The Murder on the Links
extends all round the grave. Is it a device of the police?”
“No, M. 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.
“You do not play the golf, M. Poirot?” inquired Bex.
“I? Never! What a game!” He became excited. “Figure to yourself, each
hole it is of a different length. The obstacles, they are not arranged
mathematically. Even the greens are frequently up one side! There is
only one pleasing thing—the how do you call them?—tee boxes! They, at
least, are symmetrical.”
I could not refrain from a laugh at the way the game appeared to
Poirot, and my little friend smiled at me affectionately, bearing no
malice. Then he asked:
“But M. 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 strangers 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—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!”
7 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 wrist watch 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 ear-shot 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. M. Bex says that they are the footmarks
of the gardener. Let us see if that 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 M. 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, M. 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 M. 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?”
I admired the picturesqueness of M. Hautet’s language. I suspected that
the examining magistrate was by now thoroughly enjoying his part in the
mysterious drama.
“Is M. Giraud not going to accompany us?” asked Poirot.
“M. Giraud has shown clearly that he prefers to conduct the case in his
own way,” said M. Hautet dryly. One could see easily enough that
Giraud’s cavalier treatment of the examining magistrate had not
prejudiced the latter in his favour. 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 M. 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 quietly, 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. There was