Hercule Poirot smiled and shook his head.
He said:
“I can think of nothing.”
Rosamund Darnley got up and went out.
Eight
They were standing in the bedroom that had been Arlena Marshall’s.
Two big bay windows gave on to a balcony that overlooked the bathing beach and the sea beyond. Sunshine poured into the room, flashing over the bewildering array of bottles and jars on Arlena’s dressing table.
Here there was every kind of cosmetic and unguent known to beauty parlours. Amongst this panoply of woman’s affairs three men moved purposefully. Inspector Colgate went about shutting and opening drawers.
Presently he gave a grunt. He had come upon a packet of folded letters. He and Weston ran through them together.
Hercule Poirot had moved to the wardrobe. He opened the door of the hanging cupboard and looked at the multiplicity of gowns and sports suits that hung there. He opened the other side. Foamy lingerie lay in piles. On a wide shelf were hats. Two more beach cardboard hats in lacquer red and pale yellow—a Big Hawaiian straw hat—another of drooping dark-blue linen and three or four little absurdities for which, no doubt, several guiness had been paid apiece—a kind of beret in dark blue—a tuft, no more, of black velvet—a pale grey turban.
Hercule Poirot stood scanning them—a faintly indulgent smile came to his lips. He murmured:
“Les femmes!”
Colonel Weston was refolding the letters.
“Three from young Redfern,” he said. “Damned young ass. He’ll learn not to write letters to women in a few more years. Women always keep letters and then swear they’ve burnt them. There’s one other letter here. Same line of country.”
He held it out and Poirot took it.
Darling Arlena,—God, I feel blue. To be going out to China—and perhaps no
t seeing you again for years and years. I didn’t know any man could go on feeling crazy about a woman like I feel about you. Thanks for the cheque. They won’t prosecute now. It was a near shave, though, and all because I wanted to make big money for you. Can you forgive me? I wanted to set diamonds in your ears—your lovely ears—and clasp great milk-white pearls round your throat, only they say pearls are no good nowadays. A fabulous emerald, then? Yes, that’s the thing. A great emerald, cool and green and full of hidden fire. Don’t forget me—but you won’t, I know. You’re mine—always.
Goodbye—goodbye—goodbye.
J.N.
Inspector Colgate said:
“Might be worth while to find out if J.N. really did go to China. Otherwise—well, he might be the person we’re looking for. Crazy about the woman, idealizing her, suddenly finding out he’d been played for a sucker. It sounds to me as though this is the boy Miss Brewster mentioned. Yes, I think this might be useful.”
Hercule Poirot nodded. He said: “Yes, that letter is important. I find it very important.”
He turned round and stared at the room—at the bottles on the dressing table—at the open wardrobe and at a big Pierrot doll that lolled insolently on the bed.
They went into Kenneth Marshall’s room.
It was next door to his wife’s but with no communicating door and no balcony. It faced the same way and had two windows, but it was much smaller. Between the two windows a gilt mirror hung on the wall. In the corner beyond the right-hand window was the dressing table. On it were two ivory brushes, a clothes brush and a bottle of hair lotion. In the corner by the left-hand window was a writing table. An open typewriter stood on it and papers were ranged in a stack beside it.
Colgate went through them rapidly.
He said:
“All seems straightforward enough. Ah, here’s the letter he mentioned this morning. Dated the 24th—that’s yesterday. And here’s the envelope postmarked Leathercombe Bay this morning. Seems all square. Now we’ll have an idea if he could have prepared that answer of his beforehand.
He sat down.
Colonel Weston said: