Dead Man's Folly, Page 2

  Poirot nodded.

  “And that is what has been happening?”

  “Not quite…That sort of silly suggestion has been made, and then I’ve flared up, and they’ve given in, but have just slipped in some quite minor trivial suggestion and because I’ve made a stand over the other, I’ve accepted the triviality without noticing much.”

  “I see,” said Poirot. “Yes—it is a method, that…Something rather crude and preposterous is put forward—but that is not really the point. The small minor alteration is really the objective. Is that what you mean?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” said Mrs. Oliver. “And, of course, I may be imagining it, but I don’t think I am—and none of the things seem to matter anyway. But it’s got me worried—that, and a sort of—well—atmosphere.”

  “Who has made these suggestions of alterations to you?”

  “Different people,” said Mrs. Oliver. “If it was just one person I’d be more sure of my ground. But it’s not just one person—although I think it is really. I mean it’s one person working through other quite unsuspecting people.”

  “Have you an idea as to who that one person is?”

  Mrs. Oliver shook her head.

  “It’s somebody very clever and very careful,” she said. “It might be anybody.”

  “Who is there?” asked Poirot. “The cast of characters must be fairly limited?”

  “Well,” began Mrs. Oliver. “There’s Sir George Stubbs who owns this place. Rich and plebeian and frightfully stupid outside business, I should think, but probably dead sharp in it. And there’s Lady Stubbs—Hattie—about twenty years younger than he is, rather beautiful, but dumb as a fish—in fact, I think she’s definitely half-witted. Married him for his money, of course, and doesn’t think about anything but clothes and jewels. Then there’s Michael Weyman—he’s an architect, quite young, and good-looking in a craggy kind of artistic way. He’s designing a tennis pavilion for Sir George and repairing the Folly.”

  “Folly? What is that—a masquerade?”

  “No, it’s architectural. One of those little sort of temple things, white, with columns. You’ve probably seen them at Kew. Then there’s Miss Brewis, she’s a sort of secretary housekeeper, who runs things and writes letters—very grim and efficient. And then there are the people round about who come in and help. A young married couple who have taken a cottage down by the river—Alec Legge and his wife Sally. And Captain Warburton, who’s the Mastertons’ agent. And the Mastertons, of course, and old Mrs. Folliat who lives in what used to be the lodge. Her husband’s people owned Nasse originally. But they’ve died out, or been killed in wars, and there were lots of death duties so the last heir sold the place.”

  Poirot considered this list of characters, but at the moment they were only names to him. He returned to the main issue.

  “Whose idea was the Murder Hunt?”

  “Mrs. Masterton’s, I think. She’s the local M.P.’s wife, very good at organizing. It was she who persuaded Sir George to have the fête here. You see the place has been empty for so many years that she thinks people will be keen to pay and come in to see it.”

  “That all seems straightforward enough,” said Poirot.

  “It all seems straightforward,” said Mrs. Oliver obstinately; “but it isn’t. I tell you, M. Poirot, there’s something wrong.”

  Poirot looked at Mrs. Oliver and Mrs. Oliver looked back at Poirot.

  “How have you accounted for my presence here? For your summons to me?” Poirot asked.

  “That was easy,” said Mrs. Oliver. “You’re to give away the prizes for the Murder Hunt. Everybody’s awfully thrilled. I said I knew you, and could probably persuade you to come and that I was sure your name would be a terrific draw—as, of course, it will be,” Mrs. Oliver added tactfully.

  “And the suggestion was accepted—without demur?”

  “I tell you, everybody was thrilled.”

  Mrs. Oliver thought it unnecessary to mention that amongst the younger generation one or two had asked “Who is Hercule Poirot?”

  “Everybody? Nobody spoke against the idea?”

  Mrs. Oliver shook her head.

  “That is a pity,” said Hercule Poirot.

  “You mean it might have given us a line?”

  “A would-be criminal could hardly be expected to welcome my presence.”

  “I suppose you think I’ve imagined the whole thing,” said Mrs. Oliver ruefully. “I must admit that until I started talking to you I hadn’t realized how very little I’ve got to go upon.”

  “Calm yourself,” said Poirot kindly. “I am intrigued and interested. Where do we begin?”

  Mrs. Oliver glanced at her watch.

  “It’s just teatime. We’ll go back to the house and then you can meet everybody.”

  She took a different path from the one by which Poirot had come. This one seemed to lead in the opposite direction.

  “We pass by the boathouse this way,” Mrs. Oliver explained.

  As she spoke the boathouse came into view. It jutted out on to the river and was a picturesque thatched affair.

  “That’s where the Body’s going to be,” said Mrs. Oliver. “The body for the Murder Hunt, I mean.”

  “And who is going to be killed?”

  “Oh, a girl hiker, who is really the Yugoslavian first wife of a young Atom Scientist,” said Mrs. Oliver glibly.

  Poirot blinked.

  “Of course it looks as though the Atom Scientist had killed her—but naturally it’s not as simple as that.”

  “Naturally not—since you are concerned….”

  Mrs. Oliver accepted the compliment with a wave of the hand.

  “Actually,” she said, “she’s killed by the Country Squire—and the motive is really rather ingenious—I don’t believe many people will get it—though there’s a perfectly clear pointer in the fifth clue.”

  Poirot abandoned the subtleties of Mrs. Oliver’s plot to ask a practical question:

  “But how do you arrange for a suitable body?”

  “Girl Guide,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Sally Legge was going to be it—but now they want her to dress up in a turban and do the fortune-telling. So it’s a Girl Guide called Marlene Tucker. Rather dumb and sniffs,” she added in an explanatory manner. “It’s quite easy—just peasant scarves and a rucksack—and all she has to do when she hears someone coming is to flop down on the floor and arrange the cord round her neck. Rather dull for the poor kid—just sticking inside that boathouse until she’s found, but I’ve arranged for her to have a nice bundle of comics—there’s a clue to the murderer scribbled on one of them as a matter of fact—so it all works in.”

  “Your ingenuity leaves me spellbound! The things you think of!”

  “It’s never difficult to think of things,” said Mrs. Oliver. “The trouble is that you think of too many, and then it all becomes too complicated, so you have to relinquish some of them and that is rather agony. We go up this way now.”

  They started up a steep zigzagging path that led them back along the river at a higher level. At a twist through the trees they came out on a space surmounted by a small white pilastered temple. Standing back and frowning at it was a young man wearing dilapidated flannel trousers and a shirt of rather virulent green. He spun round towards them.

  “Mr. Michael Weyman, M. Hercule Poirot,” said Mrs. Oliver.

  The young man acknowledged the introduction with a careless nod.

  “Extraordinary,” he said bitterly, “the places people put things! This thing here, for instance. Put up only about a year ago—quite nice of its kind and quite in keeping with the period of the house. But why here? These things were meant to be seen—‘situated on an eminence’—that’s how they phrased it—with a nice grassy approach and daffodils, etcetera. But here’s this poor little devil, stuck away in the midst of trees—not visible from anywhere—you’d have to cut down about twenty trees before you’d even see it from the river.”

&nbs
p; “Perhaps there wasn’t any other place,” said Mrs. Oliver.

  Michael Weyman snorted.

  “Top of that grassy bank by the house—perfect natural setting. But no, these tycoon fellows are all the same—no artistic sense. Has a fancy for a ‘Folly,’ as he calls it, orders one. Looks round for somewhere to put it. Then, I understand, a big oak tree crashes down in a gale. Leaves a nasty scar. ‘Oh, we’ll tidy the place up by putting a Folly there,’ says the silly ass. That’s all they ever think about, these rich city fellows, tidying up! I wonder he hasn’t put beds of red geraniums and calceolarias all round the house! A man like that shouldn’t be allowed to own a place like this!”

  He sounded heated.

  “This young man,” Poirot observed to himself, “assuredly does not like Sir George Stubbs.”

  “It’s bedded down in concrete,” said Weyman. “And there’s loose soil underneath—so it’s subsided. Cracked all up here—it will be dangerous soon…Better pull the whole thing down and re-erect it on the top of the bank near the house. That’s my advice, but the obstinate old fool won’t hear of it.”

  “What about the tennis pavilion?” asked Mrs. Oliver.

  Gloom settled even more deeply on the young man.

  “He wants a kind of Chinese pagoda,” he said, with a groan. “Dragons if you please! Just because Lady Stubbs fancies herself in Chinese coolie hats. Who’d be an architect? Anyone who wants something decent built hasn’t got the money, and those who have the money want something too utterly goddam awful!”

  “You have my commiserations,” said Poirot gravely.

  “George Stubbs,” said the architect scornfully. “Who does he think he is? Dug himself into some cushy Admiralty job in the safe depths of Wales during the war—and grows a beard to suggest he saw active naval service on convoy duty—or that’s what they say. Stinking with money—absolutely stinking!”

  “Well, you architects have got to have someone who’s got money to spend, or you’d never have a job,” Mrs. Oliver pointed out reasonably enough. She moved on towards the house and Poirot and the dispirited architect prepared to follow her.

  “These tycoons,” said the latter bitterly, “can’t understand first principles.” He delivered a final kick to the lopsided Folly. “If the foundations are rotten—everything’s rotten.”

  “It is profound what you say there,” said Poirot. “Yes, it is profound.”

  The path they were following came out from the trees and the house showed white and beautiful before them in its setting of dark trees rising up behind it.

  “It is of a veritable beauty, yes,” murmured Poirot.

  “He wants to build a billiard room on,” said Mr. Weyman venomously.

  On the bank below them a small elderly lady was busy with sécateurs on a clump of shrubs. She climbed up to greet them, panting slightly.

  “Everything neglected for years,” she said. “And so difficult nowadays to get a man who understands shrubs. This hillside should be a blaze of colour in March and April, but very disappointing this year—all this dead wood ought to have been cut away last autumn—”

  “M. Hercule Poirot, Mrs. Folliat,” said Mrs. Oliver.

  The elderly lady beamed.

  “So this is the great M. Poirot! It is kind of you to come and help us tomorrow. This clever lady here has thought out a most puzzling problem—it will be such a novelty.”

  Poirot was faintly puzzled by the graciousness of the little lady’s manner. She might, he thought, have been his hostess.

  He said politely:

  “Mrs. Oliver is an old friend of mine. I was delighted to be able to respond to her request. This is indeed a beautiful spot, and what a superb and noble mansion.”

  Mrs. Folliat nodded in a matter-of-fact manner.

  “Yes. It was built by my husband’s great-grandfather in 1790. There was an Elizabethan house previously. It fell into disrepair and burned down in about 1700. Our family has lived here since 1598.”

  Her voice was calm and matter of fact. Poirot looked at her with closer attention. He saw a very small and compact little person, dressed in shabby tweeds. The most noticeable feature about her was her clear china-blue eyes. Her grey hair was closely confined by a hairnet. Though obviously careless of her appearance, she had that indefinable air of being someone which is so hard to explain.

  As they walked together towards the house, Poirot said diffidently, “It must be hard for you to have strangers living here.”

  There was a moment’s pause before Mrs. Folliat answered. Her voice was clear and precise and curiously devoid of emotion.

  “So many things are hard, M. Poirot,” she said.

  Three

  It was Mrs. Folliat who led the way into the house and Poirot followed her. It was a gracious house, beautifully proportioned. Mrs. Folliat went through a door on the left into a small daintily furnished sitting room and on into the big drawing room beyond, which was full of people who all seemed, at the moment, to be talking at once.

  “George,” said Mrs. Folliat, “this is M. Poirot who is so kind as to come and help us. Sir George Stubbs.”

  Sir George, who had been talking in a loud voice, swung round. He was a big man with a rather florid red face and a slightly unexpected beard. It gave a rather disconcerting effect of an actor who had not quite made up his mind whether he was playing the part of a country squire, or of a “rough diamond” from the Dominions. It certainly did not suggest the navy, in spite of Michael Weyman’s remarks. His manner and voice were jovial, but his eyes were small and shrewd, of a particularly penetrating pale blue.

  He greeted Poirot heartily.

  “We’re so glad that your friend Mrs. Oliver managed to persuade you to come,” he said. “Quite a brain wave on her part. You’ll be an enormous attraction.”

  He looked round a little vaguely.

  “Hattie?” He repeated the name in a slightly sharper tone. “Hattie!”

  Lady Stubbs was reclining in a big armchair a little distance from the others. She seemed to be paying no attention to what was going on round her. Instead she was smiling down at her hand which was stretched out on the arm of the chair. She was turning it from left to right, so that a big solitaire emerald on her third finger caught the light in its green depths.

  She looked up now in a slightly startled childlike way and said, “How do you do.”

  Poirot bowed over her hand.

  Sir George continued his introductions.

  “Mrs. Masterton.”

  Mrs. Masterton was a somewhat monumental woman who reminded Poirot faintly of a bloodhound. She had a full underhung jaw and large, mournful, slightly blood-shot eyes.

  She bowed and resumed her discourse in a deep voice which again made Poirot think of a bloodhound’s baying note.

  “This silly dispute about the tea tent has got to be settled, Jim,” she said forcefully. “They’ve got to see sense about it. We can’t have the whole show a fiasco because of these idiotic women’s local feuds.”

  “Oh, quite,” said the man addressed.

  “Captain Warburton,” said Sir George.

  Captain Warburton, who wore a check sports coat and had a vaguely horsy appearance, showed a lot of white teeth in a somewhat wolfish smile, then continued his conversation.

  “Don’t you worry, I’ll settle it,” he said. “I’ll go and talk to them like a Dutch uncle. What about the fortune-telling tent? In the space by the magnolia? Or at the far end of the lawn by the rhododendrons?”

  Sir George continued his introductions.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Legge.”

  A tall young man with his face peeling badly from sunburn grinned agreeably. His wife, an attractive freckled redhead, nodded in a friendly fashion, then plunged into controversy with Mrs. Masterton, her agreeable high treble making a kind of duet with Mrs. Masterton’s deep bay.

  “—not by the magnolia—a bottle-neck—”

  “—one wants to disperse things—but if there’s a qu
eue—”

  “—much cooler. I mean, with the sun full on the house—”

  “—and the coconut shy can’t be too near the house—the boys are so wild when they throw—”

  “And this,” said Sir George, “is Miss Brewis—who runs us all.”

  Miss Brewis was seated behind the large silver tea tray.

  She was a spare efficient-looking woman of fortyodd, with a brisk pleasant manner.

  “How do you do, M. Poirot,” she said. “I do hope you didn’t have too crowded a journey? The trains are sometimes too terrible this time of year. Let me give you some tea. Milk? Sugar?”

  “Very little milk, mademoiselle, and four lumps of sugar.” He added, as Miss Brewis dealt with his request, “I see that you are all in a great state of activity.”

  “Yes, indeed. There are always so many last-minute things to see to. And people let one down in the most extraordinary way nowadays. Over marquees, and tents and chairs and catering equipment. One has to keep on at them. I was on the telephone half the morning.”

  “What about these pegs, Amanda?” said Sir George. “And the extra putters for the clock golf?”

  “That’s all arranged, Sir George. Mr. Benson at the golf club was most kind.”

  She handed Poirot his cup.

  “A sandwich, M. Poirot? Those are tomato and these are paté. But perhaps,” said Miss Brewis, thinking of the four lumps of sugar, “you would rather have a cream cake?”

  Poirot would rather have a cream cake, and helped himself to a particularly sweet and squelchy one.

  Then, balancing it carefully on his saucer, he went and sat down by his hostess. She was still letting the light play over the jewel on her hand, and she looked up at him with a pleased child’s smile.