LITMIR.BIZ

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me. That’s true, isn’t it?”

      Poirot shrugged his shoulders. “Since you say so, then, yes, Mademoiselle.”

      Rosamund laughed, her equilibrium suddenly restored. She took out a cigarette and lit it. She said:

      “You certainly know how to deal with women, M. Poirot. I now feel like taking the opposite point of view and arguing with you in favour of careers for women. Of course I’m damned well off as I am – and I know it!”

      “Then everything in the garden – or shall we say at the seaside? – is lovely, Mademoiselle.”

      “Quite right.”

      Poirot, in his turn, extracted his cigarette case and lit one of those tiny cigarettes which it was his affectation to smoke. Regarding the ascending haze with a quizzical eye, he murmured:

      “So Mr – no, Captain – Marshall is an old friend of yours, Mademoiselle?”

      Rosamund sat up. She said:

      “Now how do you know that? Oh, I suppose Ken told you.”

      Poirot shook his head. “Nobody has told me anything. After all, Mademoiselle, I am a detective. It was the obvious conclusion to draw.”

      Rosamund Darnley said: “I don’t see it.”

      “But consider!” The little man’s hands were eloquent. “You have been here a week. You are lively, gay, without a care. Today, suddenly, you speak of ghosts, of old times. What has happened? For several days there have been no new arrivals until last night when Captain Marshall and his wife and daughter arrive. Today the change! It is obvious!”

      Rosamund Darnley said: “Well, it’s true enough. Kenneth Marshall and I were more or less children together. The Marshalls lived next door to us. Ken was always nice to me – although condescending, of course, since he was four years older. I’ve not seen anything of him for a long time. It must be – fifteen years at least.”

      Poirot said thoughtfully: “A long time.”

      Rosamund nodded.

      There was a pause and then Hercule Poirot said:

      “He is sympathetic, yes?”

      Rosamund said warmly: “Ken’s a dear. One of the best. Frightfully quiet and reserved. I’d say his only fault is a penchant for making unfortunate marriages.”

      Poirot said in a tone of great understanding: “Ah…”

      Rosamund Darnley went on. “Kenneth’s a fool – an utter fool where women are concerned! Do you remember the Martingdale case?”

      Poirot frowned. “Martingdale? Martingdale? Arsenic, was it not?”

      “Yes. Seventeen or eighteen years ago. The woman was tried for the murder of her husband.”

      “And he was proved to have been an arsenic eater and she was acquitted?”

      “That’s right. Well, after her acquittal, Ken married her. That’s the sort of damn silly thing he does.”

      Hercule Poirot murmured: “But if she was innocent?”

      Rosamund Darnley said impatiently: “Oh, I daresay she was innocent. Nobody really knows! But there are plenty of women to marry in the world without going out of your way to marry one who’s stood trial for murder.”

      Poirot said nothing. Perhaps he knew that if he kept silence Rosamund Darnley would go on. She did so.

      “He was very young, of course, only just twenty-one. He was crazy about her. She died when Linda was born – a year after their marriage. I believe Ken was terribly cut up by her death. Afterwards he racketed around a lot – trying to forget, I suppose.” She paused. “And then came this business of Arlena Stuart. She was in Revue at the time. There was the Codrington divorce case. Lady Codrington divorced Codrington citing Arlena Stuart. They say Lord Codrington was absolutely infatuated with her. It was understood they were to be married as soon as the decree was made absolute. Actually, when it came to it, he didn’t marry her. Turned her down flat. I believe she actually sued him for breach of promise. Anyway, the thing made a big stir at the time. The next thing that happens is that Ken goes and marries her. The fool – the complete fool!”

      Hercule Poirot murmured: “A man might be excused such a folly – she is beautiful, Mademoiselle.”

      “Yes, there’s no doubt of that. There was another scandal about three years ago. Old Sir Roger Erskine left her every penny of his money. I should have thought that would have opened Ken’s eyes if anything would.”

      “And did it not?”

      Rosamund Darnley shrugged her shoulders.

      “I tell you I’ve seen nothing of him for years. People say, though, that he took it with absolute equanimity. Why I should like to know? Has he got an absolutely blind belief in her?’”

      “There might be other reasons.”

      “Yes. Pride! Keeping a stiff upper lip! I don’t know what he really feels about her. Nobody does.”

      “And she? What does she feel about him?”

      Rosamund stared at him.

      She said: “She? She’s the world’s first gold-digger. And a man eater as well! If anything personable in trousers comes within a hundred yards of her, it’s fresh sport for Arlena! She’s that kind.”

      Poirot nodded his head slowly in complete agreement.

      “Yes,” he said. “That is true what you say… Her eyes look for one thing only – men.”

      Rosamund said: “She’s got her eye on Patrick Redfern now. He’s a good-looking man – and rather the simple kind – you know, fond of his wife, and not a philanderer. That’s the kind that’s meat and drink to Arlena. I like little Mrs Redfern – she’s nice-looking in her fair washed-out way – but I don’t think she’ll stand a dog’s chance against the man-eating tiger, Arlena.”

      Poirot said: “No, it is as you say.”

      He looked distressed.

      Rosamund said: “Christine Redfern was a school teacher, I believe. She’s the kind that thinks that mind has a pull over matter. She’s got a rude shock coming to her.”

      Poirot shook his head vexedly.

      Rosamund got up.

      She said: “It’s a shame, you know.” She added vaguely: “Somebody ought to do something about it.”

      Linda Marshall was examining her face dispassionately in her bedroom mirror. She disliked her face very much. At this minute it seemed to her to be mostly bones and freckles. She noted with distaste her heavy bush of red-brown hair (mouse, she called it in her own mind), her greenish-grey eyes, her high cheekbones and the long aggressive line of the chin. Her mouth and teeth weren’t perhaps quite so bad – but what were teeth after all? And was that a spot coming on the side of her nose? She decided with relief that it wasn’t a spot. She thought to herself:

      “It’s awful to be sixteen – simply awful.”

      One didn’t, somehow, know where one was. Linda was as awkward as a young colt and as prickly as a hedgehog. She was conscious the whole time of her ungainliness and of the fact that she was neither one thing nor the other. It hadn’t been so bad at school. But now she had left school. Nobody seemed to know quite what she was going to do next. Her father talked vaguely of sending her to Paris next winter. Linda didn’t want to go to Paris – but then she didn’t want to be at home either. She’d never realized properly, somehow, until now, how very much she disliked Arlena.

      Linda’s young face grew tense, her green eyes hardened. Arlena… She thought to herself:

      “She’s a beast – a beast…”

      Stepmothers! It was rotten to have a stepmother, everybody said so. And it was true! Not that Arlena was unkind to her. Most of the time she hardly noticed the girl. But when she did, there

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