The Murder on the Links
class. We can rule it out here.”
“But what about the _crime passionnel?___ Can you rule that out? If
Madame Daubreuil was Renauld’s mistress, if she found that his
affection was cooling, or if her jealousy was aroused in any way, might
she not have struck him down in a moment of anger?”
Poirot shook his head.
“If—I say _if___, you note—Madame Daubreuil was Renauld’s mistress, he
had not had time to tire of her. And in any case you mistake her
character. She is a woman who can simulate great emotional stress. She
is a magnificent actress. But, looked at dispassionately, her life
disproves her appearance. Throughout, if we examine it, she had been
cold-blooded and calculating in her motives and actions. It was not to
link her life with that of her young lover that she connived at her
husband’s murder. The rich American, for whom she probably did not care
a button, was her objective. If she committed a crime, she would always
do so for gain. Here there was no gain. Besides, how do you account for
the digging of the grave? That was a man’s work.”
“She might have had an accomplice,” I suggested, unwilling to
relinquish my belief.
“I pass to another objection. You have spoken of the similarity between
the two crimes. Wherein does that lie, my friend?”
I stared at him in astonishment.
“Why, Poirot, it was you who remarked on that! The story of the masked
men, the ‘secret,’ the papers!”
Poirot smiled a little.
“Do not be so indignant, I beg of you. I repudiate nothing. The
similarity of the two stories links the two cases together inevitably.
But reflect now on something very curious. It is not Madame Daubreuil
who tells us this tale—if it were all would indeed be plain sailing—it
is Madame Renauld. Is she then in league with the other?”
“I can’t believe that,” I said slowly. “If it is so, she must be the
most consummate actress the world has ever known.”
“Ta-ta-ta,” said Poirot impatiently. “Again you have the sentiment, and
not the logic! If it is necessary for a criminal to be a consummate
actress, then by all means assume her to be one. But is it necessary? I
do not believe Madame Renauld to be in league with Madame Daubreuil for
several reasons, some of which I have already enumerated to you. The
others are self-evident. Therefore, that possibility eliminated, we
draw very near to the truth which is, as always, very curious and
interesting.”
“Poirot,” I cried, “what more do you know?”
“_Mon ami___, you must make your own deductions. You have ‘access to
the facts!’ Concentrate your grey cells. Reason—not like Giraud—but
like Hercule Poirot.”
“But are you _sure?___”
“My friend, in many ways I have been an imbecile. But at last I see
clearly.”
“You know everything?”
“I have discovered what M. Renauld sent for me to discover.”
“And you know the murderer?”
“I know one murderer.”
“What do you mean?”
“We talk a little at cross-purposes. There are here not one crime, but
two. The first I have solved, the second—_eh bien___, I will confess, I
am not sure!”
“But, Poirot, I thought you said the man in the shed had died a natural
death?”
“Ta-ta-ta.” Poirot made his favourite ejaculation of impatience. “Still
you do not understand. One may have a crime without a murderer, but for
two crimes it is essential to have two bodies.”
His remark struck me as so peculiarly lacking in lucidity that I looked
at him in some anxiety. But he appeared perfectly normal. Suddenly he
rose and strolled to the window.
“Here he is,” he observed.
“Who?”
“M. Jack Renauld. I sent a note up to the Villa to ask him to come
here.”
That changed the course of my ideas, and I asked Poirot if he knew that
Jack Renauld had been in Merlinville on the night of the crime. I had
hoped to catch my astute little friend napping, but as usual, he was
omniscient. He, too, had inquired at the station.
“And without doubt we are not original in the idea, Hastings. The
excellent Giraud, he also has probably made his inquiries.”
“You don’t think—” I said, and then stopped. “Ah, no, it would be too
horrible!”
Poirot looked inquiringly at me, but I said no more. It had just
occurred to me that though there were seven women directly or
indirectly connected with the case Mrs. Renauld, Madame Daubreuil and
her daughter, the mysterious visitor, and the three servants—there was,
with the exception of old Auguste who could hardly count, only one
man—Jack Renauld. _And a man must have dug a grave.…___
I had no time to develop further the appalling idea that had occurred
to me, for Jack Renauld was ushered into the room.
Poirot greeted him in a business-like manner.
“Take a seat, monsieur. I regret infinitely to derange you, but you
will perhaps understand that the atmosphere of the Villa is not too
congenial to me. M. Giraud and I do not see eye to eye about
everything. His politeness to me has not been striking and you will
comprehend that I do not intend any little discoveries I may make to
benefit him in any way.”
“Exactly, M. Poirot,” said the lad. “That fellow Giraud is an
ill-conditioned brute, and I’d be delighted to see some one score at
his expense.”
“Then I may ask a little favour of you?”
“Certainly.”
“I will ask you to go to the railway station and take a train to the
next station along the line, Abbalac. Ask there at the cloak-room
whether two foreigners deposited a valise there on the night of the
murder. It is a small station, and they are almost certain to remember.
Will you do this?”
“Of course I will,” said the boy, mystified, though ready for the task.
“I and my friend, you comprehend, have business elsewhere,” explained
Poirot. “There is a train in a quarter of an hour, and I will ask you
not to return to the Villa, as I have no wish for Giraud to get an
inkling of your errand.”
“Very well, I will go straight to the station.”
He rose to his feet. Poirot’s voice stopped him.
“One moment, M. Renauld, there is one little matter that puzzles me.
Why did you not mention to M. Hautet this morning that you were in
Merlinville on the night of the crime?”
Jack Renauld’s face went crimson. With an effort he controlled himself.
“You have made a mistake. I was in Cherbourg, as I told the examining
magistrate this morning.”
Poirot looked at him, his eyes narrowed, cat-like, until they only
showed a gleam of green.
“Then it is a singular mistake that I have made there—for it is shared
by the station staff. They say you arrived by the 11:40 train.”
For a moment Jack Renauld hesitated, then he made up his mind.
“And if I did? I suppose you do not mean to accuse me of participating
in my father’s murder?” He asked the question haughtily, his head
thrown back.
“I should like an explanation of the reason that brought you here.”
“That is simple enough. I came to see my fiancée, Mademoiselle
Daubreuil. I was on the eve of a long voyage, uncertain as to when I
should return. I wished to see her before I went, to assure her of my
unchanging devotion.”
“And you did see her?” Poirot’s eyes never left the other’s face.
There was an appreciable pause before Renauld replied. Then he said:
“Yes.”
“And afterwards?”
“I found I had missed the last train. I walked to St. Beauvais where I
knocked up a garage and got a car to take me back to Cherbourg.”
“St. Beauvais? That is fifteen kilometres. A long walk, M. Renauld.”
“I—I felt like walking.”
Poirot bowed his head as a sign that he accepted the explanation. Jack
Renauld took up his hat and cane and departed. In a trice Poirot jumped
to his feet.
“Quick, Hastings. We will go after him.”
Keeping a discreet distance behind our quarry, we followed him through
the streets of Merlinville. But when Poirot saw that he took the
turning to the station, he checked himself.
“All is well. He has taken the bait. He will go to Abbalac, and will
inquire for the mythical valise left by the mythical foreigners. Yes,
_mon ami___, all that was a little invention of my own.”
“You wanted him out of the way!” I exclaimed.
“Your penetration is amazing, Hastings! Now, if you please, we will go
up to the Villa Geneviève.”
18 Giraud Acts
“By the way, Poirot,” I said, as we walked along the hot white road,
“I’ve got a bone to pick with you. I dare say you meant well, but
really it was no business of yours to go mouching round to the Hôtel du
Phare without letting me know.”
Poirot shot a quick sidelong glance at me.
“And how did you know I had been there?” he inquired.
Much to my annoyance I felt the colour rising in my cheeks.
“I happened to look in in passing,” I explained with as much dignity as
I could muster.
I rather feared Poirot’s banter, but to my relief, and somewhat to my
surprise, he only shook his head with a rather unusual gravity.
“If I have offended your susceptibilities in any way, I demand pardon
of you. You will understand better soon. But, believe me, I have
striven to concentrate all my energies on the case.”
“Oh, it’s all right,” I said, mollified by the apology. “I know it’s
only that you have my interests at heart. But I can take care of myself
all right.”
Poirot seemed to be about to say something further, but checked
himself.
Arrived at the Villa, Poirot led the way up to the shed where the
second body had been discovered. He did not, however, go in, but paused
by the bench which I have mentioned before as being set some few yards
away from it. After contemplating it for a moment or two, he paced
carefully from it to the hedge which marked the boundary between the
Villa Geneviève and the Villa Marguerite. Then he paced back again,
nodding his head as he did so. Returning again to the hedge, he parted
the bushes with his hands.
“With good fortune,” he remarked to me over his shoulder, “Mademoiselle
Marthe may find herself in the garden. I desire to speak to her and
would prefer not to call formally at the Villa Marguerite. Ah, all is
well, there she is. Pst, mademoiselle! Pst! _Un moment, s’il vous
plaît.___”
I joined him at the moment that Marthe Daubreuil, looking slightly
startled, came running up to the hedge at his call.
“A little word with you, mademoiselle, if it is permitted?”
“Certainly, Monsieur Poirot.”
Despite her acquiescence, her eyes looked troubled and afraid.
“Mademoiselle, do you remember running after me on the road the day
that I came to your house with the examining magistrate? You asked me
if any one were suspected of the crime.”
“And you told me two Chilians.” Her voice sounded rather breathless,
and her left hand stole to her breast.
“Will you ask me the same question again, mademoiselle?”
“What do you mean?”
“This. If you were to ask me that question again, I should give you a
different answer. Some one is suspected—but not a Chilian.”
“Who?” The word came faintly between her parted lips.
“M. Jack Renauld.”
“What?” It was a cry. “Jack? Impossible. Who dares to suspect him?”
“Giraud.”
“Giraud!” The girl’s face was ashy. “I am afraid of that man. He is
cruel. He will—he will—” She broke off. There was courage gathering in
her face, and determination. I realized in that moment that she was a
fighter. Poirot, too, watched her intently.
“You know, of course, that he was here on the night of the murder?” he
asked.
“Yes,” she replied mechanically. “He told me.”
“It was unwise to have tried to conceal the fact,” ventured Poirot.
“Yes, yes,” she replied impatiently. “But we cannot waste time on
regrets. We must find something to save him. He is innocent, of course,
but that will not help him with a man like Giraud who has his
reputation to think of. He must arrest some one, and that some one will
be Jack.”
“The facts will tell against him,” said Poirot. “You realize that?”