“So there was a certain amount of trouble between you?”
“No trouble. Just damned unreasonable of Gervase!”
“He blamed you for certain losses he had sustained?”
“Gervase wasn’t normal! Vanda knew that. But she could always handle him. I was content to leave it all in her hands.”
Poirot coughed and Major Riddle, after glancing at him, changed the subject.
“You are a very old friend of the family, I know, Colonel Bury. Had you any knowledge as to how Sir Gervase had left his money?”
“Well, I should imagine the bulk of it would go to Ruth. That’s what I gathered from what Gervase let fall.”
“You don’t think that was at all unfair on Hugo Trent?”
“Gervase didn’t like Hugo. Never could stick him.”
“But he had a great sense of family. Miss Chevenix-Gore was, after all, only his adopted daughter.”
Colonel Bury hesitated, then after humming and hawing a moment, he said:
“Look here, I think I’d better tell you something. Strict confidence, and all that.”
“Of course—of course.”
“Ruth’s illegitimate, but she’s a Chevenix-Gore all right. Daughter of Gervase’s brother, Anthony, who was killed in the war. Seemed he’d had an affair with a typist. When he was killed, the girl wrote to Vanda. Vanda went to see her—girl was expecting a baby. Vanda took it up with Gervase, she’d just been told that she herself could never have another child. Result was they took over the child when it was born, adopted it legally. The mother renounced all rights in it. They’ve brought Ruth up as their own daughter and to all intents and purposes, she is their own daughter, and you’ve only got to look at her to realise she’s a Chevenix-Gore all right!”
“Aha,” said Poirot. “I see. That makes Sir Gervase’s attitude very much clearer. But if he did not like Mr. Hugo Trent, why was he so anxious to arrange a marriage between him and Mademoiselle Ruth?”
“To regularize the family position. It pleased his sense of fitness.”
“Even though he did not like or trust the young man?”
Colonel Bury snorted.
“You don’t understand old Gervase. He couldn’t regard people as human beings. He arranged alliances as though the parties were royal personages! He considered it fitting that Ruth and Hugo should marry, Hugo taking the name of Chevenix-Gore. What Hugo and Ruth thought about it didn’t matter.”
“And was Mademoiselle Ruth willing to fall in with this arrangement?”
Colonel Bury chuckled.
“Not she! She’s a tartar!”
“Did you know that shortly before his death Sir Gervase was drafting a new will by which Miss Chevenix-Gore would inherit only on condition that she should marry Mr. Trent?”
Colonel Bury whistled.
“Then he really had got the windup about her and Burrows—”
As soon as he had spoken, he bit the words off, but it was too late. Poirot had pounced upon the admission.
“There was something between Mademoiselle Ruth and young Monsieur Burrows?”
“Probably nothing in it—nothing in it at all.”
Major Riddle coughed and said:
“I think, Colonel Bury, that you must tell us all you know. It might have a direct bearing on Sir Gervase’s state of mind.”
“I suppose it might,” said Colonel Bury, doubtfully. “Well, the truth of it is, young Burrows is not a bad-looking chap—at least, women seem to think so. He and Ruth seem to have got as thick as thieves just lately, and Gervase didn’t like it—didn’t like it at all. Didn’t like to sack Burrows for fear of precipitating matters. He knows what Ruth’s like. She won’t be dictated to in any way. So I suppose he hit on this scheme. Ruth’s not the sort of girl to sacrifice everything for love. She’s fond of the fleshpots and she likes money.”
“Do you yourself approve of Mr. Burrows?”
The colonel delivered himself of the opinion that Godfrey Burrows was slightly hairy at the heel, a pronouncement which baffled Poirot completely, but made Major Riddle smile into his moustache.
A few more questions were asked and answered, and then Colonel Bury departed.
Riddle glanced over at Poirot who was sitting absorbed in thought.
“What do you make of it all, M. Poirot?”
The little man raised his hands.
“I seem to see a pattern—a purposeful design.”
Riddle said, “It’s difficult.”
“Yes, it is difficult. But more and more one phrase, lightly uttered, strikes me as significant.”
“What was that?”
“That laughing sentence spoken by Hugo Trent: ‘There’s always murder . . . ’ ”
Riddle said sharply:
“Yes, I can see that you’ve been leaning that way all along.”
“Do you not agree, my friend, that the more we learn, the less and less motive we find for suicide? But for murder, we begin to have a surprising collection of motives!”
“Still, you’ve got to remember the facts—door locked, key in dead man’s pocket. Oh, I know there are ways and means. Bent pins, strings—all sorts of devices. It would, I suppose, be possible . . . But do those things really work? That’s what I very much
doubt.”
“At all events, let us examine the position from the point of view of murder, not of suicide.”
“Oh, all right. As you are on the scene, it probably would be murder!”
For a moment Poirot smiled.
“I hardly like that remark.”
Then he became grave once more.
“Yes, let us examine the case from the standpoint of murder. The shot is heard, four people are in the hall, Miss Lingard, Hugo Trent, Miss Cardwell and Snell. Where are all the others?”
“Burrows was in the library, according to his own story. No one to check that statement. The others were presumably in their rooms, but who is to know if they were really there? Everybody seems to have come down separately. Even Lady Chevenix-Gore and Bury only met in the hall. Lady Chevenix-Gore came from the dining room. Where did Bury come from? Isn’t it possible that he came, not from upstairs, but from the study? There’s that pencil.”
“Yes, the pencil is interesting. He showed no emotion when I produced it, but that might be because he did not know where I found it and was unaware himself of having dropped it. Let us see, who else was playing bridge when the pencil was in use? Hugo Trent and Miss Cardwell. They’re out of it. Miss Lingard and the butler can vouch for their alibis. The fourth was Lady Chevenix-Gore.”
“You can’t seriously suspect her.”
“Why not, my friend? I tell you, me, I can suspect everybody! Supposing that, in spite of her apparent devotion to her husband, it is the faithful Bury she really loves?”
“H’m,” said Riddle. “In a way it has been a kind of ménage à trois for years.”
“And there is some trouble about this company between Sir Gervase and Colonel Bury.”
“It’s true that Sir Gervase might have been meaning to turn really nasty. We don’t know the ins-and-outs of it. It might fit in with that summons to you. Say Sir Gervase suspects that Bury has deliberately fleeced him, but he doesn’t want publicity because of a suspicion that his wife may be mixed up in it. Yes, that’s possible. That gives either of those two a possible motive. And it is a bit odd really that Lady Chevenix-Gore should take her husband’s death so calmly. All this spirit business may be acting!”
“Then there is the other complication,” said Poirot. “Miss Chevenix-Gore and Burrows. It is very much to their interest that Sir Gervase should not sign the new will. As it is, she gets everything on condition that her husband takes the family name—”
“Yes, and Burrows’s account of Sir Gervase’s attitude this evening is a bit fishy. High spirits, pleased about something! That doesn’t fit with anything else we’ve been told.”
“There is, too, Mr. Forbes. Most correct, most severe, of an o
ld and well-established firm. But lawyers, even the most respectable, have been known to embezzle their client’s money when they themselves are in a hole.”
“You’re getting a bit too sensational, I think, Poirot.”
“You think what I suggest is too like the pictures? But life, Major Riddle, is often amazingly like the pictures.”
“It has been, so far, in Westshire,” said the chief constable. “We’d better finish interviewing the rest of them, don’t you think? It’s getting late. We haven’t seen Ruth Chevenix-Gore yet, and she’s probably the most important of the lot.”
“I agree. There is Miss Cardwell, too. Perhaps we might see her first, since that will not take long, and interview Miss Chevenix-Gore last.
“Quite a good idea.”
Nine
That evening Poirot had only given Susan Cardwell a fleeting glance. He examined her now more attentively. An intelligent face, he thought, not strictly good-looking, but possessing an attraction that a merely pretty girl might envy. Her hair was magnificent, her face skilfully made-up. Her eyes, he thought, were watchful.
After a few preliminary questions, Major Riddle said:
“I don’t know how close a friend you are of the family, Miss Cardwell?”
“I don’t know them at all. Hugo arranged that I should be asked down here.”
“You are, then, a friend of Hugo Trent’s?”
“Yes, that’s my position. Hugo’s girlfriend.” Susan Cardwell smiled as she drawled out the words.
“You have known him a long time?”
“Oh, no, just a month or so.”
She paused and then added:
“I’m by way of being engaged to him.”
“And he brought you down here to introduce you to his people?”
“Oh, dear no, nothing like that. We were keeping it very hush-hush. I just came down to spy out the land. Hugo told me the place was just like a madhouse. I thought I’d better come and see for myself. Hugo, poor sweet, is a perfect pet, but he’s got absolutely no brains. The position, you see, was rather critical. Neither Hugo nor I have any money, and old Sir Gervase, who was Hugo’s main hope, had set his heart on Hugo making a match of it with Ruth. Hugo’s a bit weak, you know. He might agree to this marriage and count on being able to get out of it later.”
“That idea did not commend itself to you, mademoiselle?” inquired Poirot gently.
“Definitely not. Ruth might have gone all peculiar and refused to divorce him or something. I put my foot down. No trotting off to St. Paul’s, Knightsbridge, until I could be there dithering with a sheaf of lilies.”
“So you came down to study the situation for yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Eh bien!” said Poirot.
“Well, of course, Hugo was right! The whole family were bughouse! Except Ruth, who seems perfectly sensible. She’d got her own boyfriend and wasn’t any keener on the marriage idea than I was.”
“You refer to M. Burrows?”
“Burrows? Of course not. Ruth wouldn’t fall for a bogus person like that.”
“Then who was the object of her affection?”
Susan Cardwell paused, stretched for a cigarette, lit it, and remarked:
“You’d better ask her that. After all, it isn’t my business.”
Major Riddle asked:
“When was the last time you saw Sir Gervase?”
“At tea.”
“Did his manner strike you as peculiar in any way?”
The girl shrugged her shoulders.
“Not more than usual.”
“What did you do after tea?”
“Played billiards with Hugo.”
“You didn’t see Sir Gervase again?”
“No.”
“What about the shot?”
“That was rather odd. You see, I thought the first gong had gone, so I hurried up with my dressing, came dashing out of my room, heard, as I thought, the second gong and fairly raced down the stairs. I’d been one minute late for dinner the first night I was here and Hugo told me it had about wrecked our chances with the old man, so I fairly hared down. Hugo was just ahead of me and then there was a queer kind of pop-bang and Hugo said it was a champagne cork, but Snell said ‘No’ to that and, anyway, I didn’t think it had come from the dining room. Miss Lingard thought it came from upstairs, but anyway we agreed it was a backfire and we trooped into the drawing room and forgot about it.”
“It did not occur to you for one moment that Sir Gervase might have shot himself?” asked Poirot.
“I ask you, should I be likely to think of such a thing? The Old Man seemed to enjoy himself throwing his weight about. I never imagined he’d do such a thing. I can’t think why he did it. I suppose just because he was nuts.”
“An unfortunate occurrence.”
“Very—for Hugo and me. I gather he’s left Hugo nothing at all, or practically nothing.”
“Who told you that?”
“Hugo got it out of old Forbes.”
“Well, Miss Cardwell—” Major Riddle paused a moment, “I think that’s all. Do you think Miss Chevenix-Gore is feeling well enough to come down and talk to us?”
“Oh, I should think so. I’ll tell her.”
Poirot intervened.
“A little moment, mademoiselle. Have you seen this before?”
He held out the bullet pencil.
“Oh, yes, we had it at bridge this afternoon. Belongs to old Colonel Bury, I think.”
“Did he take it when the rubber was over?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Thank you, mademoiselle. That is all.”
“Right, I’ll tell Ruth.”
Ruth Chevenix-Gore came into the room like a queen. Her colour was vivid, her head held high. But her eyes, like the eyes of Susan Cardwell, were watchful. She wore the same frock she had had on when Poirot arrived. It was a pale shade of apricot. On her shoulder was pinned a deep, salmon-pink rose. It had been fresh and blooming an hour earlier, now it drooped.
“Well?” said Ruth.
“I’m extremely sorry to bother you,” began Major Riddle.
She interrupted him.
“Of course you have to bother me. You have to bother everyone. I can save you time, though. I haven’t the faintest idea why the Old Man killed himself. All I can tell you is that it wasn’t a bit like him.”
“Did you notice anything amiss in his manner today? Was he depressed, or unduly excited—was there anything at all abnormal?”
“I don’t think so. I wasn’t noticing—”
“When did you see him last?”
“Teatime.”
Poirot spoke:
“You did not go to the study—later?”
“No. The last I saw of him was in this room. Sitting there.”
She indicated a chair.
“I see. Do you know this pencil, mademoiselle?”
“It’s Colonel Bury’s.”
“Have you seen it lately?”
“I don’t really remember.”
“Do you know anything of a—disagreement between Sir Gervase and Colonel Bury?”
“Over the Paragon Rubber Company, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“I should think so. The Old Man was rabid about it!”
“He considered, perhaps, that he had been swindled?”
Ruth shrugged her shoulders.
“He didn’t understand the first thing about finance.”
Poirot said:
“May I ask you a question, mademoiselle—a somewhat impertinent question?”
“Certainly, if you like.”
“It is this—are you sorry that your—father is dead?”
She stared at him.
“Of course I’m sorry. I don’t indulge in sob stuff. But I shall miss him . . . I was fond of the Old Man. That’s what we called him, Hugo and I, always. The ‘Old Man’—you know—something of the primitive—anthropoid-ape-original-Patriarch-of-the-tribe
business. It sounds disrespectful, but there’s really a lot of affection behind it. Of course, he was really the most complete, muddleheaded old ass that ever lived!”
“You interest me, mademoiselle.”
“The Old Man had the brains of a louse! Sorry to have to say it, but it’s true. He was incapable of any kind of headwork. Mind you, he was a character. Fantastically brave and all that! Could go careering off to the Pole, or fighting duels. I always think that he blustered such a lot because he really knew that his brains weren’t up to much. Anyone could have got the better of him.”
Poirot took the letter from his pocket.
“Read this, mademoiselle.”
She read it through and handed it back to him.
“So that’s what brought you here!”
“Does it suggest anything to you, that letter?”
She shook her head.
“No. It’s probably quite true. Anyone could have robbed the poor old pet. John says the last agent before him swindled him right and left. You see, the Old Man was so grand and so pompous that he never really condescended to look into details! He was an invitation to crooks.”
“You paint a different picture of him, mademoiselle, from the accepted one.”
“Oh, well—he put up a pretty good camouflage. Vanda (my mother) backed him for all she was worth. He was so happy stalking round pretending he was God Almighty. That’s why, in a way, I’m glad he’s dead. It’s the best thing for him.”
“I do not quite follow you, mademoiselle.”
Ruth said broodingly:
“It was growing on him. One of these days he would have had to be locked up . . . People were beginning to talk as it was.”
“Did you know, mademoiselle, that he was contemplating a will whereby you could only inherit his money if you married Mr. Trent?”
She cried:
“How absurd! Anyway, I’m sure that could be set aside by law . . . I’m sure you can’t dictate to people about whom they shall marry.”
“If he had actually signed such a will, would you have complied with its provisions, mademoiselle?”
She stared.
“I—I—”
She broke off. For two or three minutes she sat irresolute, looking down at her dangling slipper. A little piece of earth detached itself from the heel and fell on the carpet.