“Monsieur Bex!” he called. “See here. Here are plenty of traces for you.”
The commissary joined him—and smiled.
“My dear Monsieur Poirot, those are without doubt the footprints of the gardener’s large hobnailed boots. In any case, it would have no importance, since this side we have no tree, and consequently no means of gaining access to the upper storey.”
“True,” said Poirot, evidently crestfallen. “So you think these footprints are of no importance?”
“Not the least in the world.”
Then, to my utter astonishment, Poirot pronounced these words:
“I do not agree with you. I have a little idea that these footprints are the most important things we have seen yet.”
M. Bex said nothing, merely shrugged his shoulders. He was far too courteous to utter his real opinion.
“Shall we proceed?” he asked, instead.
“Certainly. I can investigate this matter of the footprints later,” said Poirot cheerfully.
Instead of following the drive down to the gate, M. Bex turned up a path that branched off at right angles. It led, up a slight incline, round to the right of the house, and was bordered on either side by a kind of shrubbery. Suddenly it emerged into a little clearing from which one obtained a view of the sea. A seat had been placed here, and not far from it was a rather ramshackle shed. A few steps farther on, a neat line of small bushes marked the boundary of the Villa grounds. M. Bex pushed his way through these, and we found ourselves on a wide stretch of open downs. I looked round, and saw something that filled me with astonishment.
“Why, this is a Golf Course,” I cried.
Bex nodded.
“The links are not completed yet,” he explained. “It is hoped to be able to open them some time next month. It was some of the men working on them who discovered the body early this morning.”
I gave a gasp. A little to my left, where for the moment I had overlooked it, was a long narrow pit and by it, face downwards, was the body of a man! For a moment my heart gave a terrible leap, and I had a wild fancy that the tragedy had been duplicated. But the commissary dispelled my illusion by moving forward with a sharp exclamation of annoyance:
“What have my police been about? They had strict orders to allow no one near the place without proper credentials!”
The man on the ground turned his head over his shoulder.
“But I have proper credentials,” he remarked, and rose slowly to his feet.
“My dear Monsieur Giraud,” cried the commissary. “I had no idea that you had arrived, even. The examining magistrate has been awaiting you with the utmost impatience.”
As he spoke, I was scanning the newcomer with the keenest curiosity. The famous detective from the Paris Sûreté was familiar to me by name, and I was extremely interested to see him in the flesh. He was very tall, perhaps about thirty years of age, with auburn hair and moustache, and a military carriage. There was a trace of arrogance in his manner which showed that he was fully alive to his own importance. Bex introduced us, presenting Poirot as a colleague. A flicker of interest came into the detective’s eye.
“I know you by name, Monsieur Poirot,” he said. “You cut quite a figure in the old days, didn’t you? But methods are very different now.”
“Crimes, though, are very much the same,” remarked Poirot gently.
I saw at once that Giraud was prepared to be hostile. He resented the other being associated with him, and I felt that if he came across any clue of importance he would be more than likely to keep it to himself.
“The examining magistrate—” began Bex again.
But Giraud interrupted rudely:
“A fig for the examining magistrate! The light is the important thing. For all practical purposes it will be gone in another half hour or so. I know all about the case, and the people at the house will do very well until tomorrow; but, if we’re going to find a clue to the murderers, here is the spot we shall find it. Is it your police who have been trampling all over the place? I thought they knew better nowadays.”
“Assuredly they do. The marks you complain of were made by the workmen who discovered the body.”
The other grunted disgustedly.
“I can see the tracks where the three of them came through the hedge—but they were cunning. You can just recognize the centre footmarks as those of Monsieur Renauld, but those on either side have been carefully obliterated. Not that there would really be much to see anyway on this hard ground, but they weren’t taking any chances.”
“The external sign,” said Poirot. “That is what you seek, eh?”
The other detective stared.
“Of course.”
A very faint smile came to Poirot’s lips. He seemed about to speak, but checked himself. He bent down to where a spade was lying.
“That’s what the grave was dug with, right enough,” said Giraud. “But you’ll get nothing from it. It was Renauld’s own spade, and the man who used it wore gloves. Here they are.” He gesticulated with his foot to where two soil-stained gloves were lying. “And they’re Renauld’s too—or at least his gardener’s. I tell you, the men who carried out this crime were taking no chances. The man was stabbed with his own dagger, and would have been buried with his own spade. They counted on leaving no traces! But I’ll beat them. There’s always something! And I mean to find it.”
But Poirot was now apparently interested in something else, a short, discoloured piece of lead-piping which lay beside the spade. He touched it delicately with his finger.
“And does this, too, belong to the murdered man?” he asked, and I thought I detected a subtle flavour of irony in the question.
Giraud shrugged his shoulders to indicate that he neither knew nor cared.
“May have been lying around here for weeks. Anyway, it doesn’t interest me.”
“I, on the contrary, find it very interesting,” said Poirot sweetly.
I guessed that he was merely bent on annoying the Paris detective and, if so, he succeeded. The other turned away rudely, remarking that he had no time to waste, and bending down he resumed his minute search of the ground.
Meanwhile, Poirot, as though struck by a sudden idea, stepped back over the boundary, and tried the door of the little shed.
“That’s locked,” said Giraud over his shoulder. “But it’s only a place where the gardener keeps his rubbish. The spade didn’t come from there, but from the toolshed up by the house.”
“Marvellous,” murmured M. Bex ecstatically to me. “He has been here but half an hour, and he already knows everything! What a man! Undoubtedly Giraud is the greatest detective alive today.”
Although I disliked the detective heartily, I nevertheless was secretly impressed. Efficiency seemed to radiate from the man. I could not help feeling that, so far, Poirot had not greatly distinguished himself, and it vexed me. He seemed to be directing his attention to all sorts of silly puerile points that had nothing to do with the case. Indeed, at this juncture, he suddenly asked:
“Monsieur Bex, tell me, I pray you, the meaning of this whitewashed line that extends all round the grave. Is it a device of the police?”
“No, Monsieur Poirot, it is an affair of the golf course. It shows that there is here to be a ‘bunkair,’ as you call it.”
“A bunkair?” Poirot turned to me. “That is the irregular hole filled with sand and a bank at one side, is it not?”
I concurred.
“Monsieur Renauld, without doubt he played the golf?”
“Yes, he was a keen golfer. It’s mainly owing to him, and to his large subscriptions, that this work is being carried forward. He even had a say in the designing of it.”
Poirot nodded thoughtfully. Then he remarked:
“It was not a very good choice they made—of a spot to bury the body? When the men began to dig up the ground, all would have been discovered.”
“Exactly,” cried Giraud triumphantly. “And that proves that they were str
angers to the place. It’s an excellent piece of indirect evidence.”
“Yes,” said Poirot doubtfully. “No one who knew would bury a body there—unless they wanted it to be discovered. And that is clearly absurd, is it not?”
Giraud did not even trouble to reply.
“Yes,” said Poirot, in a somewhat dissatisfied voice. “Yes—undoubtedly—absurd!”
Seven
THE MYSTERIOUS MADAME DAUBREUIL
As we retraced our steps to the house, M. Bex excused himself for leaving us, explaining that he must immediately acquaint the examining magistrate with the fact of Giraud’s arrival. Giraud himself had been obviously delighted when Poirot declared that he had seen all he wanted. The last thing we observed, as we left the spot, was Giraud, crawling about on all fours, with a thoroughness in his search that I could not but admire. Poirot guessed my thoughts, for as soon as we were alone he remarked ironically:
“At last you have seen the detective you admire—the human foxhound! Is it not so, my friend?”
“At any rate, he’s doing something,” I said, with asperity. “If there’s anything to find he’ll find it. Now you—”
“Eh bien! I also have found something! A piece of lead-piping.”
“Nonsense, Poirot. You know very well that’s got nothing to do with it. I meant little things—traces that may lead us infallibly to the murderers.”
“Mon ami, a clue of two feet long is every bit as valuable as one measuring two millimetres! But it is the romantic idea that all important clues must be infinitesimal. As to the piece of lead-piping having nothing to do with the crime, you say that because Giraud told you so. No”—as I was about to interpose a question—“we will say no more. Leave Giraud to his search, and me to my ideas. The case seems straightforward enough—and yet—and yet, mon ami, I am not satisfied! And do you know why? Because of the wristwatch that is two hours fast. And then there are several curious little points that do not seem to fit in. For instance, if the object of the murderers was revenge, why did they not stab Renauld in his sleep and have done with it?”
“They wanted the ‘secret,’” I reminded him.
Poirot brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve with a dissatisfied air.
“Well, where is this ‘secret?’ Presumably some distance away, since they wish him to dress himself. Yet he is found murdered close at hand, almost within earshot of the house. Then again, it is pure chance that a weapon such as the dagger should be lying about casually, ready to hand.”
He paused, frowning, and then went on:
“Why did the servants hear nothing? Were they drugged? Was there an accomplice, and did that accomplice see to it that the front door should remain open? I wonder if—”
He stopped abruptly. We had reached the drive in front of the house. Suddenly he turned to me.
“My friend, I am about to surprise you—to please you! I have taken your reproaches to heart! We will examine some footprints!”
“Where?”
“In that right-hand bed yonder. Monsieur Bex says that they are the footmarks of the gardener. Let us see if this is so. See, he approaches with his wheelbarrow.”
Indeed an elderly man was just crossing the drive with a barrowful of seedlings. Poirot called to him, and he set down the barrow and came hobbling towards us.
“You are going to ask him for one of his boots to compare with the footmarks?” I asked breathlessly. My faith in Poirot revived a little. Since he said the footprints in this right-hand bed were important, presumably they were.
“Exactly,” said Poirot.
“But won’t he think it very odd?”
“He will not think about it at all.”
We could say no more, for the old man had joined us.
“You want me for something, monsieur?”
“Yes. You have been gardener here a long time, haven’t you?”
“Twenty-four years, monsieur.”
“And your name is—?”
“Auguste, monsieur.”
“I was admiring these magnificent geraniums. They are truly superb. They have been planted long?”
“Some time, monsieur. But of course, to keep the beds looking smart, one must keep bedding out a few new plants, and remove those that are over, besides keeping the old blooms well picked off.”
“You put in some new plants yesterday, didn’t you? Those in the middle there, and in the other bed also.”
“Monsieur has a sharp eye. It takes always a day or so for them to ‘pick up.’ Yes, I put ten new plants in each bed last night. As monsieur doubtless knows, one should not put in plants when the sun is hot.” Auguste was charmed with Poirot’s interest, and was quite inclined to be garrulous.
“That is a splendid specimen there,” said Poirot, pointing. “Might I perhaps have a cutting of it?”
“But certainly, monsieur.” The old fellow stepped into the bed, and carefully took a slip from the plant Poirot had admired.
Poirot was profuse in his thanks, and Auguste departed to his barrow.
“You see?” said Poirot with a smile, as he bent over the bed to examine the indentation of the gardener’s hobnailed boot. “It is quite simple.”
“I did not realize—”
“That the foot would be inside the boot? You do not use your excellent mental capacities sufficiently. Well, what of the footmark?”
I examined the bed carefully.
“All the footmarks in the bed were made by the same boot,” I said at length after a careful study.
“You think so? Eh bien! I agree with you,” said Poirot.
He seemed quite uninterested, and as though he were thinking of something else.
“At any rate,” I remarked, “you will have one bee less in your bonnet now.”
“Mon Dieu! But what an idiom! What does it mean?”
“What I meant was that now you will give up your interest in these footmarks.”
But to my surprise Poirot shook his head.
“No, no, mon ami. At last I am on the right track. I am still in the dark, but, as I hinted just now to Monsieur Bex, these footmarks are the most important and interesting things in the case! That poor Giraud—I should not be surprised if he took no notice of them whatever.”
At that moment the front door opened, and M. Hautet and the commissary came down the steps.
“Ah, Monsieur Poirot, we were coming to look for you,” said the magistrate. “It is getting late, but I wish to pay a visit to Madame Daubreuil. Without doubt she will be very much upset by Monsieur Renauld’s death, and we may be fortunate enough to get a clue from her. The secret that he did not confide to his wife, it is possible that he may have told it to the woman whose love held him enslaved. We know where our Samsons are weak, don’t we?”
We said no more, but fell into line. Poirot walked with the examining magistrate, and the commissary and I followed a few paces behind.
“There is no doubt that Françoise’s story is substantially correct,” he remarked to me in a confidential tone. “I have been telephoning headquarters. It seems that three times in the last six weeks—that is to say since the arrival of Monsieur Renauld at Merlinville—Madame Daubreuil has paid a large sum in notes into her banking account. Altogether the sum totals two hundred thousand francs!”
“Dear me,” I said, considering, “that must be something like four thousand pounds!”
“Precisely. Yes, there can be no doubt that he was absolutely infatuated. But it remains to be seen whether he confided his secret to her. The examining magistrate is hopeful, but I hardly share his views.”
During this conversation we were walking down the lane towards the fork in the road where our car had halted earlier in the afternoon, and in another moment I realized that the Villa Marguerite, the home of the mysterious Madame Daubreuil, was the small house from which the beautiful girl had emerged.
“She has lived here for many years,” said the commissary nodding his head towards the house. “Very quietl
y, very unobtrusively. She seems to have no friends or relations other than the acquaintances she has made in Merlinville. She never refers to the past, nor to her husband. One does not even know if he is alive or dead. There is a mystery about her, you comprehend.”
I nodded, my interest growing.
“And—the daughter?” I ventured.
“A truly beautiful young girl—modest, devout, all that she should be. One pities her, for, though she may know nothing of the past, a man who wants to ask her hand in marriage must necessarily inform himself, and then—” The commissary shrugged his shoulders cynically.
“But it would not be her fault!” I cried, with rising indignation.
“No. But what will you? A man is particular about his wife’s antecedents.”
I was prevented from further argument by our arrival at the door. M. Hautet rang the bell. A few minutes elapsed, and then we heard a footfall within, and the door was opened. On the threshold stood my young goddess of that afternoon. When she saw us, the colour left her cheeks, leaving her deathly white, and her eyes widened with apprehension. There was no doubt about it, she was afraid!
“Mademoiselle Daubreuil,” said M. Hautet, sweeping off his hat, “we regret infinitely to disturb you, but the exigencies of the Law, you comprehend? My compliments to madame your mother, and will she have the goodness to grant me a few moments’ interview?”
For a moment the girl stood motionless. Her left hand was pressed to her side, as though to still the sudden unconquerable agitation of her heart. But she mastered herself, and said in a low voice:
“I will go and see. Please come inside.”
She entered a room on the left of the hall, and we heard the low murmur of her voice. And then another voice, much the same in timbre, but with a slightly harder inflection behind its mellow roundness, said:
“But certainly. Ask them to enter.”
In another minute we were face to face with the mysterious Madame Daubreuil.
She was not nearly so tall as her daughter, and the rounded curves of her figure had all the grace of full maturity. Her hair, again unlike her daughter’s, was dark, and parted in the middle in the Madonna style. Her eyes, half hidden by the drooping lids, were blue. Though very well-preserved, she was certainly no longer young, but her charm was of the quality which is independent of age.