“You do not think it odd,” asked Poirot, “that these strangers should come unprovided with a weapon, with gloves, with a spade, and that they should so conveniently find all these things?”
Giraud smiled in a rather superior manner.
“Undoubtedly it is strange. Indeed, without the theory that I hold, it would be inexplicable.”
“Aha!” said M. Hautet. “An accomplice within the house!”
“Or outside it,” said Giraud, with a peculiar smile.
“But someone must have admitted them. We cannot allow that, by an unparalleled piece of good fortune, they found the door ajar for them to walk in?”
“The door was opened for them; but it could just as easily be opened from outside—by someone who possessed a key.”
“But who did possess a key?”
Giraud shrugged his shoulders.
“As for that, no one who possesses one is going to admit the fact if he can help it. But several people might have had one. Monsieur Jack Renauld, the son, for instance. It is true that he is on his way to South America, but he might have lost the key or had it stolen from him. Then there is the gardener—he has been here many years. One of the younger servants may have a lover. It is easy to take an impression of a key and have one cut. There are many possibilities. Then there is another person who, I should judge, is exceedingly likely to have such a thing.”
“Who is that?”
“Madame Daubreuil,” said the detective.
“Eh, eh!” said the magistrate. “So you have heard about that, have you?”
“I hear everything,” said Giraud imperturbably.
“There is one thing I could swear you have not heard,” said M. Hautet, delighted to be able to show superior knowledge, and without more ado he retailed the story of the mysterious visitor the night before. He also touched on the cheque made out to “Duveen,” and finally handed Giraud the letter signed “Bella.”
“All very interesting. But my theory remains unaffected.”
“And your theory is?”
“For the moment I prefer not to say. Remember, I am only just beginning my investigations.”
“Tell me one thing, Monsieur Giraud,” said Poirot suddenly. “Your theory allows for the door being opened. It does not explain why it was left open. When they departed, would it not have been natural for them to close it behind them? If a sergent de ville had chanced to come up to the house, as is sometimes done to see that all is well, they might have been discovered and overtaken almost at once.”
“Bah! They forgot it. A mistake, I grant you.”
Then, to my surprise, Poirot uttered almost the same words as he had uttered to Bex the previous evening:
“I do not agree with you. The door being left open was the result of either design or necessity, and any theory that does not admit that fact is bound to prove vain.”
We all regarded the little man with a good deal of astonishment. The confession of ignorance drawn from him over the match end had, I thought, been bound to humiliate him, but here he was self-satisfied as ever, laying down the law to Giraud without a tremor.
The detective twisted his moustache, eyeing my friend in a somewhat bantering fashion.
“You don’t agree with me, eh? Well, what strikes you particularly about the case? Let’s hear your views.”
“One thing presents itself to me as being significant. Tell me, Monsieur Giraud, does nothing strike you as familiar about this case? Is there nothing it reminds you of?”
“Familiar? Reminds me of? I can’t say offhand. I don’t think so, though.”
“You are wrong,” said Poirot quietly. “A crime almost precisely similar has been committed before.”
“When? And where?”
“Ah, that, unfortunately, I cannot for the moment remember, but I shall do so. I had hoped you might be able to assist me.”
Giraud snorted incredulously.
“There have been many affairs of masked men. I cannot remember the details of them all. The crimes all resemble each other more or less.”
“There is such a thing as the individual touch.” Poirot suddenly assumed his lecturing manner, and addressed us collectively. “I am speaking to you now of the psychology of crime. Monsieur Giraud knows quite well that each criminal has his particular method, and that the police, when called in to investigate, say, a case of burglary, can often make a shrewd guess at the offender, simply by the peculiar methods he has employed. (Japp would tell you the same, Hastings.) Man is an unoriginal animal. Unoriginal within the law in his daily respectable life, equally unoriginal outside the law. If a man commits a crime, any other crime he commits will resemble it closely. The English murderer who disposed of his wives in succession by drowning them in their baths was a case in point. Had he varied his methods, he might have escaped detection to this day. But he obeyed the common dictates of human nature, arguing that what had once succeeded would succeed again, and he paid the penalty of his lack of originality.”
“And the point of all this?” sneered Giraud.
“That, when you have two crimes precisely similar in design and execution, you find the same brain behind them both. I am looking for that brain, Monsieur Giraud, and I shall find it. Here we have a true clue—a psychological clue. You may know all about cigarettes and match ends, Monsieur Giraud, but I, Hercule Poirot, know the mind of man.”
Giraud remained singularly unimpressed.
“For your guidance,” continued Poirot, “I will also advise you of one fact which might fail to be brought to your notice. The wristwatch of Madame Renauld, on the day following the tragedy, had gained two hours.”
Giraud stared.
“Perhaps it was in the habit of gaining?”
“As a matter of fact, I am told it did.”
“Very well, then.”
“All the same, two hours is a good deal,” said Poirot softly. “Then there is the matter of the footprints in the flower bed.”
He nodded his head towards the open window. Giraud took two eager strides, and looked out.
“But I see no footprints?”
“No,” said Poirot, straightening a little pile of books on a table. “There are none.”
For a moment an almost murderous rage obscured Giraud’s face. He took two strides towards his tormentor, but at that moment the salon door was opened, and Marchaud announced:
“Monsieur Stonor, the secretary, has just arrived from England. May he enter?”
Ten
GABRIEL STONOR
The man who now entered the room was a striking figure. Very tall, with a well-knit, athletic frame, and a deeply bronzed face and neck, he dominated the assembly. Even Giraud seemed anaemic beside him. When I knew him better I realized that Gabriel Stonor was quite an unusual personality. English by birth, he had knocked about all over the world. He had shot big game in Africa, travelled
in Korea, ranched in California, and traded in the South Sea islands.
His unerring eye picked out M. Hautet.
“The examining magistrate in charge of the case? Pleased to meet you, sir. This is a terrible business. How’s Mrs. Renauld? Is she bearing up fairly well? It must have been an awful shock to her.”
“Terrible, terrible,” said M. Hautet. “Permit me to introduce Monsieur Bex, our commissary of police, Monsieur Giraud of the Sûreté. This gentleman is Monsieur Hercule Poirot. Mr. Renauld sent for him, but he arrived too late to do anything to avert the tragedy. A friend of Monsieur Poirot’s, Captain Hastings.”
Stonor looked at Poirot with some interest.
“Sent for you, did he?”
“You did not know, then, that Monsieur Renauld contemplated calling a detective?” interposed M. Bex.
“No, I didn’t. But it doesn’t surprise me a bit.”
“Why?”
“Because the old man was rattled. I don’t know what it was all about. He didn’t confide in me. We weren’t on those terms. But rattled he was—and badly.”
“H’m!” said M. Hautet. “But you have no notion of the cause?”
“That’s what I said, sir.”
“You will pardon me, Monsieur Stonor, but we must begin with a few formalities. Your name?”
“Gabriel Stonor.”
“How long ago was it that you became secretary to Monsieur Renauld?”
“About two years ago, when he first arrived from South America. I met him through a mutual friend, and he offered me the post. A thundering good boss he was too.”
“Did he talk to you much about his life in South America?”
“Yes, a good bit.”
“Do you know if he was ever in Santiago?”
“Several times, I believe.”
“He never mentioned any special incident that occurred there—anything that might have provoked some vendetta against him?”
“Never.”
“Did he speak of any secret that he had acquired while sojourning there?”
“Not that I can remember. But, for all that, there was a mystery about him. I’ve never heard him speak of his boyhood, for instance, or of any incident prior to his arrival in South America. He was a French-Canadian by birth, I believe, but I’ve never heard him speak of his life in Canada. He could shut up like a clam if he liked.”