LITMIR.BIZ

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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 tea-time. 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 zig-zagging 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, et cetera. 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.’

      ‘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,’

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