Evil Under the Sun (Hercule Poirot 24)

“But to my mind, though evil was present, it was not centralized in Arlena Marshall at all. It was connected with her, yes—but in a totally different way. I saw her, first, last and all the time, as an eternal and predestined victim. Because she was beautiful, because she had glamour, because men turned their heads to look at her, it was assumed that she was the type of woman who wrecked lives and destroyed souls. But I saw her very differently. It was not she who fatally attracted men—it was men who fatally attracted her. She was the type of woman whom men care for easily and of whom they as easily tire. And everything that I was told or found out about her strengthened my conviction on this point. The first thing that was mentioned about her was how the man in whose divorce case she had been cited refused to marry her. It was then that Captain Marshall, one of those incurably chivalrous men, stepped in and asked her to marry him. To a shy retiring man of Captain Marshall’s type, a public ordeal of any kind would be the worst torture—hence his love and pity for his first wife who was publicly accused and tried for a murder she had not committed. He married her and found himself amply justified in his estimate of her character. After her death another beautiful woman, perhaps something of the same type (since Linda has red hair which she probably inherited from her mother), is held up to public ignominy. Again Marshall performs a rescue act. But this time he finds little to sustain his infatuation. Arlena is stupid, unworthy of his sympathy and protection, mindless. Nevertheless, I think he always had a fairly true vision of her. Long after he ceased to love her and was irked by her presence, he remained sorry for her. She was to him like a child who cannot get farther than a certain page in the book of life.

“I saw in Arlena Marshall with her passion for men, a predestined prey for an unscrupulous man of a certain type. In Patrick Redfern, with his good looks, his easy assurance, his undeniable charm for women, I recognized at once that type. The adventurer who makes his living, one way or another, out of women. Looking on from my place on the beach I was quite certain that Arlena was Patrick’s victim, not the other way about. And I associated that focus of evil with Patrick Redfern, not with Arlena Marshall.

“Arlena had recently come into a large sum of money, left her by an elderly admirer who had not had time to grow tired of her. She was the type of woman who is invariably defrauded of money by some man or other. Miss Brewster mentioned a young man who had been ‘ruined’ by Arlena, but a letter from him which was found in her room, though it expressed a wish (which cost nothing) to cover her with jewels, in actual fact acknowledged a cheque from her by means of which he hoped to escape prosecution. A clear case of a young waster sponging on her. I have no doubt that Patrick Redfern found it easy to induce her to hand him large sums from time to time ‘for investment.’ He probably dazzled her with stories of great opportunities—how he would make her fortune and his own. Unprotected women, living alone, are easy prey to that type of man—and he usually escapes scot free with the booty. If, however, there is a husband, or a brother, or a father about, things are apt to take an unpleasant turn for the swindler. Once Captain Marshall was to find out what had happened to his wife’s fortune, Patrick Redfern might expect short shrift.

“That did not worry him, however, because he contemplated quite calmly doing away with her when he judged it necessary—encouraged by having already got away with one murder—that of a young woman whom he had married in the name of Corrigan and whom he had persuaded to insure her life for a large sum.

“In his plans he was aided and abetted by the woman who down here passed as his wife and to whom he was genuinely attached. A young woman as unlike the type of his victims as could well be imagined—cool, calm, passionless, but steadfastly loyal to him and an actress of no mean ability. From the time of her arrival here Christine Redfern played a part, the part of the ‘poor little wife’—frail, helpless, intellectual rather than athletic. Think of the points she made one after another. Her tendency to blister in the sun and her consequent white skin, her giddiness at heights—stories of getting stuck on Milan Cathedral, etc. An emphasis on her frailty and delicacy—nearly every one spoke of her as a ‘little woman.’ She was actually as tall as Arlena Marshall, but with very small hands and feet. She spoke of herself as a former school-teacher, and thereby emphasized an impression of book learning and lack of athletic prowess. Actually, it is quite true that she had worked in a school, but the position she held there was that of games mistress, and she was an extremely active young woman who could climb like a cat and run like an athlete.

“The crime itself was perfectly planned and timed. It was, as I mentioned before, a very slick crime. The timing was a work of genius.

“First of all there were certain preliminary scenes—one played on the cliff ledge when they knew me to be occupying the next recess—a conventional jealous wife dialogue between her and her husband. Later she played the same part in a scene with me. At the time I remember a vague feeling of having read all this in a book. It did not seem real. Because, of course, it was not real. Then came the day of the crime. It was a fine day—an essential. Redfern’s first act was to slip out very early—by the balcony door which he unlocked from the inside (if found open it would only be thought someone had gone for an early bathe). Under his bathing wrap he concealed a green Chinese hat, the duplicate of the one Arlena was in the habit of wearing. He slipped across the island, down the ladder and stowed it away in an appointed place behind some rocks. Part I.

“On the previous evening he had arranged a rendezvous with Arlena. They were exercising a good deal of caution about meeting as Arlena was slightly afraid of her husband. She agreed to go round to Pixy Cove early. Nobody went there in the morning. Redfern was to join her there, taking a chance to slip away unobtrusively. If she heard anyone descending the ladder or a boat came in sight she was to slip inside the Pixy’s Cave, the secret of which he had told her, and wait there until the coast was clear. Part II.

“In the meantime Christine went to Linda’s room at a time when she judged Linda would have gone for her early morning dip. She would then alter Linda’s watch, putting it on twenty minutes. There was, of course, a risk that Linda might notice her watch was wrong, but it did not much matter if she did. Christine’s real alibi was the size of her hands which made it a physical impossibility for her to have committed the crime. Nevertheless, an additional alibi would be desirable. Then in Linda’s room she noticed the book on witchcraft and magic, open at a certain page. She read it, and when Linda came in and dropped a parcel of candles she realized what was in Linda’s mind. It opened up some new ideas to her. The original idea of the guilty pair had been to cast a reasonable amount of suspicion on Kenneth Marshall, hence the abstracted pipe, a fragment of which was to be planted on the Cove underneath the ladder.

“On Linda’s return Christine easily arranged an outing together to Gull Cove. She then returned to her own room, took out from a locked suitcase a bottle of artificial suntan, applied it carefully and threw the empty bottle out of the window where it narrowly escaped hitting Emily Brewster who was bathing. Part II successfully accomplished.

“Christine then dressed herself in a white bathing suit, and over it a pair of beach trousers and coat with long floppy sleeves which effectually concealed her newly-browned arms and legs.

“At 10:15 Arlena departed for her rendezvous, a minute or two later Patrick Redfern came down and registered surprise, annoyance etc. Christine’s task was easy enough. Keeping her own watch concealed she asked Linda at twenty-five past eleven what time it was. Linda looked at her watch and replied that it was a quarter to twelve. She then starts down to the sea and Christine packs up her sketching things. As soon as Linda’s back is turned Christine picks up the girl’s watch which she has necessarily discarded before going into the sea and alters it back to the correct time. Then she hurries up the cliff path, runs across the narrow neck of land to the top of the ladder, strips off her pyjamas and shoves them and her sketching box behind a rock and swarms rapidly down the ladder in her best gymnastic fashion.

“Arlena is on the beach below wondering why Patrick is so long in coming. She sees or hears someone on the ladder, takes a cautious observation, and to her annoyance sees that inconvenient person—the wife! She hurries along the beach and into the Pixy’s Cave.

“Christine takes the hat from its hiding place, a false red curl pinned underneath the brim at the back, and disposes herself in a sprawling attitude with the hat and curl shielding her face and neck. The timing is perfect. A minute or two later the boat containing Patrick and Emily Brewster comes round the point. Remember it is Patrick who bends down and examines the body, Patrick who is stunned—shocked—broken down by the death of his lady love! His witness has been carefully chosen. Miss Brewster has not got a good head, she will not attempt to go up the ladder. She will leave the Cove by boat, Patrick naturally being the one to remain with the body—‘in case the murderer may still be about.’ Miss Brewster rows off to fetch the police. Christine, as soon as the boat has disappeared, springs up, cuts the hat into pieces with the scissors Patrick has carefully brought, stuffs them into her bathing-suit and swarms up the ladder in double quick time, slips into her beach-pyjamas and runs back to the hotel. Just time to have a quick bath, washing off the brown suntan application, and into her tennis dress. One other thing she does. She burns the pieces of the green cardboard hat and the hair in Linda’s grate, adding a leaf of a calendar so that it may be associated with the cardboard. Not a Hat but a Calendar has been burnt. As she suspected, Linda has been experimenting in magic—the blob of wax and the pin shows that.

“Then, down to the tennis court, a

rriving the last, but showing no signs of flurry or haste.

“And, meanwhile, Patrick has gone to the cave. Arlena has seen nothing and heard very little—a boat—voices—she has prudently remained hidden. But now it is Patrick calling.

“‘All clear, darling,’ and she comes out, and his hands fasten round her neck—and that is the end of poor foolish beautiful Arlena Marshall….”

His voice died away.

For a moment there was silence, then Rosamund Darnley said with a little shiver:

“Yes, you make one see it all. But that’s the story from the other side. You haven’t told us how you came to get at the truth?”

Hercule Poirot said:

“I told you once that I had a very simple mind. Always, from the beginning, it seemed to me that the most likely person had killed Arlena Marshall. And the most likely person was Patrick Redfern. He was the type, par excellence—the type of man who exploits women like her—and the type of the killer—the kind of man who will take a woman’s savings and cut her throat into the bargain. Who was Arlena going to meet that morning? By the evidence of her face, her smile, her manner, her words to me—Patrick Redfern. And therefore, in the very nature of things, it should be Patrick who killed her.

“But at once I came up, as I told you, against impossibility. Patrick Redfern could not have killed her since he was on the beach and in Miss Brewster’s company until the actual discovery of the body. So I looked about for other solutions—and there were several. She could have been killed by her husband—with Miss Darnley’s connivance. (They too had both lied as to one point which looked suspicious.) She could have been killed as a result of her having stumbled on the secret of the dope smuggling. She could have been killed, as I said, by a religious maniac, and she could have been killed by her stepdaughter. The latter seemed to me at one time to be the real solution. Linda’s manner in her very first interview with the police was significant. An interview that I had with her later assured me of one point. Linda considered herself guilty.”

“You mean she imagined that she had actually killed Arlena?”

Rosamund’s voice was incredulous.

Hercule Poirot nodded.

“Yes. Remember—she is really little more than a child. She read that book on witchcraft and she half-believed it. She hated Arlena. She deliberately made the wax doll, cast her spell, pierced it to the heart, melted it away—and that very day Arlena dies. Older and wiser people than Linda have believed fervently in magic. Naturally, she believed that it was all true—that by using magic she had killed her stepmother.”

Rosamund cried:

“Oh, poor child, poor child. And I thought—I imagined—something quite different—that she knew something which would—”