Evil Under the Sun (3 page)

Linda thought:

“If only Arlena would go away, I could enjoy myself.”

Her mind went back to the evening of their arrival. It had been exciting coming from the mainland. The tide had been up over the causeway. They had come in a boat. The hotel had looked exciting, unusual. And then on the terrace a tall dark woman had jumped up and said:

“Why, Kenneth!”

And her father, looking frightfully surprised, had exclaimed:

“Rosamund!”

Linda considered Rosamund Darnley severely and critically in the manner of youth.

She decided that she approved of Rosamund. Rosamund, she thought, was sensible. And her hair grew nicely—as though it fitted her—most people's hair didn't fit them. And her clothes were nice. And she had a kind of funny amused face—as though it were amused at herself, not at you. Rosamund had been nice to her, Linda. She hadn't been gushing or
said
things. (Under the term of “saying things” Linda grouped a mass of miscellaneous dislikes.) And Rosamund hadn't looked as though she thought Linda a fool. In fact she'd treated Linda as though she was a real human being. Linda so seldom felt like a real human being that she was deeply grateful when anyone appeared to consider her one.

Father, too, had seemed pleased to see Miss Darnley.

Funny—he'd looked quite different, all of a sudden. He'd
looked—he'd looked—Linda puzzled it out—why,
young,
that was it! He'd laughed—a queer boyish laugh. Now Linda came to think of it, she'd very seldom heard him laugh.

She felt puzzled. It was as though she'd got a glimpse of quite a different person. She thought:

“I wonder what Father was like when he was my age…?”

But that was too difficult. She gave it up.

An idea flashed across her mind.

What fun it would have been if they'd come here and found Miss Darnley here—just she and Father.

A vista opened out just for a minute. Father, boyish and laughing, Miss Darnley, herself—and all the fun one could have on the island—bathing—caves—

The blackness shut down again.

Arlena. One couldn't enjoy oneself with Arlena about. Why not? Well, she, Linda, couldn't anyway. You couldn't be happy when there was a person there you—hated. Yes, hated. She hated Arlena.

Very slowly again that black burning wave of hatred rose up again.

Linda's face went very white. Her lips parted a little. The pupils of her eyes contracted. And her fingers stiffened and clenched themselves….

III

Kenneth Marshall tapped on his wife's door. When her voice answered, he opened the door and went in.

Arlena was just putting the finishing touches to her toilet. She
was dressed in glittering green and looked a little like a mermaid. She was standing in front of the glass applying mascara to her eyelashes. She said:

“Oh, it's you, Ken.”

“Yes. I wondered if you were ready.”

“Just a minute.”

Kenneth Marshall strolled to the window. He looked out on the sea. His face, as usual, displayed no emotion of any kind. It was pleasant and ordinary.

Turning round, he said:

“Arlena?”

“Yes?”

“You've met Redfern before, I gather?”

Arlena said easily:

“Oh yes, darling. At a cocktail party somewhere. I thought he was rather a pet.”

“So I gather. Did you know that he and his wife were coming down here?”

Arlena opened her eyes very wide.

“Oh no, darling. It was the
greatest
surprise!”

Kenneth Marshall said quietly:

“I thought, perhaps, that that was what put the idea of this place into your head. You were very keen we should come here.”

Arlena put down the mascara. She turned towards him. She smiled—a soft seductive smile. She said:

“Somebody told me about this place. I think it was the Rylands. They said it was simply too marvellous—so unspoilt! Don't you like it?”

Kenneth Marshall said:

“I'm not sure.”

“Oh, darling, but you adore bathing and lazing about. I'm sure you'll simply adore it here.”

“I can see that you mean to enjoy yourself.”

Her eyes widened a little. She looked at him uncertainly.

Kenneth Marshall said:

“I suppose the truth of it is that you told young Redfern that you were coming here?”

Arlena said:

“Kenneth darling, you're not going to be horrid, are you?”

Kenneth Marshall said:

“Look here, Arlena. I know what you're like. They're rather a nice young couple. That boy's fond of his wife, really. Must you upset the whole blinking show?”

Arlena said:

“It's so unfair blaming
me. I
haven't done anything—anything at all. I can't help it if—”

He prompted her.

“If what?”

Her eyelids fluttered.

“Well, of course. I know people do go crazy about me. But it's not my doing. They just get like that.”

“So you do admit that young Redfern is crazy about you?”

Arlena murmured:

“It's really rather stupid of him.”

She moved a step towards her husband.

“But you know, don't you, Ken, that I don't really care for anyone but you?”

She looked up at him through her darkened lashes.

It was a marvellous look—a look that few men could have resisted.

Kenneth Marshall looked down at her gravely. His face was composed. His voice quiet. He said:

“I think I know you pretty well, Arlena….”

IV

When you came out of the hotel on the south side the terraces and the bathing beach were immediately below you. There was also a path that led off round the cliff on the southwest side of the island. A little way along it, a few steps led down to a series of recesses cut into the cliff and labelled on the hotel map of the island as Sunny Ledge. Here cut out of the cliff were niches with seats in them.

To one of these, immediately after dinner, came Patrick Redfern and his wife. It was a lovely clear night with a bright moon.

The Redferns sat down. For a while they were silent

At last Patrick Redfern said:

“It's a glorious evening, isn't it, Christine?”

“Yes.”

Something in her voice may have made him uneasy. He sat without looking at her.

Christine Redfern asked in her quiet voice:

“Did you know that woman was going to be here?”

He turned sharply. He said:

“I don't know what you mean.”

“I think you do.”

“Look here, Christine. I don't know what has come over you—”

She interrupted. Her voice held feeling now. It trembled.

“Over
me?
It's what has come over
you!
”

“Nothing's come over me.”

“Oh! Patrick! it
has!
You insisted so on coming here. You were quite vehement. I wanted to go to Tintagel again where—where we had our honeymoon. You were bent on coming here.”

“Well, why not? It's a fascinating spot.”

“Perhaps. But you wanted to come here because
she
was going to be here.”

“She? Who is she?”

“Mrs. Marshall. You—you're infatuated with her.”

“For God's sake, Christine, don't make a fool of yourself. It's not like you to be jealous.”

His bluster was a little uncertain. He exaggerated it.

She said:

“We've been so happy.”

“Happy? Of course we've been happy! We
are
happy. But we shan't go on being happy if I can't even speak to another woman without you kicking up a row.”

“It's not like that.”

“Yes, it is. In marriage one has got to have—well—friendships with other people. This suspicious attitude is all wrong. I—I can't speak to a pretty woman without your jumping to the conclusion that I'm in love with her—”

He stopped. He shrugged his shoulders.

Christine Redfern said:

“You
are
in love with her….”

“Oh, don't be a fool, Christine! I've—I've barely spoken to her.”

“That's not true.”

“Don't for goodness” sake get into the habit of being jealous of every pretty woman we come across.”

Christine Redfern said:

“She's not just any pretty woman! She's—she's
different!
She's a bad lot! Yes, she is. She'll do you harm, Patrick, please,
give it up.
Let's go away from here.”

Patrick Redfern stuck out his chin mutinously. He looked, somehow, very young as he said defiantly:

“Don't be ridiculous, Christine. And—and don't let's quarrel about it.”

“I don't want to quarrel.”

“Then behave like a reasonable human being. Come on, let's go back to the hotel.”

He got up. There was a pause, then Christine Redfern got up too.

She said:

“Very well….”

In the recess adjoining, on the seat there, Hercule Poirot sat and shook his head sorrowfully.

Some people might have scrupulously removed themselves from earshot of a private conversation. But not Hercule Poirot. He had no scruples of that kind.

“Besides,” as he explained to his friend Hastings at a later date, “it was a question of murder.”

Hastings said, staring:

“But the murder hadn't happened, then.”

Hercule Poirot sighed. He said:

“But already,
mon cher,
it was very clearly indicated.”

“Then why didn't you stop it?”

And Hercule Poirot, with a sigh, said as he had said once before in Egypt, that if a person is determined to commit murder it is not easy to prevent them. He does not blame himself for what happened. It was, according to him, inevitable.

R
osamund Darnley and Kenneth Marshall sat on the short springy turf of the cliff overlooking Gull Cove. This was on the east side of the island. People came here in the morning sometimes to bathe when they wanted to be peaceful.

Rosamund said:

“It's nice to get away from people.”

Marshall murmured inaudibly:

“M—m, yes.”

He rolled over, sniffing at the short turf.

“Smells good. Remember the downs at Shipley?”

“Rather.”

“Pretty good, those days.”

“Yes.”

“You've not changed much, Rosamund.”

“Yes, I have. I've changed enormously.”

“You've been very successful and you're rich and all that, but you're the same old Rosamund.”

Rosamund murmured:

“I wish I were.”

“What's that?”

“Nothing. It's a pity, isn't it, Kenneth, that we can't keep the nice natures and high ideals that we had when we were young?”

“I don't know that your nature was ever particularly nice, my child. You used to get into the most frightful rages. You half-choked me once when you flew at me in a temper.”

Rosamund laughed. She said:

“Do you remember the day that we took Toby down to get water rats?”

They spent some minutes in recalling old adventures.

Then there came a pause.

Rosamund's fingers played with the clasp of her bag. She said at last:

“Kenneth?”

“Um.” His reply was indistinct. He was still lying on his face on the turf.

“If I say something to you that is probably outrageously impertinent will you never speak to me again?”

He rolled over and sat up.

“I don't think,” he said seriously, “that I would ever regard anything you said as impertinent. You see, you
belong.
”

She nodded in acceptance of all that last phrase meant. She concealed only the pleasure it gave her.

“Kenneth, why don't you get a divorce from your wife?”

His face altered. It hardened—the happy expression died out of it. He took a pipe from his pocket and began filling it.

Rosamund said:

“I'm sorry if I've offended you.”

He said quietly:

“You haven't offended me.”

“Well then, why don't you?”

“You don't understand, my dear girl.”

“Are you—so frightfully fond of her?”

“It's not just a question of that. You see, I married her.”

“I know. But she's—pretty notorious.”

He considered that for a moment, ramming in the tobacco carefully.

“Is she? I suppose she is.”

“You
could
divorce her, Ken.”

“My dear girl, you've got no business to say a thing like that. Just because men lose their heads about her a bit isn't to say that she loses hers.”

Rosamund bit off a rejoinder. Then she said:

“You could fix it so that she divorced you—if you prefer it that way.”

“I dare say I could.”

“You ought to, Ken. Really, I mean it. There's the child.”

“Linda?”

“Yes, Linda.”

“What's Linda to do with it?”

“Arlena's not good for Linda. She isn't really. Linda, I think,
feels
things a good deal.”

Kenneth Marshall applied a match to his pipe. Between puffs he said:

“Yes—there's something in that. I suppose Arlena and Linda aren't very good for each other. Not the right thing for a girl perhaps. It's a bit worrying.”

Rosamund said:

“I like Linda—very much. There's something—fine about her.”

Kenneth said:

“She's like her mother. She takes things hard like Ruth did.”

Rosamund said:

“Then don't you think—really—that you ought to get rid of Arlena?”

“Fix up a divorce?”

“Yes. People are doing that all the time.”

Kenneth Marshall said with sudden vehemence:

“Yes, and that's just what I hate.”

“Hate?” She was startled.

“Yes. Sort of attitude to life there is nowadays. If you take on a thing and don't like it, then you get yourself out of it as quick as possible! Dash it all, there's got to be such a thing as good faith. If you marry a woman and engage yourself to look after her, well it's up to you to do it. It's your show. You've taken it on. I'm sick of quick marriage and easy divorce. Arlena's my wife, that's all there is to it.”

Rosamund leaned forward. She said in a low voice:

“So it's like that with you? ‘Till death do us part?'”

Kenneth Marshall nodded his head.

He said:

“That's just it.”

Rosamund said:

“I see.”

II

Mr. Horace Blatt, returning to Leathercombe Bay down a narrow twisting lane, nearly ran down Mrs. Redfern at a corner.

As she flattened herself into the hedge, Mr. Blatt brought his Sunbeam to a halt by applying the brakes vigorously.

“Hullo-ullo-ullo,” said Mr. Blatt cheerfully.

He was a large man with a red face and a fringe of reddish hair round a shining bald spot.

It was Mr. Blatt's apparent ambition to be the life and soul of any place he happened to be in. The Jolly Roger Hotel, in his opinion, given somewhat loudly, needed brightening up. He was puzzled at the way people seemed to melt and disappear when he himself arrived on the scene.

“Nearly made you into strawberry jam, didn't I?” said Mr. Blatt gaily.

Christine Redfern said:

“Yes, you did.”

“Jump in,” said Mr. Blatt.

“Oh, thanks—I think I'll walk.”

“Nonsense,” said Mr. Blatt. “What's a car for?”

Yielding to necessity Christine Redfern got in.

Mr. Blatt restarted the engine which had stopped owing to the suddenness with which he had previously pulled up.

Mr. Blatt inquired:

“And what are you doing walking about all alone? That's all wrong, a nice looking girl like you.”

Christine said hurriedly:

“Oh! I like being alone.”

Mr. Blatt gave her a terrific dig with his elbow, nearly sending the car into the hedge at the same time.

“Girls always say that,” he said. “They don't mean it. You know, that place, the Jolly Roger, wants a bit of livening up. Nothing jolly about it. No
life
in it. Of course there's a good amount of duds staying there. A lot of kids, to begin with and a lot of old fogeys too. There's that old Anglo-Indian bore and that athletic parson and those yapping Americans and that foreigner with the moustache—makes me laugh that moustache of his! I should say he's a hairdresser, something of that sort.”

Christine shook her head.

“Oh no, he's a detective.”

Mr. Blatt nearly let the car go into the hedge again.

“A detective? D'you mean he's in
disguise?
”

Christine smiled faintly.

She said:

“Oh no, he really
is
like that. He's Hercule Poirot. You must have heard of him.”

Mr. Blatt said:

“Didn't catch his name properly. Oh yes, I've
heard
of him. But I thought he was dead. Dash it, he
ought
to be dead. What's he after down here?”

“He's not after anything—he's just on a holiday.”

“Well, I suppose that might be so,” Mr. Blatt seemed doubtful about it. “Looks a bit of a bounder, doesn't he?”

“Well,” said Christine and hesitated. “Perhaps a little peculiar.”

“What I say is,” said Mr. Blatt, “what's wrong with Scotland Yard? Buy British every time for me.”

He reached the bottom of the hill and with a triumphant fanfare of the horn ran the car into the Jolly Roger's garage which was situated, for tidal reasons, on the mainland opposite the hotel.

III

Linda Marshall was in the small shop which catered for the wants of visitors to Leathercombe Bay. One side of it was devoted to shelves on which were books which could be borrowed for the sum of twopence. The newest of them was ten years old, some were twenty years old and others older still.

Linda took first one and then another doubtfully from the shelf and glanced into it. She decided that she couldn't possibly read
The Four Feathers
or
Vice Versa.
She took out a small squat volume in brown calf.

The time passed….

With a start Linda shoved the book back in the shelf as Christine Redfern's voice said:

“What are you reading, Linda?”

Linda said hurriedly:

“Nothing. I'm looking for a book.”

She pulled out
The Marriage of William Ashe
at random and advanced to the counter fumbling for twopence.

Christine said:

“Mr. Blatt just drove me home—after nearly running over me
first. I really felt I couldn't walk all across the causeway with him, so I said I had to buy some things.”

Linda said:

“He's awful, isn't he? Always saying how rich he is and making the most terrible jokes.”

Christine said:

“Poor man. One really feels rather sorry for him.”

Linda didn't agree. She didn't see anything to be sorry for in Mr. Blatt. She was young and ruthless.

She walked with Christine Redfern out of the shop and down towards the causeway.

She was busy with her own thoughts. She liked Christine Redfern. She and Rosamund Darnley were the only bearable people on the island in Linda's opinion. Neither of them talked much to her for one thing. Now, as they walked, Christine didn't say anything. That, Linda thought, was sensible. If you hadn't anything worth saying why go chattering all the time?

She lost herself in her own perplexities.

She said suddenly:

“Mrs. Redfern, have you ever felt that everything's so awful—so terrible—that you'll—oh,
burst
…?”

The words were almost comic, but Linda's face, drawn and anxious, was not. Christine Redfern, looking at her at first vaguely, with scarcely comprehending eyes, certainly saw nothing to laugh at….

She caught her breath sharply.

She said:

“Yes—yes—I have felt—just that….”

IV

Mr. Blatt said:

“So you're the famous sleuth, eh?”

They were in the cocktail bar, a favourite haunt of Mr. Blatt's.

Hercule Poirot acknowledged the remark with his usual lack of modesty.

Mr. Blatt went on.

“And what are you doing down here—on a job?”

“No, no. I repose myself. I take the holiday.”

Mr. Blatt winked.

“You'd say that anyway, wouldn't you?”

Poirot replied:

“Not necessarily.”

Horace Blatt said:

“Oh! Come now. As a matter of fact you'd be safe enough with
me. I
don't repeat all I hear! Learnt to keep my mouth shut years ago. Shouldn't have got on the way I have if I hadn't known how to do that. But you know what most people are—yap, yap, yap about everything they hear! Now you can't afford that in your trade! That's why you've got to keep it up that you're here holiday-making and nothing else.”

Poirot asked:

“And why should you suppose the contrary?”

Mr. Blatt closed one eye.

He said:

“I'm a man of the world. I know the cut of a fellow's jib. A man like you would be at Deauville or Le Touquet or down at Juan les Pins. That's your—what's the phrase?—spiritual home.”

Poirot sighed. He looked out of the window. Rain was falling and mist encircled the island. He said:

“It is possible that you are right! There, at least, in wet weather there are the distractions.”

“Good old Casino!” said Mr. Blatt. “You know, I've had to work pretty hard most of my life. No time for holidays or kickshaws. I meant to make good and I have made good. Now I can do what I please. My money's as good as any man's. I've seen a bit of life in the last few years, I can tell you.”

Poirot murmured:

“Ah, yes?”

“Don't know why I came to this place,” Mr. Blatt continued.

Poirot observed:

“I, too, wondered?”

“Eh, what's that?”

Poirot waved an eloquent hand.

“I, too, am not without observation. I should have expected
you
most certainly to choose Deauville or Biarritz.”

“Instead of which, we're both here, eh?”

Mr. Blatt gave a hoarse chuckle.

“Don't really know why I came here,” he mused. “I think, you know, it sounded
romantic.
Jolly Roger Hotel, Smugglers' Island. That kind of address tickles you up, you know. Makes you think of when you were a boy. Pirates, smuggling, all that.”

He laughed, rather self-consciously.

“I used to sail quite a bit as a boy. Not this part of the world. Off the East coast. Funny how a taste for that sort of thing never quite leaves you. I could have a tip-top yacht if I liked, but some
how I don't really fancy it. I like mucking about in that little yawl of mine. Redfern's keen on sailing, too. He's been out with me once or twice. Can't get hold of him now—always hanging round that red-haired wife of Marshall's.”

He paused, then lowering his voice, he went on:

“Mostly a dried up lot of sticks in this hotel! Mrs. Marshall's about the only lively spot! I should think Marshall's got his hands full looking after her. All sorts of stories about her in her stage days—
and
after! Men go crazy about her. You'll see, there'll be a spot of trouble one of these days.”

Poirot asked: “What kind of trouble?”

Horace Blatt replied:

“That depends. I'd say, looking at Marshall, that he's a man with a funny kind of temper. As a matter of fact, I know he is. Heard something about him. I've met that quiet sort. Never know where you are with that kind. Redfern had better look out—”