael Weyman. She’d probably have done it too, if he hadn’t had other fish to fry.”
“Ah,” said Poirot, helping himself to a very little marmalade, placing it on the corner of a piece of toast and taking a mouthful dubiously. “So he has other fish to fry, M. Weyman?”
“It was Mrs. Legge who recommended him to Sir George,” said Miss Brewis. “She knew him before she was married. Chelsea, I understand, and all that. She used to paint, you know.”
“She seems a very attractive and intelligent young woman,” said Poirot tentatively.
“Oh, yes, she’s very intelligent,” said Miss Brewis. “She’s had a university education and I daresay could have made a career for herself if she hadn’t married.”
“Has she been married long?”
“About three years, I believe. I don’t think the marriage has turned out very well.”
“There is—incompatibility?”
“He’s a queer young man, very moody. Wanders off a lot by himself and I’ve heard him very bad-tempered with her sometimes.”
“Ah, well,” said Poirot, “the quarrels, the reconciliations, they are a part of early married life. Without them it is possible that life would be drab.”
“She’s spent a good deal of time with Michael Weyman since he’s been down here,” said Miss Brewis. “I think he was in love with her before she married Alec Legge. I dare say it’s only a flirtation on her side.”
“But Mr. Legge was not pleased about it, perhaps?”
“One never knows with him, he’s so vague. But I think he’s been even moodier than usual, lately.”
“Did he admire Lady Stubbs, perhaps?”
“I dare say she thought he did. She thinks she only has to hold up a finger for any man to fall in love with her!”
“In any case, if she has gone off with a man, as you suggest, it is not Mr. Weyman, for Mr. Weyman is still here.”
“It’s somebody she’s been meeting on the sly, I’ve no doubt,” said Miss Brewis. “She often slips out of the house on the quiet and goes off into the woods by herself. She was out the night before last. Yawning and saying she was going up to bed. I caught sight of her not half an hour later slipping out by the side door with a shawl over her head.”
Poirot looked thoughtfully at the woman opposite him. He wondered if any reliance at all was to be placed in Miss Brewis’ statements where Lady Stubbs was concerned, or whether it was entirely wishful thinking on her part. Mrs. Folliat, he was sure, did not share Miss Brewis’ ideas and Mrs. Folliat knew Hattie much better than Miss Brewis could do. If Lady Stubbs had run away with a lover it would clearly suit Miss Brewis’ book very well. She would be left to console the bereaved husband and to arrange for him efficiently the details of divorce. But that did not make it true, or probable, or even likely. If Hattie Stubbs had left with a lover, she had chosen a very curious time to do so, Poirot thought. For his own part he did not believe she had.
Miss Brewis sniffed through her nose and gathered together various scattered correspondence.
“If Sir George really wants those advertisements put in, I suppose
I’d better see about it,” she said. “Complete nonsense and waste of time. Oh, good morning, Mrs. Masterton,” she added, as the door opened with authority and Mrs. Masterton walked in.
“Inquest is set for Thursday, I hear,” she boomed. “Morning, M. Poirot.”
Miss Brewis paused, her hand full of letters.
“Anything I can do for you, Mrs. Masterton?” she asked.
“No, thank you, Miss Brewis. I expect you’ve plenty on your hands this morning, but I do want to thank you for all the excellent work you put in yesterday. You’re such a good organizer and such a hard worker. We’re all very grateful.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Masterton.”
“Now don’t let me keep you. I’ll sit down and have a word with M. Poirot.”
“Enchanted, Madame,” said Poirot. He had risen to his feet and he bowed.
Mrs. Masterton pulled out a chair and sat down. Miss Brewis left the room, quite restored to her usual efficient self.
“Marvellous woman, that,” said Mrs. Masterton. “Don’t know what the Stubbses would do without her. Running a house takes some doing nowadays. Poor Hattie couldn’t have coped with it. Extraordinary business, this, M. Poirot. I came to ask you what you thought about it.”
“What do you yourself think, Madame?”
“Well, it’s an unpleasant thing to face, but I should say we’ve got some pathological character in this part of the world. Not a native, I hope. Perhaps been let out of an asylum—they’re always letting ’em out half-cured nowadays. What I mean is, no one would ever want to strangle that Tucker girl. There couldn’t be any motive, I mean, except some abnormal one. And if this man, whoever he is, is abnormal I should say he’s probably strangled that poor girl, Hattie Stubbs, as well. She hasn’t very much sense you know, poor child. If she met an ordinary-looking man and he asked her to come and look at something in the woods she’d probably go like a lamb, quite unsuspecting and docile.”
“You think her body is somewhere on the estate?”
“Yes, M. Poirot, I do. They’ll find it once they search around. Mind you, with about sixty-five acres of woodland here, it’ll take some finding, if it’s been dragged into the bushes or tumbled down a slope into the trees. What they need is bloodhounds,” said Mrs. Masterton, looking, as she spoke, exactly like a bloodhound herself. “Bloodhounds! I shall ring up the Chief Constable myself and say so.”