Then he tiptoed out of his room and through the silent house down to the drawing room. He opened the french windows noiselessly and passed out into the garden.
The sun was just showing now. The air was misty, with the mist of a fine morning. Hercule Poirot followed the terraced walk round the side of the house till he came to the windows of Sir Gervase’s study. Here he stopped and surveyed the scene.
Immediately outside the windows was a strip of grass that ran parallel with the house. In front of that was a wide herbaceous border. The michaelmas daisies still made a fine show. In front of the border was the flagged walk where Poirot was standing. A strip of grass ran from the grass walk behind the border to the terrace. Poirot examined it carefully, then shook his head. He turned his attention to the border on either side
of it.
Very slowly he nodded his head. In the right-hand bed, distinct in the soft mould, there were footprints.
As he stared down at them, frowning, a sound caught his ears and he lifted his head sharply.
Above him a window had been pushed up. He saw a red head of hair. Framed in an aureole of golden re
d he saw the intelligent face of Susan Cardwell.
“What on earth are you doing at this hour, M. Poirot? A spot of sleuthing?”
Poirot bowed with the utmost correctitude.
“Good morning, mademoiselle. Yes, it is as you say. You now behold a detective—a great detective, I may say—in the act of detecting!”
The remark was a little flamboyant. Susan put her head on one side.
“I must remember this in my memoirs,” she remarked. “Shall I come down and help?”
“I should be enchanted.”
“I thought you were a burglar at first. Which way did you get out?”
“Through the drawing room window.”
“Just a minute and I’ll be with you.”
She was as good as her word. To all appearances Poirot was exactly in the same position as when she had first seen him.
“You are awake very early, mademoiselle?”
“I haven’t been to sleep really properly. I was just getting that desperate feeling that one does get at five in the morning.”
“It’s not quite so early as that!”
“It feels like it! Now then, my super sleuth, what are we looking at?”
“But observe, mademoiselle, footprints.”
“So they are.”
“Four of them,” continued Poirot. “See, I will point them out to you. Two going towards the window, two coming from it.”
“Whose are they? The gardener’s?”
“Mademoiselle, mademoiselle! Those footmarks are made by the small dainty high-heeled shoes of a woman. See, convince yourself. Step, I beg of you, in the earth here beside them.”
Susan hesitated a minute, then placed a foot gingerly on to the mould in the place indicated by Poirot. She was wearing small high-heeled slippers of dark brown leather.
“You see, yours are nearly the same size. Nearly, but not quite. These others are made by a rather longer foot than yours. Perhaps Miss Chevenix-Gore’s—or Miss Lingard’s—or even Lady Chevenix-Gore’s.”
“Not Lady Chevenix-Gore—she’s got tiny feet. People did in those days—manage to have small feet, I mean. And Miss Lingard wears queer flat-heeled things.”