Evil Under The Sun Part 17

"Did Mrs. Marshall always have her breakfast in bed?"

"Oh yes, sir, always. Not very much of it either. Just tea and orange juice and one piece of toast. Slimming like so many ladies."

No, she hadn't noticed anything unusual in Mrs. Marshall's manner that morning. She'd seemed quite as usual.

Hercule Poirot murmured: "What did you think of Mrs. Marshall, Mademoiselle?"

Gladys Narracott stared at him. She said: "Well, that's hardly for me to say, is it, sir?"

"But yes, it is for you to say. We are anxious-very anxious-to hear your impression."

Gladys gave a slightly uneasy glance towards the Chief Constable, who endeavoured to make his face sympathetic and approving, though actually he felt slightly embarra.s.sed by his foreign colleague's methods of approach. He said: "Er-yes, certainly. Go ahead."

For the first time Gladys Narracott's brisk efficiency deserted her. Her fingers fumbled with her print dress. She said: "Well, Mrs. Marshall-she wasn't exactly a lady, as you might say. What I mean is she was more like an actress."

Colonel Weston said: "She was an actress."

"Yes, sir, that's what I'm saying. She just went on exactly as she felt like it. She didn't-well, she didn't trouble to be polite if she wasn't feeling polite. And she'd be all smiles one minute and then, if she couldn't find something or the bell wasn't answered at once or her laundry wasn't back, well, be downright rude and nasty about it. None of us you might say liked her. But her clothes were beautiful, and, of course, she was a very handsome lady, so it was only natural she should be admired."

Colonel Weston said: "I am sorry to have to ask you what I am going to ask you, but it is a very vital matter. Can you tell me how things were between her and her husband?"

Gladys Narracott hesitated a minute.

She said: "You don't-it wasn't-you don't think as he did it?"

Hercule Poirot said quickly: "Do you?"

"Oh! I wouldn't like to think so. He's such a nice gentleman, Captain Marshall. He couldn't do a thing like that-I'm sure he couldn't."

"But you are not very sure-I hear it in your voice."

Gladys Narracott said reluctantly: "You do read such things in the papers! When there's jealousy. If there's been goings on-and, of course, everyone's been talking about it-about her and Mr. Redfern, I mean. And Mrs. Redfern such a nice quiet lady! It does seem a shame! And Mr. Redfern's a nice gentleman too, but it seems men can't help themselves when it's a lady like Mrs. Marshall-one who's used to having her own way. Wives have to put up with a lot, I'm sure." She sighed and paused. "But if Captain Marshall found out about it-"

Colonel Weston said sharply: "Well?"

Gladys Narracott said slowly: "I did think sometimes that Mrs. Marshall was frightened of her husband knowing."

"What makes you say that?"

"It wasn't anything definite, sir. It was only I felt-that sometimes she was-afraid of him. He was a very quiet gentleman but he wasn't-he wasn't easy."

Weston said: "But you've nothing definite to go on? Nothing either of them ever said to each other."

Slowly Gladys Narracott shook her head.

Weston sighed. He went on.

"Now, as to letters received by Mrs. Marshall this morning. Can you tell us anything about those?"

"There were about six or seven, sir. I couldn't say exactly."

"Did you take them up to her?"

"Yes, sir. I got them from the office as usual and put them on her breakfast tray."

"Do you remember anything about the look of them?"

The girl shook her head.

"They were just ordinary-looking letters. Some of them were bills and circulars, I think, because they were torn up on the tray."

"What happened to them?"

"They went into the dustbin, sir. One of the police gentlemen is going through that now."

Weston nodded.

"And the contents of the wastepaper baskets, where are they?"

"They'll be in the dustbin too."

Weston said: "H'm-well, I think that is all at present." He looked inquiringly at Poirot.

Poirot leaned forward.

"When you did Miss Linda Marshall's room this morning, did you do the fireplace?"

"There wasn't anything to do, sir. There had been no fire lit."

"And there was nothing in the fireplace itself?"

"No sir, it was perfectly all right."

"What time did you do her room?"

"About a quarter past nine, sir, when she'd gone down to breakfast."

"Did she come up to her room after breakfast, do you know?"

"Yes, sir. She came up about a quarter to ten."

"Did she stay in her room?"

"I think so, sir. She came out, hurrying rather, just before half past ten."

"You didn't go into her room again?"

"No, sir. I had finished with it."

Poirot nodded. He said: "There is another thing I want to know. What people bathed before breakfast this morning?"

"I couldn't say about the other wing and the floor above. Only about this one."

"That is all I want to know."

"Well, sir, Captain Marshall and Mr. Redfern were the only ones this morning, I think. They always go down for an early dip."

"Did you see them?"

"No, sir, but their wet bathing things were hanging over the balcony rail as usual."

"Miss Linda Marshall did not bathe this morning?"

"No, sir. All her bathing dresses were quite dry."

"Ah," said Poirot. "That is what I wanted to know."

Gladys Narracott volunteered: "She does most mornings, sir."

"And the other three, Miss Darnley, Mrs. Redfern and Mrs. Marshall?"

"Mrs. Marshall never, sir. Miss Darnley has once or twice, I think. Mrs. Redfern doesn't often bathe before breakfast-only when it's very hot, but she didn't this morning."

Again Poirot nodded. Then he asked: "I wonder if you have noticed whether a bottle is missing from any of the rooms you look after in this wing?"

"A bottle, sir? What kind of a bottle?"

"Unfortunately I do not know. But have you noticed-or would you be likely to notice-if one had gone?"

Gladys said frankly: "I shouldn't from Mrs. Marshall's room, sir, and that's a fact. She has ever so many."

"And the other rooms?"

"Well, I'm not sure about Miss Darnley. She has a good many creams and lotions. But from the other rooms, yes, I would, sir. I mean if I were to look special. If I were noticing, so to speak."

"But you haven't actually noticed?"

"No, because I wasn't looking special, as I say."

"Perhaps you would go and look now, then."

"Certainly, sir."

She left the room, her print dress rustling. Weston looked at Poirot. He said: "What's all this?"

Poirot murmured: "My orderly mind, that is vexed by trifles! Miss Brewster, this morning, was bathing off the rocks before breakfast, and she says that a bottle was thrown from above and nearly hit her. Eh bien, I want to know who threw that bottle and why?"

"My dear man, any one may have chucked a bottle away."

"Not at all. To begin with, it could only have been thrown from a window on the east side of the hotel-that is, one of the windows of the rooms we have just examined. Now I ask you, if you have an empty bottle on your dressing table or in your bathroom what do you do with it? I will tell you, you drop it into the wastepaper basket. You do not take the trouble to go out on your balcony and hurl it into the sea! For one thing you might hit someone, for another it would be too much trouble. No, you would only do that if you did not want anyone to see that particular bottle."

Weston stared at him.

Weston said: "I know that Chief Inspector j.a.pp, whom I met over a case not long ago, always says you have a d.a.m.ned tortuous mind. You're not going to tell me now that Arlena Marshall wasn't strangled at all, but poisoned out of some mysterious bottle with a mysterious drug?"

"No, no, I do not think there was poison in that bottle."

"Then what was there?"

"I do not know at all. That's why I am interested."

Gladys Narracott came back. She was a little breathless. She said: "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't find anything missing. I'm sure there's nothing gone from Captain Marshall's room, or Miss Linda Marshall's room, or Mr. and Mrs. Redfern's room, and I'm pretty sure there's nothing gone from Miss Darnley's either. But I couldn't say about Mrs. Marshall's. As I say, she's got such a lot."

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

He said: "No matter. We will leave it."

Gladys Narracott said: "Is there anything more, sir?"

She looked from one to the other of them.

Weston said: "Don't think so. Thank you."

Poirot said: "I thank you, no. You are sure, are you not, that there is nothing-nothing at all, that you have forgotten to tell us?"

"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 pa.s.s 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 handbasins?"

"Oh! quite sure, sir. You can't mistake bathwater 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.