He it was who came striding down the beach behind her. Silent, dark—with a pugnacious jaw and a sullen manner. A touch of the primeval ape about him.
She said:
“Tony darling—my cigarette case . . .”
He had it ready for her—lighted her cigarette—helped her to slip the straps of the white bathing dress from her shoulders. She lay, arms outstretched in the sun. He sat by her like some wild beast that guards its prey.
Pamela said, her voice just lowered sufficiently:
“You know they interest me frightfully . . . He’s such a brute! So silent and—sort of glowering. I suppose a woman of her kind likes that. It must be like controlling a tiger! I wonder how long it will last. She gets tired of them very soon, I believe—especially nowadays. All the same, if she tried to get rid of him, I think he might be dangerous.”
Another couple came down the beach—rather shyly. They were the newcomers of the night before. Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Gold as Miss Lyall knew from her inspection of the hotel visitors’ book. She knew, too, for such were the Italian regulations—their Christian names and their ages as set down from their passports.
Mr. Douglas Cameron Gold was thirty-one and Mrs. Marjorie Emma Gold was thirty-five.
Miss Lyall’s hobby in life, as has been said, was the study of human beings. Unlike most English people, she was capable of speaking to strangers on sight instead of allowing four days to a week to elapse before making the first cautious advance as is the customary British habit. She, therefore, noting the slight hesitancy and shyness of Mrs. Gold’s advance, called out:
“Good morning, isn’t it a lovely day?”
Mrs. Gold was a small woman—rather like a mouse. She was not bad-looking, indeed her features were regular and her complexion good, but she had a certain air of diffidence and dowdiness that made her liable to be overlooked. Her husband, on the other hand, was extremely good-looking, in an almost theatrical manner. Very fair, crisply curling hair, blue eyes, broad shoulders, narrow hips. He looked more like a young man on the stage than a young man in real life, but the moment he opened his mouth that impression faded. He was quite natural and unaffected, even, perhaps, a little stupid.
Mrs. Gold looked gratefully at Pamela and sat down near her.
“What a lovely shade of brown you are. I feel terribly underdone!”
“One has to take a frightful lot of trouble to brown evenly,” sighed Miss Lyall.
She paused a minute and then went on:
“You’ve only just arrived, haven’t you?”
“Yes. Last night. We came on the Vapo d’Italia boat.”
“Have you ever been to Rhodes before?”
“No. It is lovely, isn’t it?”
Her husband said:
“Pity it’s such a long way to come.”
“Yes, if it were only nearer England—”
In a muffled voice Sarah said:
“Yes, but then it would be awful. Rows and rows of people laid out like fish on a slab. Bodies everywhere!”
“That’s true, of course,” said Douglas Gold. “It’s a nuisance the Italian exchange is so absolutely ruinous at present.”
“It does make a difference, doesn’t it?”
The conversation was running on strictly stereotyped lines. It could hardly have been called brilliant.
A little way along the beach, Valentine Chantry stirred and sat up. With one hand she held her bathing dress in position across her breast.
She yawned, a wide yet delicate cat-like yawn. She glanced casually down the beach. Her eyes slanted past Marjorie Gold—and stayed thoughtfully on the crisp, golden head of Douglas Gold.
She moved her shoulders sinuously.She spoke and her voice was raised a little higher than it need have been.
“Tony darling—isn’t it divine—this sun? I simply must have been a sun worshipper once—don’t you think so?”
Her husband grunted something in reply that failed to reach the others. Valentine Chantry went on in that high, drawling voice.
“Just pull that towel a little flatter, will you, darling?”
She took infinite pains in the resettling of her beautiful body. Douglas Gold was looking now. His eyes were frankly interested.
Mrs. Gold chirped happily in a subdued key to Miss Lyall.
“What a beautiful woman!”
Pamela, as delighted to give as to receive information, replied in a lower voice:
“That’s Valentine Chantry—you know, who used to be Valentine Dacres—she is rather marvellous, isn’t she? He’s simply crazy about her—won’t let her out of his sight!”
Mrs. Gold looked once more along the beach. Then she said:
“The sea really is lovely—so blue. I think we ought to go in now, don’t you, Douglas?”
He was still watching Valentine Chantry and took a minute or two to answer. Then he said, rather absently:
“Go in? Oh, yes, rather, in a minute.”
Marjorie Gold got up and strolled down to the water’s edge.
Valentine Chantry rolled over a little on one side. Her eyes looked along at Douglas Gold. Her scarlet mouth curved faintly into a smile.
The neck of Mr. Douglas Gold became slightly red.
Valentine Chantry said:
“Tony darling—would you mind? I want a little pot of face cream—it’s up on the dressing table. I meant to bring it down. Do get it for me—there’s an angel.”
The commander rose obediently. He stalked off into the hotel.
Marjorie Gold plunged into the sea, calling out:
“It’s lovely, Douglas—so warm. Do come.”
Pamela Lyall said to him:
“Aren’t you going in?”
He answered vaguely:
“Oh! I like to get well hotted up first.”
Valentine Chantry stirred. Her head was lifted for a moment as though to recall her husband—but he was just passing inside the wall of the hotel garden.
“I like my dip the last thing,” explained Mr. Gold.
Mrs. Chantry sat up again. She picked up a flask of sunbathing oil. She had some difficulty with it—the screw top seemed to resist her efforts.
She spoke loudly and petulantly.
“Oh, dear—I can’t get this thing undone!”
She looked towards the other group—
“I wonder—”
Always gallant, Poirot rose to his feet, but Douglas Gold had the advantage of youth and suppleness. He was by her side in a moment.
“Can I do it for you?”
“Oh, thank you—” It was the sweet, empty drawl again.
“You are kind. I’m such a fool at undoing things—I always seem to screw them the wrong way. Oh! you’ve done it! Thank you ever so much—”
Hercule Poirot smiled to himself.
He got up and wandered along the beach in the opposite direction. He did not go very far but his progress was leisurely. As he was on his way back, Mrs. Gold came out of the sea and joined him. She had been swimming. Her face, under a singularly unbecoming bathing cap, was radiant.
She said breathlessly, “I do love the sea. And it’s so warm and lovely here.”
She was, he perceived, an enthusiastic bather.
She said, “Douglas and I are simply mad on bathing. He can stay in for hours.”
And at that Hercule Poirot’s eyes slid over her shoulder to the spot on the beach where that enthusiastic bather, Mr. Douglas Gold, was sitting talking to Valentine Chantry.
His wife said:
“I can’t think why he doesn’t come. . . .”
Her voice held a kind of childish bewilderment.
Poirot’s eyes rested thoughtfully on Valentine Chantry. He thought that other women in their time had made that same remark.
Beside him, he heard Mrs. Gold draw in her breath sharply.
She said—and her voice was cold:
“She’s supposed to be very attractive, I believe. But Douglas doesn’t like that type of woman.”
/>
Hercule Poirot did not reply.
Mrs. Gold plunged into the sea again.
She swam away from the shore with slow, steady strokes. You could see that she loved the water.
Poirot retraced his steps to the group on the beach.
It had been augmented by the arrival of old General Barnes, a veteran who was usually in the company of the young. He was sitting now between Pamela and Sarah, and he and Pamela were engaged in dishing up various scandals with appropriate embellishments.
Commander Chantry had returned from his errand. He and Douglas Gold were sitting on either side of Valentine.
Valentine was sitting up very straight between the two men and talking. She talked easily and lightly in her sweet, drawling voice, turning her head to take first one man and then the other in the conversation.
She was just finishing an anecdote.
“—and what do you think the foolish man said? ‘It may have been only a minute, but I’d remember you anywhere, Mum!’ Didn’t he, Tony? And you know, I thought it was so sweet of him. I do think it’s such a kind world—I mean, everybody is so frightfully kind to me always—I don’t know why—they just are. But I said to Tony—d’you remember, darling—‘Tony, if you want to be a teeny-weeny bit jealous, you can be jealous of that commissionaire.’ Because he really was too adorable. . . .”
There was a pause and Douglas Gold said:
“Good fellows—some of these commissionaires.”
“Oh, yes—but he took such trouble—really an immense amount of trouble—and seemed just pleased to be able to help me.”
Douglas Gold said:
“Nothing odd about that. Anyone would for you, I’m sure.”
She cried delightedly:
“How nice of you! Tony, did you hear that?”
Commander Chantry grunted.
His wife sighed:
“Tony never makes pretty speeches—do you, my lamb?”
Her white hand with its long red nails ruffled up his dark head.
He gave her a sudden sidelong look. She murmured:
“I don’t really know how he puts up with me. He’s simply frightfully clever—absolutely frantic with brains—and I just go on talking nonsense the whole time, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Nobody minds what I do or say—everybody spoils me. I’m sure it’s frightfully bad for me.”
Commander Chantry said across her to the other man:
“That your missus in the sea?”
“Yes. Expect it’s about time I joined her.”
Valentine murmured:
“But it’s so lovely here in the sun. You mustn’t go into the sea yet. Tony darling, I don’t think I shall actually bathe today—not my first day. I might get a chill or something. But why don’t you go in now, Tony darling? Mr.—Mr. Gold will stay and keep me company while you’re in.”
Chantry said rather grimly:
“No, thanks. Shan’t go in just yet. Your wife seems to be waving to you, Gold.”
Valentine said:
“How well your wife swims. I’m sure she’s one of those terribly efficient women who do everything well. They always frighten me so because I feel they despise me. I’m so frightfully bad at everything—an absolute duffer, aren’t I, Tony darling?”
But again Commander Chantry only grunted.
His wife murmured affectionately:
“You’re too sweet to admit it. Men are so wonderfully loyal—that’s what I like about them. I do think men are so much more loyal than women—and they never say nasty things. Women, I always think, are rather petty.”
Sarah Blake rolled over on her side towards Poirot.
She murmured between her teeth.
“Examples of pettiness, to suggest that dear Mrs. Chantry is in any way not absolute perfection! What a complete idiot the woman is! I really do think Valentine Chantry is very nearly the most idiotic woman I ever met. She can’t do anything but say, ‘Tony, darling,’ and roll her eyes. I should fancy she’d got cottonwool padding instead of brains.”
Poirot raised his expressive eyebrows.
“Un peu sévère!”
“Oh, yes. Put it down as pure ‘Cat,’ if you like. She certainly has her methods! Can’t she leave any man alone? Her husband’s looking like thunder.”
Looking out to sea, Poirot remarked:
“Mrs. Gold swims well.”
“Yes, she isn’t like us who find it a nuisance to get wet. I wonder if Mrs. Chantry will ever go into the sea at all while she’s out
here.”
“Not she,” said General Barnes huskily. “She won’t risk that makeup of hers coming off. Not that she isn’t a fine-looking woman although perhaps a bit long in the tooth.”
“She’s looking your way, General,” said Sarah wickedly. “And you’re wrong about the makeup. We’re all waterproof and kissproof nowadays.”
“Mrs. Gold’s coming out,” announced Pamela.
“Here we go gathering nuts and may,” hummed Sarah. “Here comes his wife to fetch him away—fetch him away—fetch him away. . . .”
Mrs. Gold came straight up the beach. She had quite a pretty figure but her plain, waterproof cap was rather too serviceable to be attractive.
“Aren’t you coming, Douglas?” she demanded impatiently. “The sea is lovely and warm.”
“Rather.”
Douglas Gold rose hastily to his feet. He paused a moment and as he did so Valentine Chantry looked up at him with a sweet smile.
“Au revoir,” she said.
Gold and his wife went down the beach.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Pamela said critically:
“I don’t think, you know, that that was wise. To snatch your husband away from another woman is always bad policy. It makes you seem so possessive. And husbands hate that.”
“You seem to know a lot about husbands, Miss Pamela,” said General Barnes.
“Other people’s—not my own!”
“Ah! that’s where the difference comes in.”
“Yes, but General, I shall have learnt a lot of Do Nots.”
“Well, darling,” said Sarah, “I shouldn’t wear a cap like that for one thing. . . .”
“Seems very sensible to me,” said the General. “Seems a nice, sensible little woman altogether.”
“You’ve hit it exactly, General,” said Sarah. “But you know there’s a limit to the sensibleness of sensible women. I have a feeling she won’t be so sensible when it’s a case of Valentine Chantry.”
She turned her head and exclaimed in a low, excited whisper:
“Look at him now. Just like thunder. That man looks as though he had got the most frightful temper. . . .”
Commander Chantry was indeed scowling after the retreating husband and wife in a singularly unpleasant fashion.
Sarah looked up at Poirot.
“Well?” she said. “What do you make of all this?”
Hercule Poirot did not reply in words, but once again his forefinger traced a design in the sand. The same design—a triangle.
“The eternal triangle,” mused Sarah. “Perhaps you’re right. If so, we’re in for an exciting time in the next few weeks.”
Two
M. Hercule Poirot was disappointed with Rhodes. He had come to Rhodes for a rest and for a holiday. A holiday, especially, from crime. In late October, so he had been told, Rhodes would be nearly empty. A peaceful, secluded spot.
That, in itself, was true enough. The Chantrys, the Golds, Pamela and Sarah, the General and himself and two Italian couples were the only guests. But within that restricted circle the intelligent brain of M. Poirot perceived the inevitable shaping of events to come.
“It is that I am criminal-minded,” he told himself reproachfully. “I have the indigestion! I imagine things.”
But still he worried.
One morning he came down to find Mrs. Gold sitting on the terrace doing needlework.
As he came up to her he had the impression that there was the f
licker of a cambric handkerchief swiftly whisked out of sight.
Mrs. Gold’s eyes were dry, but they were suspiciously bright. Her manner, too, struck him as being a shade too cheerful. The brightness of it was a shade overdone.
She said:
“Good morning, M. Poirot,” with such enthusiasm as to arouse his doubts.
He felt that she could not possibly be quite as pleased to see him as she appeared to be. For she did not, after all, know him very well. And though Hercule Poirot was a conceited little man where his profession was concerned, he was quite modest in his estimate of his personal attractions.
“Good morning, madame,” he responded. “Another beautiful day.”
“Yes, isn’t it fortunate? But Douglas and I are always lucky in our weather.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. We’re really very lucky altogether. You know, M. Poirot, when one sees so much trouble and unhappiness, and so many couples divorcing each other and all that sort of thing, well, one does feel very grateful for one’s own happiness.”
“It is pleasant to hear you say so, madame.”
“Yes. Douglas and I are so wonderfully happy together. We’ve been married five years, you know, and after all, five years is quite a long time nowadays—”
“I have no doubt that in some cases it can seem an eternity, madame,” said Poirot dryly.
“—but I really believe that we’re happier now than when we were first married. You see, we’re so absolutely suited to each other.”
“That, of course, is everything.”
“That’s why I feel so sorry for people who aren’t happy.”
“You mean—”
“Oh! I was speaking generally, M. Poirot.”
“I see. I see.”
Mrs. Gold picked up a strand of silk, held it to the light, approved of it, and went on:
“Mrs. Chantry, for instance—”
“Yes, Mrs. Chantry?”
“I don’t think she’s at all a nice woman.”