Agatha Christie - Evil Under the Sun

Weston said:

‘If the Marshall woman’s death is the result of her getting mixed up, innocently or otherwise, with the dope-running stunt, then we’d better hand the whole thing over to Scotland Yard. It’s their pigeon. Eh? What do you say?’

Inspector Colgate said rather regretfully:

‘I’m afraid you’re right, sir. If it’s dope, then it’s a case for the Yard.’

Weston said after a moment or two’s thought:

‘It really seems the most likely explanation.’

Colgate nodded gloomily.

‘Yes, it does. Marshall’s right out of it-though I did get some information that might have been useful if his alibi hadn’t been so good. Seems his firm is very near the rocks. Not his fault or his partner’s, just the general result of the crisis last year and the general state of trade and finance. And as far as he knew, he’d come into fifty thousand pounds if his wife died. And fifty thousand would have been a very useful sum.’

He sighed.

‘Seems a pity when a man’s got two perfectly good motives for murder, that he can be proved to have had nothing to do with it!’

Weston smiled.

‘Cheer up, Colgate. There’s still a chance we may distinguish ourselves. There’s the blackmail angle still and there’s the batty parson, but, personally, I think the dope solution is far the most likely.’ He added: ‘And if it was one of the dope gang who put her out we’ll have been instrumental in helping Scotland Yard to solve the dope problem. In fact, take it all round, one way or another, we’ve done pretty well.’

An unwilling smile showed on Colgate’s face.

He said:

‘Well, that’s the lot, sir. By the way, I checked up on the writer of that letter we found in her room. The one signed J.N. Nothing doing. He’s in China safe enough. Same chap as Miss Brewster was telling us about. Bit of a young scallywag. I’ve checked up on the rest of Mrs Marshall’s friends. No leads there. Everything there is to get, we’ve got, sir.’

Weston said:

‘So now it’s up to us.’ He paused and then added: ‘Seen anything of our Belgian colleague? Does he know all you’ve told me?’

Colgate said with a grin:

‘He’s a queer little cuss, isn’t he? D’you know what he asked me day before yesterday? He wanted particulars of any cases of strangulation in the last three years.’

Colonel Weston sat up.

‘He did, did he? Now I wonder-’ he paused a minute. ‘When did you say the Reverend Stephen Lane went into that mental home?’

‘A year ago last Easter, sir.’

Colonel Weston was thinking deeply. He said:

‘There was a case-body of a young woman found somewhere near Bagshot. Going to meet her husband somewhere and never turned up. And there was what the papers called the Lonely Copse Mystery. Both in Surrey if I remember rightly.’

His eyes met those of his Inspector. Colgate said:

‘Surrey? My word, sir, it fits, doesn’t it? I wonder…’

Hercule Poirot sat on the turf on the summit of the island.

A little to his left was the beginning of the steel ladder that led down to Pixy Cove. There were several rough boulders near the head of the ladder, he noted, forming easy concealment for anyone who proposed to descend to the beach below. Of the beach itself little could be seen from the top owing to the overhang of the cliff.

Hercule Poirot nodded his head gravely.

The pieces of his jig-saw were fitting into position.

Mentally he went over those pieces, considering each as a detached item.

A morning on the bathing beach some few days before Arlena Marshall’s death.

One, two, three, four, five separate remarks uttered on that morning.

The evening of a bridge game. He, Patrick Redfern and Rosamund Darnley had been at the table. Christine had wandered out while dummy and had overheard a certain conversation. Who else had been in the lounge at that time? Who had been absent?

The evening before the crime. The conversation he had had with Christine on the cliff and the scene he had witnessed on his way back to the hotel.

Gabrielle No 8.

A pair of scissors.

A broken pipe stem.

A bottle thrown from a window.

A green calendar.

A packet of candles.

A mirror and a typewriter.

A skein of magenta wool.

A girl’s wristwatch.

Bathwater rushing down the waste-pipe.

Each of these unrelated facts must fit into its appointed place. There must be no loose ends.

And then, with each concrete fact fitted into position, on to the next stop: his own belief in the presence of evil on the island.

Evil…

He looked down at a typewritten paper in his hands.

Nellie Parsons-found strangled in a lonely copse near Chobham. No clue to her murderer ever discovered.

Nellie Parsons?

Alice Corrigan.

He read very carefully the details of Alice Corrigan’s death.

To Hercule Poirot, sitting on the ledge overlooking the sea, came Inspector Colgate.

Poirot liked Inspector Colgate. He liked his rugged face, his shrewd eyes, and his slow unhurried manner.

Inspector Colgate sat down. He said, glancing down at the typewritten sheets in Poirot’s hand:

‘Done anything with those cases, sir?’

‘I have studied them-yes.’

Colgate got up, he walked along and peered into the next niche. He came back, saying:

‘One can’t be too careful. Don’t want to be overheard.’

Poirot said:

‘You are wise.’

Colgate said:

‘I don’t mind telling you, M. Poirot, that I’ve been interested in those cases myself-though perhaps I shouldn’t have thought about them if you hadn’t asked for them.’ He paused: ‘I’ve been interested in one case in particular.’

‘Alice Corrigan?’

‘Alice Corrigan.’ He paused. ‘I’ve been on to the Surrey police about that case-wanted to get all the ins and outs of it.’

‘Tell me, my friend. I am interested-very interested.’

‘I thought you might be. Alice Corrigan was found strangled in Caesar’s Grove on Blackridge Heath-not ten miles from Marley Copse where Nellie Parsons was found-and both those places are within twelve miles of Whiteridge where Mr Lane was vicar.’

Poirot said:

‘Tell me more about the death of Alice Corrigan.’

Colgate said:

‘The Surrey police didn’t at first connect her death with that of Nellie Parsons. That’s because they’d pitched on the husband as the guilty party. Don’t quite know why except that he was a bit of what the Press calls a “mystery man”-not much known about him-who he was or where he came from. She’d married him against her people’s wishes, she’d a bit of money of her own-and she’d insured her life in his favour-all that was enough to raise suspicion, as I think you’ll agree, sir?’

Poirot nodded.

‘But when it came down to brass tacks the husband was washed right out of the picture. The body was discovered by one of these women hikers-hefty young women in shorts. She was an absolutely competent and reliable witness-games mistress at a school in Lancashire. She noted the time when she found the body-it was exactly four-fifteen-and gave it as her opinion that the woman had been dead quite a short time-not more than ten minutes. That fitted in well enough with the police surgeon’s view when he examined the body at 5.45. She left everything as it was and tramped across country to Bagshot police station where she reported the death. Now from three o’clock to four-ten, Edward Corrigan was in the train coming down from London where he’d gone up for the day on business. Four other people were in the carriage with him. From the station he took the local bus, two of his fellow passengers travelling by it also. He got off at the Pine Ridge Cafe where he’d arranged to meet his wife for tea. Time then was four twenty-five. He ordered tea for them both, but said not to bring it till she came. Then he walked about outside waiting for her. When, by five o’clock she hadn’t turned up, he was getting alarmed-thought she might have sprained her ankle. The arrangement was that she was to walk across the moors from the village where they were staying to the Pine Ridge Cafe and go home by bus. Caesar’s Grove is not far from the cafe, and it’s thought that as she was ahead of time she sat down there to admire the view for a bit before going on, and that some tramp or madman came upon her there and caught her unawares. Once the husband was proved to be out of it, naturally they connected up her death with that of Nellie Parsons-that rather flighty servant girl who was found strangled in Marley Copse. They decided that the same man was responsible for both crimes, but they never caught him-and what’s more they never came near to catching him! Drew a blank everywhere.’