Evil Under the Sun (Hercule Poirot 24)
Page 79
Hercule Poirot said:
“Never mind what I mean. You do not know what I mean. It is true, then, that you have said to yourself or to a colleague today, ‘that is funny!’?”
He brought out the three words with ironic detachment.
Gladys said:
“It was nothing really. Just a bath being run. And I did pass the remark to Elsie, downstairs, that it was funny somebody having a bath round about twelve o’clock.”
“Whose bath, who had a bath?”
“That I couldn’t say, sir. We heard it going down the waste from this wing, that’s all, and that’s when I said what I did to Elsie.”
“You’re sure it was a bath? Not one of the handbasins?”
“Oh! quite sure, sir. You can’t mistake bathwater running away.”
Poirot displaying no further desire to keep her, Gladys Narracott was permitted to depart.
Weston said:
“You don’t think this bath question is important, do you, Poirot? I mean, there’s no point to it. No bloodstains or anything like that to wash off. That’s the—” He hesitated.
Poirot cut in:
“That, you would say, is the advantage of strangulation! No bloodstains, no weapon—nothing to get rid of or conceal! Nothing is needed but physical strength—and the soul of a killer!”
His voice was so fierce, so charged with feeling, that Weston recoiled a little.
Hercule Poirot smiled at him apologetically.
“No one,” he said, “the bath is probably of no importance. Anyone may have had a bath. Mrs. Redfern before she went to play tennis, Captain Marshall, Miss Darnley. As I say, anyone. There is nothing in that.”
A police constable knocked at the door, and put in his head.
“It’s Miss Darnley, sir. She says she’d like to see you again for a minute. There’s something she forgot to tell you, she says.”
Weston said:
“We’re coming down—now.”
III
The first person they saw was Colgate. His face was gloomy.
“Just a minute, sir.”
Weston and Poirot followed him into Mrs. Castle’s office.
Colgate said:
“I’ve been checking up with Heald on this typewriting business. Not a doubt of it, it couldn’t be done under an hour. Longer, if you had to stop and think here and there. That seems to me pretty well to settle it. And look at this letter.”
He held it out.
“My dear Marshall—Sorry to worry you on your holiday but an entirely unforseen situation has arisen over the Burley and Tender contracts…”
“Etcetera, etcetera,” said Colgate. “Dated the 24th—that’s yesterday. Envelope postmarked yesterday evening E.C.1. and Leathercombe Bay this morning. Same typewriter used on envelope and in letter. And by the contents it was clearly impossible for Marshall to prepare his answer beforehand. The figures arise out of the ones in the letter—the whole thing is quite intricate.”