Evil Under the Sun (Hercule Poirot 24)

“Look here, Arlena. I know what you’re like. They’re rather a nice young couple. That boy’s fond of his wife, really. Must you upset the whole blinking show?”

Arlena said:

“It’s so unfair blaming me. I haven’t done anything—anything at all. I can’t help it if—”

He prompted her.

“If what?”

Her eyelids fluttered.

“Well, of course. I know people do go crazy about me. But it’s not my doing. They just get like that.”

“So you do admit that young Redfern is crazy about you?”

Arlena murmured:

“It’s really rather stupid of him.”

She moved a step towards her husband.

“But you know, don’t you, Ken, that I don’t really care for anyone but you?”

She looked up at him through her darkened lashes.

It was a marvellous look—a look that few men could have resisted.

Kenneth Marshall looked down at her gravely. His face was composed. His voice quiet. He said:

“I think I know you pretty well, Arlena….”

IV

When you came out of the hotel on the south side the terraces and the bathing beach were immediately below you. There was also a path that led off round the cliff on the southwest side of the island. A little way along it, a few steps led down to a series of recesses cut into the cliff and labelled on the hotel map of the island as Sunny Ledge. Here cut out of the cliff were niches with seats in them.

To one of these, immediately after dinner, came Patrick Redfern and his wife. It was a lovely clear night with a bright moon.

The Redferns sat down. For a while they were silent

At last Patrick Redfern said:

“It’s a glorious evening, isn’t it, Christine?”

“Yes.”

Something in her voice may have made him uneasy. He sat without looking at her.

Christine Redfern asked in her quiet voice:

“Did you know that woman was going to be here?”

He turned sharply. He said:

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do.”

“Look here, Christine. I don’t know what has come over you—”