“And then you came down on the beach and asked me if I had seen her?”
“Er—yes.” He added with a faint emphasis in his voice. “And you said you hadn’t….”
The innocent eyes of Hercule Poirot did not falter. Gently he caressed his large and flamboyant moustache.
Weston asked:
“Had you any special reason for wanting to find your wife this morning?”
Marshall shifted his glance amiably to the Chief Constable.
He said:
“No, just wondered where she was, that’s all.”
Weston paused. He moved his chair slightly. His voice fell into a different key. He said:
“Just now, Captain M
arshall, you mentioned that your wife had a previous acquaintance with Mr. Patrick Redfern. How well did your wife know Mr. Redfern?”
Kenneth Marshall said:
“Mind if I smoke?” He felt through his pockets. “Dash! I’ve mislaid my pipe somewhere.”
Poirot offered him a cigarette which he accepted. Lighting it, he said:
“You were asking about Redfern. My wife told me she had come across him at some cocktail party or other.”
“He was, then, just a casual acquaintance?”
“I believe so.”
“Since then—” the Chief Constable paused. “I understand that that acquaintanceship has ripened into something rather closer.”
Marshall said sharply:
“You understand that, do you? Who told you so?”
“It is the common gossip of the hotel.”
For a moment Marshall’s eyes went to Hercule Poirot. They dwelt on him with a kind of cold anger. He said:
“Hotel gossip is usually a tissue of lies!”
“Possibly. But I gather that Mr. Redfern and your wife gave some grounds for the gossip.”
“What grounds?”
“They were constantly in each other’s company.”
“Is that all?”
“You do not deny that that was so?”
“May have been. I really didn’t notice.”
“You did not—excuse me, Captain Marshall—object to your wife’s friendship with Mr. Redfern?”