Evil Under the Sun - Christie Agatha (лучшие книги читать онлайн бесплатно .txt) 📗

He brought out the three words with ironic detachment.

Gladys said:

‘It was nothing really. Just a bath being run. And I did pass the remark to Elsie, downstairs, that it was funny somebody having a bath round about twelve o’clock.’

‘Whose bath, who had a bath?’

‘That I couldn’t say, sir. We heard it going down the waste from this wing, that’s all, and that’s when I said what I did to Elsie.’

‘You’re sure it was a bath? Not one of the hand-basins?’

‘Oh! quite sure, sir. You can’t mistake bath-water running away.’

Poirot displaying no further desire to keep her, Gladys Narracott was permitted to depart.

Weston said:

‘You don’t think this bath question is important, do you, Poirot? I mean, there’s no point to it. No bloodstains or anything like that to wash off. That’s the-’ He hesitated. 

Poirot cut in:

‘That, you would say, is the advantage of strangulation! No bloodstains, no weapon-nothing to get rid of or conceal! Nothing is needed but physical strength-and the soul of a killer!’

His voice was so fierce, so charged with feeling, that Weston recoiled a little.

Hercule Poirot smiled at him apologetically.

‘No one,’ he said, ‘the bath is probably of no importance. Anyone may have had a bath. Mrs Redfern before she went to play tennis, Captain Marshall, Miss Darnley. As I say, anyone. There is nothing in that.’

A police constable knocked at the door, and put in his head.

‘It’s Miss Darnley, sir. She says she’d like to see you again for a minute. There’s something she forgot to tell you, she says.’

Weston said:

‘We’re coming down-now.’

The first person they saw was Colgate. His face was gloomy.

‘Just a minute, sir.’ 

Weston and Poirot followed him into Mrs Castle’s office.

Colgate said:

‘I’ve been checking-up with Heald on this typewriting business. Not a doubt of it, it couldn’t be done under an hour. Longer, if you had to stop and think here and there. That seems to me pretty well to settle it. And look at this letter.’

He held it out.

‘My dear Marshall-Sorry to worry you on your holiday but an entirely unforseen situation has arisen over the Burley and Tender contracts…’

‘Etcetera, etcetera,’ said Colgate. ‘Dated the 24th-that’s yesterday. Envelope postmarked yesterday evening E.C.1. and Leathercombe Bay this morning. Same typewriter used on envelope and in letter. And by the contents it was clearly impossible for Marshall to prepare his answer beforehand. The figures arise out of the ones in the letter-the whole thing is quite intricate.’

‘H’m,’ said Weston gloomily. ‘That seems to let Marshall out. We’ll have to look elsewhere.’ He added: ‘I’ve got to see Miss Darnley again. She’s waiting now.’

Rosamund came in crisply. Her smile held an apologeticnuance.

She said: 

‘I’m frightfully sorry. Probably it isn’t worth bothering about. But one does forget things so.’

‘Yes, Miss Darnley?’

The Chief Constable indicated a chair.

She shook her shapely black head.

‘Oh, it isn’t worth sitting down. It’s simply this. I told you that I spent the morning lying out on Sunny Ledge. That isn’t quite accurate. I forgot that once during the morning I went back to the hotel and out again.’

‘What time was that, Miss Darnley?’

‘It must have been about a quarter-past eleven.’

‘You went back to the hotel, you said?’

‘Yes, I’d forgotten my glare glasses. At first I thought I wouldn’t bother and then my eyes got tired and I decided to go in and get them.’

‘You went straight to your room and out again?’

‘Yes. At least, as a matter of fact, I just looked in on Ken-Captain Marshall. I heard his machine going and I thought it was so stupid of him to stay indoors typing on such a lovely day. I thought I’d tell him to come out.’

‘And what did Captain Marshall say?’

Rosamund smiled rather shamefacedly.

‘Well, when I opened the door he was typing so vigorously, and frowning and looking so concentrated, that I just went away quietly. I don’t think he even saw me come in.’ 

‘And that was-at what time, Miss Darnley?’

‘Just about twenty-past eleven. I noticed the clock in the hall as I went out again.’

‘And that puts the lid on it finally,’ said Inspector Colgate. ‘The chambermaid heard him typing up till five minutes to eleven. Miss Darnley saw him at twenty minutes past, and the woman was dead at a quarter to twelve. He says he spent that hour typing in his room, and it seems quite clear that hewas typing in his room. That washes Captain Marshall right out.’

He stopped, then looking at Poirot with some curiosity, he asked:

‘M. Poirot’s looking very serious over something.’

Poirot said thoughtfully:

‘I was wondering why Miss Darnley suddenly volunteered this extra evidence.’

Inspector Colgate cocked his head alertly.

‘Think there’s something fishy about it? That it isn’t just a question of “forgetting”?’

He considered for a minute or two, then he said slowly:

‘Look here, sir, let’s look at it this way. Supposing Miss Darnley wasn’t on Sunny Ledge this morning as she says. That story’s a lie. Now suppose thatafter telling us her story, she finds that somebody saw her somewhere else or alternatively that someone went to the Ledge and didn’t find her there. Then she thinks up this story quick and comes and tells it to us to account for her absence. You’ll notice that she was careful to say Captain Marshall didn’tsee her when she looked into his room.’

Poirot murmured:

‘Yes, I noticed that.’

Weston said incredulously:

‘Are you suggesting that Miss Darnley’s mixed up in this? Nonsense, seems absurd to me. Why should she be?’

Inspector Colgate coughed.

He said:

‘You’ll remember what the American lady, Mrs Gardener, said. She sort of hinted that Miss Darnley was sweet on Captain Marshall. There’d be a motive there, sir.’

Weston said impatiently:

‘Arlena Marshall wasn’t killed by a woman. It’s a man we’ve got to look for. We’ve got to stick to the men in the case.’

Inspector Colgate sighed. He said:

‘Yes, that’s true, sir. We always come back to that, don’t we?’ 

Weston went on:

‘Better put a constable on to timing one or two things. From the hotel across the island to the top of the ladder. Let him do it running and walking. Same thing with the ladder itself. And somebody had better check the time it takes to go on a float from the bathing beach to the cove.’

Inspector Colgate nodded.

‘I’ll attend to all that, sir,’ he said confidently.

The Chief Constable said:

‘Think I’ll go along to the cove now. See if Phillips has found anything. Then there’s that Pixy’s Cave we’ve been hearing about. Ought to see if there are any traces of a man waiting in there. Eh, Poirot? What do you think?’

‘By all means. It is a possibility.’

Weston said:

‘If somebody from outside had nipped over to the island that would be a good hiding-place-if he knew about it. I suppose the locals know?’

Colgate said:

‘Don’t believe the younger generation would. You see, ever since this hotel was started the coves have been private property. Fishermen don’t go there, or picnic parties. And the hotel people aren’t local. Mrs Castle’s a Londoner.’

Weston said: 

‘We might take Redfern with us. He told us about it. What about you, M. Poirot?’

Hercule Poirot hesitated. He said, his foreign intonation very pronounced:

‘Me, I am like Miss Brewster and Mrs Redfern, I do not like to descend perpendicular ladders.’

Weston said: ‘You can go round by boat.’

Again Hercule Poirot sighed.

‘My stomach, it is not happy on the sea.’

‘Nonsense, man, it’s a beautiful day. Calm as a mill pond. You can’t let us down, you know.’

Hercule Poirot hardly looked like responding to this British adjuration. But at that moment, Mrs Castle poked her ladylike face and elaborate coiffure round the door.

‘Ay’m sure ay hope ay am not intruding,’ she said. ‘But Mr Lane, the clergyman, you know, has just returned. Ay thought you might like to know.’

‘Ah yes, thanks, Mrs Castle. We’ll see him right away.’

Mrs Castle came a little farther into the room. She said:

‘Ay don’t know if it is worth mentioning, but ayhave heard that the smallest incident should not be ignored-’

‘Yes, yes?’ said Weston impatiently.

‘It is only that there was a lady and gentleman here about one o’clock. Came over from the mainland. For luncheon. They were informed that there had been an accident and that under the circumstances no luncheons could be served.’

‘Any idea who they were?’

‘Ay couldn’t say at all. Naturally no name was given. They expressed disappointment and a certain amount of curiosity as to the nature of the accident. Ay couldn’t tell them anything, of course. Ay should say, myself, they were summer visitors of the better class.’

Weston said brusquely:

‘Ah well, thank you for telling us. Probably not important but quite right-er-to remember everything.’

‘Naturally,’ said Mrs Castle, ‘ay wish to do my Duty!’

‘Quite, quite. Ask Mr Lane to come here.’

Stephen Lane strode into the room with his usual vigour.

Weston said:

‘I’m the Chief Constable of the County, Mr Lane. I suppose you’ve been told what has occurred here?’

‘Yes-oh yes-I heard as soon as I got here. Terrible…Terrible…’ His thin frame quivered. He said in a low voice: ‘All along-ever since I arrived here-I have been conscious-very conscious-of the forces of evil close at hand.’

His eyes, burning eager eyes, went to Hercule Poirot.

He said:

‘You remember, M. Poirot? Our conversation some days ago? About the reality of evil?’

Weston was studying the tall, gaunt figure in some perplexity. He found it difficult to make this man out. Lane’s eyes came back to him. The clergyman said with a slight smile: