he said:
"You spoke of the drawing you are
doing because you wish to remember the
young Miranda. Does that mean you're
going away from here?"
"I have thought of it, yes."
"Yet you are, it seems to me, bien place
' ' »i ici.
,
"Oh yes, eminently so. I have a house
to live in, a house small but designed by
myself, and I have my work, but that is
less satisfactory than it u$ed to be. So restlessness
is coming over ine."
"Why is your work less satisfactory?"
"Because people wish me to do the most
atrocious things. People who want to
improve their gardens, people who bought
some land and they're building a house
and want the garden designed."
"Are you not doing her garden for Mrs.
Drake?"
"She wants me to, yes. I made suggestions
for it and she seeuaed to agree with
them. I don't think, though," he added
thoughtfully, "that I really trust her."
316
"You mean that she would not let you
have what you wanted?"
"I mean that she would certainly have
what she wanted herself and that though
she is attracted by the ideas I have set out, she would suddenly demand something
quite different. Something utilitarian, expensive
and showy, perhaps. She would
bully me, I think. She would insist on her
ideas being carried out. I would not agree, and we should quarrel. So on the whole it
is better I leave here before I quarrel. And
not only with Mrs. Drake but many other
neighbours. I am quite well known. I
don't need to stay in one spot. I could go
and find some other corner of England, or
it could be some corner of Normandy or
Brittany."
"Somewhere where you can improve, or
help, nature? Somewhere where you can
experiment or you can put strange things
where they have never grown before, where
neither sun will blister nor frost destroy?
Some good stretch of barren land where
you can have the fun of playing at being
Adam all over again? Have you always
been restless?"
"I never stayed anywhere very long."
317
"You have been to Greece?"
"Yes. I should like to go to Greece
again. Yes, you have something there. A
garden on a Greek hillside. There may
be cypresses there, not much else. A
barren rock. But if you wished, what could
there not be?"
"A garden for gods to walk—"
"Yes. You're quite a mind reader, aren't
you, Mr. Poirot?"
"I wish I were. There are so many
things I would like to know and do not
know."
"You are talking now of something
quite prosaic, are you not?"
"Unfortunately so."
"Arson, murder and sudden death?"
"More or less. I do not know that I was
considering arson. Tell me, Mr. Garfield,
you have been here some considerable
time, did you know a young man called
Lesley Ferrier?"
"Yes, I remember him. He was in a
Medchester solicitor's office, wasn't he?
Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter.
Junior clerk, something of that kind.
Good-looking chap."
"He came to a sudden end, did he not?"
318
"Yes. Got himself knifed one evening.
Woman trouble, I gather. Everyone seems
to think that the police know quite well who did it, but they can't get the evidence
they want. He was more or less tied up
with a woman called Sandra--can't
remember her name for the moment--
Sandra Somebody, yes. Her husband kept
the local pub. She and young Lesley were
running an affair, and then Lesley took up
with another girl. Or that was the story."
"And Sandra did not like it?"
"No, she did not like it at all. Mind
you, he was a great one for the girls. There
were two or three that he went around
with."
"Were they all English girls?"
"Why do you ask that, I wonder? No, I
don't think he confined himself to English
English to understand more or less what
he said to them, and he could understand
what they said to him."
"There are doubtless from time to time
foreign girls in this neighbourhood?"
"Of course there are. Is there any neighbourhood
where there aren't? Au pair girls
--they're a part of daily life. Ugly ones,
319
pretty ones, honest ones, dishonest ones, ones that do some good to distracted
mothers and some who are no use at all
and some who walk out of the house."
"Like the girl Olga did."
"As you say, like the girl Olga did."
"Was Lesley a friend of Olga's?"
"Oh, that's the way your mind is
running. Yes, he was. I don't think Mrs.
Llewellyn-Smythe knew much about it.
Olga was rather careful, I think. She spoke
gravely of someone she hoped to marry
some day in her own country. I don't
know whether that was true or whether
she made it up. Young Lesley was an
attractive young man, as I said. I don't
know what he saw in Olga--she wasn't
very beautiful. Still--" he considered a
minute or two "--she had a kind of intensity
about her. A young Englishman might
have found that attractive, I think.
Anyway, Lesley did all right, and his other
girl friends weren't pleased."
"That is very interesting," said Poirot.
"I thought you might give me information
that I wanted."
Michael Garfield looked at him
curiously.
320
"Why? What's it all about? Where does
Lesley come in? Why this raking up of the
past?"
"Well, there are things one wants to
know. One wants to know how things
come into being. I am even looking farther
back still. Before the time that those two, Olga Seminoff and Lesley Ferrier, met
secretly without Mrs. LlewellynSmythe
knowing about it."
"Well, I'm not sure about that. That's
only my--well, it's only my idea. I did
come across them fairly frequently but
Olga never confided in me. As for Lesley
Ferrier, I hardly knew him."
"I want to go back behind that. He had,
I gather, certain disadvantages in his
past."
"I believe so. Yes, well, anyway it's
been said here locally. Mr. Fullerton took
him on and hoped to make an honest man
of him. He's a good chap, old Fullerton."
"His offence had been, I believe, forgery?"
"Yes."
"It was a first offence, and there were
said to be extenuating circumstances. He
had a sick mother or drunken father or
&n
bsp; 321
something of that kind. Anyway, he got
off lightly."
"I never heard any of the details. It was
something that he seemed to have got away
with to begin with, then accountants came
along and found him out. I'm very vague.
It's only hearsay. Forgery. Yes, that was
the charge. Forgery."
"And where Mrs. LlewellynSmythe
died and her Will was to be admitted to
probate, it was found the Will was
forged."
"Yes, I see the way your mind's
working. You're fitting those two things as
having a connection with each other."
"A man who was up to a point
successful in forging. A man who became
friends with the girl, a girl who, if a Will
had been accepted when submitted to
probate, would have inherited the larger
part of a vast fortune."
"Yes, yes, that's the way it goes."
"And this girl and the man who had
committed forgery were great friends. He
had given up his own girl and he'd tied up
with the foreign girl instead."
"What you're suggesting is that that
forged Will was forged by Lesley Ferrier."
322
"There seems a likelihood of it, does
there not?"
"Olga was supposed to have been able
to copy Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe's handwriting
fairly well, but it seemed to me
always that that was rather a doubtful
point. She wrote handwritten letters for
Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe but I don't suppose
that they were really particularly
similar. Not enough to pass muster. But if
she and Lesley were in it together, that's
different. I daresay he could pass off a
good enough job and he was probably
quite cocksure that it would go through.
But then he must have been sure of that
when he committed his original offence, and he was wrong there, and I suppose he
was wrong this time. I suppose that when
the balloon went up, when the lawyers
began making trouble and difficulties, and
experts were called in to examine things
and started asking questions, it could be
that she lost her nerve, and had a row with
Lesley. And then she cleared out, hoping
he'd carry the can."
He gave his head a sharp shake. "Why
do you come and talk to me about things
like that here, in my beautiful wood?"
323
»
"I wanted to know."
"It's better not to know. It's better
never to know. Better to leave things as
they are. Not push and pry and poke."
"You want beauty," said Hercule
Poirot. "Beauty at any price. For me, it is
truth I want. Always truth."
Michael Garfield laughed. "Go on home
to your police friends and leave me here
in my local paradise. Get thee beyond me,
Satan."
324
21
P
OIROT went on up the hill.
Suddenly he no longer felt the pain
of his feet. Something had come to
him. The fitting together of the things he
had thought and felt, had known they were
connected, but had not seen how they
were connected. He was conscious now
of danger—danger that might come to
someone any minute now unless steps were
taken to prevent it. Serious danger.
P
Elspeth McKay came out to the door to
meet him. "You look fagged out," she
said. "Come and sit down."
"Your brother is here?"
"No. He's gone down to the station.
Something's happened, I believe."
"Something has happened?" He was
startled. "So soon? Not possible."
"Eh?" said Elspeth. "What do you
mean?"
"Nothing. Nothing. Something has
happened to somebody, do you mean?"
"Yes, but I don't know who exactly.
325
Anyway, Tim Raglan rang up and asked
for him to go down there. I'll get you a
cup of tea, shall I?"
"No," said Poirot, "thank you very
much, but I think--I think I will go
home." He could not face the prospect of
black bitter tea. He thought of a good
excuse that would mask any signs of bad
manners. "My feet," he explained. "My
feet. I am not very suitably attired as to
footwear for the country. A change of
shoes would be desirable."
Elspeth McKay looked down at them.
"No," she said. "I can see they're not.
Patent leather draws the feet. There's a
letter for you, by the way. Foreign stamps
on it. Come from abroad--c/o Superintendent
Spence, Pine Crest. I'll bring it to
you."
She came back in a minute or two, and
handed it to him.
"If you don't want the envelope, I'd like
it for one of my nephews--he collects
stamps."
"Of course." Poirot opened the letter
and handed her the envelope. She thanked
him and went back into the house.
Poirot unfolded the sheet and read.
326
Mr. Goby's foreign service was run with
the same competence that he showed in his
English one. He spared no expense and got
his results quickly.
True, the results did not amount to
much—Poirot had not thought that they
would.
Olga Seminoff had not returned to her
home town. She had had no family still
living. She had had a friend, an elderly
woman, with whom she had corresponded
intermittently, giving news of her life in
England. She had been on good terms with
her employer who had been occasionally
exacting, but has also been generous.
The last letters received from Olga had
been dated about a year and a half ago. In
them there had been mention of a young
man. There were hints that they were
considering marriage, but the young man,
whose name she did not mention, had, she
said, his way to make, so nothing could be
settled as yet. In her last letter she spoke
happily of their prospects being good.
When no more letters came, the elderly
friend assumed that Olga had married her
Englishman and changed her address.
Such things happened frequently when
327
girls went to England. If they were happily
married they often never wrote again.
She had not worried.
It fitted, Poirot thought. Lesley had
spoken of marriage, but might not have
meant it. Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe had been
spoken of as "generous". Lesley had been
given money by someone, Olga perhaps
(money originally given her by her
employers), to induce him to do forgery
on her behalf.
Elspeth McKay came out on the terrace
again. Poirot consulted her as to her
surmises about
a partnership between Olga
and Lesley.
She considered a moment. Then the
oracle spoke.
"Kept very quiet about it, if so. Never
any rumours about those two. There
usually is in a place like this if there's
anything in it."
"Young Ferrier was tied up to a married
woman. He might have warned the girl
not to say anything about him to her
employer."
"Likely enough. Mrs. Smythe would
probably know that Lesley Ferrier was a
328
bad character, and would warn the girl to
have nothing to do with him."
Poirot folded up the letter and put it
into his pocket.
"I wish you'd let me get you a pot of
tea."
'No, no—I must go back to my guest
house and change my shoes. You do not
know when your brother will be back?"
"i
"I've no idea. They didn't say what they
wanted him for."
Poirot walked along the road to his guest
house. It was only a few hundred yards.
As he walked up to the front door it was
opened and his landlady, a cheerful lady
of thirty odd, came out to him.
"There's a lady here to see you," she
said. "Been waiting some time. I told her
I didn't know where you'd gone exactly or
when you'd be back, but she said she'd
wait." She added, "It's Mrs. Drake. She's
in a state, I'd say. She's usually so calm
about everything, but really I think she's
had a shock of some kind. She's in the
sitting-room. Shall I bring you in some tea
and something?"
"No," said Poirot, "I think it will be
329
better not. I will hear first what she has to
say."
He opened the door and went into the
sitting-room. Rowena Drake had been
standing by the window. It was not the
window overlooking the front path so she
had not seen his approach. She turned
abruptly as she heard the sound of the
door.
"Monsieur Poirot. At last. It seemed so
long."
"I am sorry, Madame. I have been in
the Quarry Wood and also talking to my
friend, Mrs. Oliver. And then I have been
talking to two boys. To Nicholas and
Desmond."
"Nicholas and Desmond? Yes, I know.
I wonder—oh! one thinks all sorts of
things."
"You are upset," said Poirot gently.
It was not a thing he thought he would
ever see. Rowena Drake upset, no longer
mistress of events, no longer arranging