“Yes, I noticed that.”
Weston said incredulously:
“Are you suggesting that Miss Darnley’s mixed up in this? Nonsense, seems absurd to me. Why should she be?”
Inspector Colgate coughed.
He said:
“You’ll remember what the American lady, Mrs. Gardener, said. She sort of hinted that Miss Darnley was sweet on Captain Marshall. There’d be a motive there, sir.”
Weston said impatiently:
“Arlena Marshall wasn’t killed by a woman. It’s a man we’ve got to look for. We’ve got to stick to the men in the case.”
Inspector Colgate sighed. He said:
“Yes, that’s true, sir. We always come back to that, don’t we?”
Weston went on:
“Better put a constable on to timing one or two things. From the hotel across the island to the top of the ladder. Let him do it running and walking. Same thing with the ladder itself. And somebody had better check the time it takes to go on a float from the bathing beach to the cove.”
Inspector Colgate nodded.
“I’ll attend to all that, sir,” he said confidently.
The Chief Constable said:
“Think I’ll go along to the cove now. See if Phillips has found anything. Then there’s that Pixy’s Cave we’ve been hearing about. Ought to see if there are any traces of a man waiting in there. Eh, Poirot? What do you think?”
“By all means. It is a possibility.”
Weston said:
“If somebody from outside had nipped over to the island that would be a good hiding place—if he knew about it. I suppose the locals know?”
Colgate said:
“Don’t believe the younger generation would. You see, ever since this hotel was started the coves have been private property. Fishermen don’t go there, or picnic parties. And the hotel people aren’t local. Mrs. Castle’s a Londoner.”
Weston said:
“We might take Redfern with us. He told us about it. What about you, M. Poirot?”
Hercule Poirot hesitated. He said, his foreign intonation very pronounced:
“Me, I am like Miss Brewster and Mrs. Redfern, I do not like to descend perpendicular ladders.”
Weston said: “You can go round by boat.”
Again Hercule Poirot sighed.
“My stomach, it is not happy on the sea.”
“Nonsense, man, it’s a beautiful day. Calm as a mill pond. You can’t let us down, you know.”
Hercule Poirot hardly looked like responding to this British adjuration. But at that moment, Mrs. Castle poked her ladylike face and elaborate coiffure round the door.