Evil Under the Sun

‘Yes, sir. I got them from the office as usual and put them on her breakfast tray.’

‘Do you remember anything about the look of them?’

The girl shook her head.

‘They were just ordinary-looking letters. Some of them were bills and circulars, I think, because they were torn up on the tray.’

‘What happened to them?’

‘They went into the dustbin, sir. One of the police gentlemen is going through that now.’

Weston nodded.

‘And the contents of the waste-paper baskets, where are they?’

‘They’ll be in the dustbin too.’

Weston said: ‘H’m-well, I think that is all at present.’ He looked inquiringly at Poirot.

Poirot leaned forward.

‘When you did Miss Linda Marshall’s room this morning, did you do the fireplace?’

‘There wasn’t anything to do, sir. There had been no fire lit.’

‘And there was nothing in the fireplace itself?’

‘No sir, it was perfectly all right.’

‘What time did you do her room?’

‘About a quarter-past nine, sir, when she’d gone down to breakfast.’ 

‘Did she come up to her room after breakfast, do you know?’

‘Yes, sir. She came up about a quarter to ten.’

‘Did she stay in her room?’

‘I think so, sir. She came out, hurrying rather, just before half-past ten.’

‘You didn’t go into her room again?’

‘No, sir. I had finished with it.’

Poirot nodded. He said:

‘There is another thing I want to know. What people bathed before breakfast this morning?’

‘I couldn’t say about the other wing and the floor above. Only about this one.’

‘That is all I want to know.’

‘Well, sir, Captain Marshall and Mr Redfern were the only ones this morning, I think. They always go down for an early dip.’

‘Did you see them?’

‘No, sir, but their wet bathing things were hanging over the balcony rail as usual.’

‘Miss Linda Marshall did not bathe this morning?’

‘No, sir. All her bathing dresses were quite dry.’

‘Ah,’ said Poirot. ‘That is what I wanted to know.’

Gladys Narracott volunteered:

‘She does most mornings, sir.’

‘And the other three, Miss Darnley, Mrs Redfern and Mrs Marshall?’ 

‘Mrs Marshall never, sir. Miss Darnley has once or twice, I think. Mrs Redfern doesn’t often bathe before breakfast-only when it’s very hot, but she didn’t this morning.’

Again Poirot nodded. Then he asked:

‘I wonder if you have noticed whether a bottle is missing from any of the rooms you look after in this wing?’

‘A bottle, sir? What kind of a bottle?’

‘Unfortunately I do not know. But have you noticed-or would you be likely to notice-if one had gone?’

Gladys said frankly:

‘I shouldn’t from Mrs Marshall’s room, sir, and that’s a fact. She has ever so many.’

‘And the other rooms?’

‘Well, I’m not sure about Miss Darnley. She has a good many creams and lotions. But from the other rooms, yes, I would, sir. I mean if I were to look special. If I were noticing, so to speak.’

‘But you haven’t actually noticed?’

‘No, because I wasn’t looking special, as I say.’

‘Perhaps you would go and look now, then.’

‘Certainly, sir.’

She left the room, her print dress rustling. Weston looked at Poirot. He said: ‘What’s all this?’

Poirot murmured:

‘My orderly mind, that is vexed by trifles! Miss Brewster, this morning, was bathing off the rocks before breakfast, and she says that a bottle was thrown from above and nearly hit her.Eh bien, I want to know who threw that bottle and why?’

‘My dear man, any one may have chucked a bottle away.’

‘Not at all. To begin with, it could only have been thrown from a window on the east side of the hotel-that is, one of the windows of the rooms we have just examined. Now I ask you, if you have an empty bottle on your dressing-table or in your bathroom what do you do with it? I will tell you, you drop it into the waste-paper basket. You do not take the trouble to go out on your balcony and hurl it into the sea! For one thing you might hit someone, for another it would be too much trouble. No, you would only do thatif you did not want any one to see that particular bottle.’

Weston stared at him.

Weston said:

‘I know that Chief Inspector Japp, whom I met over a case not long ago, always says you have a damned tortuous mind. You’re not going to tell me now that Arlena Marshall wasn’t strangled at all, but poisoned out of some mysterious bottle with a mysterious drug?’

‘No, no, I do not think there was poison in that bottle.’ 

‘Then what was there?’

‘I do not know at all. That’s why I am interested.’

Gladys Narracott came back. She was a little breathless. She said:

‘I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t find anything missing. I’m sure there’s nothing gone from Captain Marshall’s room, or Miss Linda Marshall’s room, or Mr and Mrs Redfern’s room, and I’m pretty sure there’s nothing gone from Miss Darnley’s either. But I couldn’t say about Mrs Marshall’s. As I say, she’s got such a lot.’

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

He said:

‘No matter. We will leave it.’

Gladys Narracott said:

‘Is there anything more, sir?’

She looked from one to the other of them.

Weston said:

‘Don’t think so. Thank you.’

Poirot said:

‘I thank you, no. You are sure, are you not, that there is nothing-nothing at all, that you have forgotten to tell us?’