‘M. Poirot, I can’t believe it!’
‘Madame, you can and you do believe it!’
She seemed about to protest. Then suddenly she smiled ruefully.
She said:
‘What a hypocrite one is!’
He nodded.
‘If you were to be frank with me, madame,’ he said, ‘you would admit that to you it seems quite natural that one of his family should murder your father-in-law.’
Lydia said sharply:
‘That’s really a fantastic thing to say, M. Poirot!’
‘Yes, it is. But your father-in-law was a fantastic person!’
Lydia said:
‘Poor old man. I can feel sorry for him now. When he was alive, he just annoyed me unspeakably!’
Poirot said:
‘So I should imagine!’
He bent over one of the stone sinks.
‘They are very ingenious, these. Very pleasing.’
‘I’m glad you like them. It’s one of my hobbies. Do you like this Arctic one with the penguins and the ice?’
‘Charming. And this—what is this?’
‘Oh, that’s the Dead Sea—or going to be. It isn’t finished yet. You mustn’t look at it. Now this one is supposed to be Piana in Corsica. The rocks there, you know, are quite pink and too lovely where they go down into the blue sea. This desert scene is rather fun, don’t you think?’
She led him along. When they had reached the farther end she glanced at her wrist-watch.
‘I must go and see if Alfred is awake.’
When she had gone Poirot went slowly back again to the garden representing the Dead Sea. He looked at it with a good deal of interest. Then he scooped up a few of the pebbles and let them run through his fingers.
Suddenly his face changed. He held up the pebbles close to his face.
‘Sapristi!’ he said. ‘This is a surprise! Now what exactly does this mean?’
Part 5
Decembe
r 26th
The chief constable and Superintendent Sugden stared at Poirot incredulously. The latter returned a stream of small pebbles carefully into a small cardboard box and pushed it across to the chief constable.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘It is the diamonds all right.’
‘And you found them where, did you say? In the garden?’