Agatha Christie - Dead Man's Folly

"Possibly – yes – it was a solution."

"Sir George," said Mrs Folliat, "though he is a self-made man and – let us face it – a complete vulgarian, is kindly and fundamentally decent, besides being extremely wealthy. I don't think he would ever ask for mental companionship from a wife, which is just as well. Hattie is everything he wants. She displays clothes and jewels to perfection, is affectionate and willing, and is completely happy with him. I confess that I am very thankful that that is so, for I admit that I deliberately influenced her to accept him. If it had turned out badly -" her voice faltered a little – "it would have been my fault for urging her to marry a man so many years older than herself. You see, as I told you, Hattie is completely suggestible. Anyone she is with at the time can dominate her."

"It seems to me," said Poirot approvingly, "that you made there a most prudent arrangement for her. I am not, like the English, romantic. To arrange a good marriage, one must take more than romance into consideration."

He added:

"And as for this place here, Nasse House, it is a most beautiful spot. Quite, as the saying goes, out of this world."

"Since Nasse had to be sold," said Mrs Folliat, with a faint tremor in her voice, "I am glad that Sir George bought it. It was requisitioned during the war by the Army and afterwards it might have been bought and made into a guest house or a school, the rooms cut up and partitioned, distorted out of their natural beauty. Our neighbours, the Fletchers, at Hoodown, had to sell their place and it is now a Youth Hostel. One is glad that young people should enjoy themselves – and fortunately Hoodown is late-Victorian, and of no great architectural merit, so that the alterations do not matter. I'm afraid some of the young people trespass on our grounds. It makes Sir George very angry. It's true that they have occasionally damaged the rare shrubs by hacking them about – they come through here trying to get a short cut to the ferry across the river."

They were standing now by the front gate. The lodge, a small white one-storied building, lay a little back from the drive with a small railed garden round it.

Mrs Folliat took back her basket from Poirot with a word of thanks.

"I was always very fond of the lodge," she said, looking at it affectionately. "Merdle, our head gardener for thirty years, used to live here. I much prefer it to the top cottage, though that has been enlarged and modernised by Sir George. It had to be; we've got quite a young man now as head gardener, with a young wife – and these young women must have electric irons and modern cookers and television, and all that. One must go with the times…" She sighed. "There is hardly a person left now on the estate from the old days – all new faces."

"I am glad, Madame," said Poirot, "that you have at least found a haven."

"You know those lines of Spenser's? 'Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, ease after war, death after life, doth greatly please…'"

She paused and said without any change of tone:

"It's a very wicked world, M. Poirot. And there are very wicked people in the world. You probably know that as well as I do. I don't say so before the younger people, it might discourage them, but it's true… Yes, it's a very wicked world…"

She gave him a little nod, then turned and went into the lodge. Poirot stood still, staring at the shut door.

In a mood of exploration Poirot went through the front gates and down the steeply twisting road that presently emerged on a small quay. A large bell with a chain had a notice upon it: "Ring for the Ferry." There were various boats moored by the side of the quay. A very old man with rheumy eyes, who had been leaning against a bollard, came shuffling towards Poirot.

"Du ee want the ferry, sir?"

"I thank you, no. I have just come down from Nasse House for a little walk."

"Ah, 'tis up at Nasse yu are? Worked there as a boy, I did, and my son, he were head gardener there. But I did use to look after the boats. Old Squire Folliat, he was fair mazed about boats. Sail in all weathers, he would. The Major now, his son, he didn't care for sailing. Horses, that's all he cared about. And a pretty packet went on 'em. That and the bottle – had a hard time with him, his wife did. Yu've seen her, maybe – lives at the Lodge now, she du."

"Yes, I have just left her there now."

"Her be a Folliat, to, second cousin from over Tiverton way. A great one for the garden, she is, all them there flowering shrubs she had put in. Even when it was took over during the war, and the young gentlemen was gone to the war, she still looked after they shrubs and kept 'em from being overrun."

"It was hard on her, both her sons being killed."

"Ah, she've had a hard life, she have, what with this and that. Trouble with her husband, and trouble with the young gentlemen, tu. Not Mr Henry. He was as nice a young gentleman as yu could wish, took after his grandfather, fond of sailing and went into the navy as a matter of course, but Mr James, caused her a lot of trouble. Debts and women it wer, and then, tu, he were real wild in his temper. Born one of they as can't go straight. But the war suited him, as yu might say – give him his chance. Ah! There's many who can't go straight in peace who dies bravely in war."

"So now," said Poirot, "there are no more Folliats at Nasse."

The old man's flow of talk died abruptly.

"Just as yu say, sir."

Poirot looked curiously at the old man.

"Instead you have Sir George Stubbs. What is thought locally of him?"

"Us understands," said the old man, "that he be powerful rich."

His tone sounded dry and almost amused.

"And his wife?"

"Ah, she's a fine lady from London, she is. No use for gardens, not her. They du say, tu, as her du be wanting up here."

He tapped his temple significantly.

"Not as her isn't always very nice spoken and friendly. Just over a year they've been here. Bought the place and had it all done up like new. I remember as though 'twere yesterday them arriving. Arrived in the evening, they did, day after the worst gale as I ever remember. Trees down right and left – one down across the drive and us had to get it sawn away in a hurry to get the drive clear for the car. And the big oak up along, that come down and brought a lot of others down with it, made a rare mess, it did."

"Ah, yes, where the Folly stands now?"

The old man turned aside and spat disgustedly.

"Folly 'tis called and Folly 'tis – new-fangled nonsense. Never was no Folly in the old Folliats' time. Her ladyship's idea that Folly was. Put up not three weeks after they first come, and I've no doubt she talked Sir George into it. Rare silly it looks stuck up there among the trees, like a heathen temple. A nice summerhouse now, made rustic like with stained glass. I'd have nothing against that."

Poirot smiled faintly.

"The London ladies," he said, "they must have their fancies. It is sad that the day of the Folliats is over."

"Don't ee never believe that, sir." The old man gave a wheezy chuckle. "Always be Folliats at Nasse."

"But the house belongs to Sir George Stubbs."

"That's as may be – but there's still a Folliat here. Ah! Rare and cunning the Folliats are!"

"What do you mean?"

The old man gave him a sly sideways glance.

"Mrs Folliat be living up to Lodge, bain't she?" he demanded.

"Yes," said Poirot slowly. "Mrs- Folliat is living at the Lodge and the world is very wicked, and all the people in it are very wicked."

The old man stared at him.

"Ah," he said. "Yu've got something there, maybe."

He shuffled away again.

"But what have I got?" Poirot asked himself with irritation as he slowly walked up the hill back to the house.