Evil Under the Sun

‘About Mrs Marshall, sir?’

‘About anything at all. Anything unusual, out of the way, unexplained, slightly peculiar, rather curious-enfin, something that has made you say to yourself or to one of your colleagues: “That’s funny!”?’ 

Gladys said doubtfully:

‘Well, not the sort of thing that you would mean, sir.’

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 hand-basins?’

‘Oh! quite sure, sir. You can’t mistake bath-water 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.’

‘H’m,’ said Weston gloomily. ‘That seems to let Marshall out. We’ll have to look elsewhere.’ He added: ‘I’ve got to see Miss Darnley again. She’s waiting now.’

Rosamund came in crisply. Her smile held an apologeticnuance.

She said: 

‘I’m frightfully sorry. Probably it isn’t worth bothering about. But one does forget things so.’

‘Yes, Miss Darnley?’

The Chief Constable indicated a chair.

She shook her shapely black head.

‘Oh, it isn’t worth sitting down. It’s simply this. I told you that I spent the morning lying out on Sunny Ledge. That isn’t quite accurate. I forgot that once during the morning I went back to the hotel and out again.’

‘What time was that, Miss Darnley?’

‘It must have been about a quarter-past eleven.’

‘You went back to the hotel, you said?’

‘Yes, I’d forgotten my glare glasses. At first I thought I wouldn’t bother and then my eyes got tired and I decided to go in and get them.’

‘You went straight to your room and out again?’

‘Yes. At least, as a matter of fact, I just looked in on Ken-Captain Marshall. I heard his machine going and I thought it was so stupid of him to stay indoors typing on such a lovely day. I thought I’d tell him to come out.’

‘And what did Captain Marshall say?’

Rosamund smiled rather shamefacedly.

‘Well, when I opened the door he was typing so vigorously, and frowning and looking so concentrated, that I just went away quietly. I don’t think he even saw me come in.’ 

‘And that was-at what time, Miss Darnley?’

‘Just about twenty-past eleven. I noticed the clock in the hall as I went out again.’

IV

‘And that puts the lid on it finally,’ said Inspector Colgate. ‘The chambermaid heard him typing up till five minutes to eleven. Miss Darnley saw him at twenty minutes past, and the woman was dead at a quarter to twelve. He says he spent that hour typing in his room, and it seems quite clear that hewas typing in his room. That washes Captain Marshall right out.’

He stopped, then looking at Poirot with some curiosity, he asked:

‘M. Poirot’s looking very serious over something.’

Poirot said thoughtfully: