Taken at the Flood (15 page)

P
oirot left the police station frowning to himself. His steps grew slower as he walked. In the market square he paused, looking about him. There was Dr. Cloade's house with its worn brass plate, and a little way along was the post office. On the other side was Jeremy Cloade's house. In front of Poirot, set back a little, was the Roman Catholic Church of the Assumption, a small modest affair, a shrinking violet compared to the aggressiveness of St. Mary's which stood arrogantly in the middle of the square facing the Cornmarket, and proclaiming the dominance of the Protestant religion.

Moved by an impulse Poirot went through the gate and along the path to the door of the Roman Catholic building. He removed his hat, genuflected in front of the altar and knelt down behind one of the chairs. His prayers were interrupted by the sound of stifled heartbroken sobs.

He turned his head. Across the aisle a woman in a dark dress was kneeling, her head buried in her hands. Presently she got up
and, still sobbing under her breath, went towards the door. Poirot, his eyes wide with interest, got up and followed her. He had recognized Rosaleen Cloade.

She stood in the porch, fighting for control, and there Poirot spoke to her, very gently:

“Madame, can I help you?”

She showed no signs of surprise, but answered with the simplicity of an unhappy child.

“No,” she said. “No one can help me.”

“You are in very bad trouble. That is it, is it not?”

She said: “They've taken David away…I'm all alone. They say he killed—But he didn't! He didn't!”

She looked at Poirot and said: “You were there today? At the inquest. I saw you!”

“Yes. If I can help you, Madame, I shall be very glad to do so.”

“I'm frightened. David said I'd be safe as long as he was there to look after me. But now they've taken him away—I'm afraid. He said—they all wanted me dead. That's a dreadful thing to say. But perhaps it's true.”

“Let me help you, Madame.”

She shook her head.

“No,” she said. “No one can help me. I can't go to confession, even. I've got to bear the weight of my wickedness all alone. I'm cut off from the mercy of God.”

“Nobody,” said Hercule Poirot, “is cut off from the mercy of God. You know that well, my child.”

Again she looked at him—a wild unhappy look.

“I'd have to confess my sins—to confess. If I could confess—”

“Can't you confess? You came to the church for that, did you not?”

“I came to get comfort—comfort. But what comfort is there for me? I'm a sinner.”

“We are all sinners.”

“But you'd have to repent—I'd have to say—to tell—” Her hands went up to her face. “Oh, the lies I've told—the lies I've told.”

“You told a lie about your husband? About Robert Underhay? It
was
Robert Underhay who was killed here, wasn't it?”

She turned sharply on him. Her eyes were suspicious, wary. She cried out sharply:

“I tell you it was
not
my husband. It wasn't the least like him!”

“The dead man was not in the least like your husband?”

“No,” she said defiantly.

“Tell me,” said Poirot, “what
was
your husband like?”

Her eyes stared at him. Then her face hardened into alarm. Her eyes grew dark with fear.

She cried out:

“I'll not talk to you any more!”

Going swiftly past him, she ran down the path and passed through the gate out into the market square.

Poirot did not try and follow her. Instead he nodded his head with a good deal of satisfaction.

“Ah,” he said. “So that is
that!
”

He walked slowly out into the square.

After a momentary hesitation he followed the High Street until he came to the Stag, which was the last building before the open country.

In the doorway of the Stag he met Rowley Cloade and Lynn Marchmont.

Poirot looked at the girl with interest. A handsome girl, he thought, and intelligent also. Not the type he himself admired. He preferred something softer, more feminine. Lynn Marchmont, he thought, was essentially a modern type—though one might, with equal accuracy, call it an Elizabethan type. Women who thought for themselves, who were free in language, and who admired enterprise and audacity in men.

“We're very grateful to you, M. Poirot,” said Rowley. “By Jove, it really was quite like a conjuring trick.”

Which was exactly what it had been, Poirot reflected! Asked a question to which you knew the answer, there was no difficulty whatsoever in performing a trick with the requisite frills. He quite appreciated that to the simple Rowley, the production of Major Porter out of the blue, so to speak, had been as breathtaking as any number of rabbits produced from the conjurer's hat.

“How you go about these things beats me,” said Rowley.

Poirot did not enlighten him. He was, after all, only human. The conjurer does not tell his audience how the trick was done.

“Anyway, Lynn and I are no end grateful,” Rowley went on.

Lynn Marchmont, Poirot thought, was not looking particularly grateful. There were lines of strain round her eyes, her fingers had a nervous trick of twining and intertwining themselves.

“It's going to make a lot of difference to our future married life,” said Rowley.

Lynn said sharply:

“How do you know? There are all sorts of formalities and things, I'm sure.”

“You are getting married, when?” asked Poirot politely.

“June.”

“And you have been engaged since when?”

“Nearly six years,” said Rowley. “Lynn's just come out of the Wrens.”

“And is it forbidden to marry in the Wrens, yes?”

Lynn said briefly:

“I've been overseas.”

Poirot noticed Rowley's swift frown. He said shortly:

“Come on, Lynn. We must get going. I expect M. Poirot wants to get back to town.”

Poirot said smilingly:

“But I'm not going back to town.”

“What?”

Rowley stopped dead, giving a queer wooden effect.

“I am staying here, at the Stag, for a short while.”

“But—but why?”

“C'est un beau paysage,”
Poirot said placidly.

Rowley said uncertainly:

“Yes, of course…But aren't you—well, I mean, busy?”

“I have made my economies,” said Poirot, smiling. “I do not need to occupy myself unduly. No, I can enjoy my leisure and spend my time where the fancy takes me. And my fancy inclines to Warmsley Vale.”

He saw Lynn Marchmont raise her head and gaze at him intently. Rowley, he thought, was slightly annoyed.

“I suppose you play golf?” he said. “There's a much better hotel at Warmsley Heath. This is a very one-horse sort of place.”

“My interests,” said Poirot, “lie entirely in Warmsley Vale.”

Lynn said:

“Come along, Rowley.”

Half reluctantly, Rowley followed her. At the door, Lynn paused and then came swiftly back. She spoke to Poirot in a quiet low voice.

“They arrested David Hunter after the inquest. Do you—do you think they were right?”

“They had no alternative, Mademoiselle, after the verdict.”

“I mean—do you think he did it?”

“Do
you?
” said Poirot.

But Rowley was back at her side. Her face hardened to a poker smoothness. She said:

“Goodbye, M. Poirot. I—I hope we meet again.”

“Now, I wonder,” said Poirot to himself.

Presently, after arranging with Beatrice Lippincott about a room, he went out again. His steps led him to Dr. Lionel Cloade's house.

“Oh!” said Aunt Kathie, who opened the door, taking a step or two backwards. “M. Poirot!”

“At your service, Madame.” Poirot bowed. “I came to pay my respects.”

“Well, that's very nice of you, I'm sure. Yes—well—I suppose you'd better come in. Sit down—I'll move Madame Blavatsky—and perhaps a cup of tea—only the cake is terribly stale. I meant to go to Peacocks for some, they do have Swiss roll sometimes on a Wednesday—but an inquest puts one's household routine out, don't you think so?”

Poirot said that he thought that was entirely understandable.

He had fancied that Rowley Cloade was annoyed by the an
nouncement of his stay in Warmsley Vale. Aunt Kathie's manner, without any doubt, was far from welcoming. She was looking at him with something not far from dismay. She said, leaning forward and speaking in a hoarse conspiratorial whisper:

“You won't tell my husband, will you, that I came and consulted you about—well, about we know what?”

“My lips are sealed.”

“I mean—of course I'd no idea at the time—that Robert Underhay, poor man, so
tragic
—was actually
in
Warmsley Vale. That seems to me still a most
extraordinary
coincidence!”

“It would have been simpler,” agreed Poirot, “if the Ouija board had directed you straight to the Stag.”

Aunt Kathie cheered up a little at the mention of the Ouija board.

“The way things come about in the spirit world seem quite incalculable,” she said. “But I do feel, M. Poirot, that there is a
purpose
in it all. Don't you feel that in life? That there is always a
purpose?
”

“Yes, indeed, Madame. Even that I should sit here, now, in your drawing room, there is a purpose in that.”

“Oh, is there?” Mrs. Cloade looked rather taken aback. “Is there, really? Yes, I suppose so…You're on your way back to London,
of course?
”

“Not at present. I stay for a few days at the Stag.”

“At the
Stag?
Oh—at the Stag! But that's where—oh, M. Poirot, do you think you are
wise?
”

“I have been guided to the Stag,” said Poirot solemnly.

“
Guided?
What do you mean?”

“Guided by
you.
”

“Oh, but I never meant—I mean, I had no
idea.
It's all so dreadful, don't you think so?”

Poirot shook his head sadly, and said:

“I have been talking to Mr. Rowley Cloade and Miss Marchmont. They are getting married, I hear, quite soon?”

Aunt Kathie was immediately diverted.

“Dear Lynn, she is such a sweet girl—and so very good at figures. Now, I have no head for figures—no head at all. Having Lynn home is an absolute blessing. If I get in a terrible muddle she always straightens things out for me. Dear girl, I do hope she will be happy. Rowley, of course, is a splendid person, but possibly—well, a little
dull.
I mean dull to a girl who has seen as much of the world as Lynn has. Rowley, you see, has been here on his farm all through the war—oh, quite rightly, of course—I mean the Government wanted him to—that side of it is
quite
all right—not white feathers or things like that as they did in the Boer War—but what I mean is, it's made him rather limited in his ideas.”

“Six years' engagement is a good test of affection.”

“Oh, it
is!
But I think these girls, when they come home, they get rather restless—and if there is someone else about—someone, perhaps, who has led an adventurous life—”

“Such as David Hunter?”

“There isn't anything between them,” Aunt Kathie said anxiously. “Nothing
at all.
I'm
quite
sure of that! It would have been dreadful if there had been, wouldn't there, with his turning out a
murderer?
His own brother-in-law, too! Oh, no, M. Poirot, please don't run away with the idea that there's any kind of an understanding between Lynn and David. Really, they seemed to quarrel more
than anything else every time they met. What I felt is that—oh, dear, I think that's my husband coming. You will remember, won't you, M. Poirot,
not
a word about our first meeting? My poor dear husband gets so annoyed if he thinks that—oh, Lionel dear, here is M. Poirot who so cleverly brought that Major Porter down to see the body.”

Dr. Cloade looked tired and haggard. His eyes, pale blue, with pin-point pupils, wandered vaguely round the room.

“How do you do, M. Poirot; on your way back to town?”

“
Mon Dieu,
another who packs me back to London!” thought Poirot.

Aloud he said patiently:

“No, I remain at the Stag for a day or so.”

“The Stag?” Lionel Cloade frowned. “Oh? Police want to keep you here for a bit?”

“No. It is my own choice.”

“Indeed?” The doctor suddenly flashed a quick intelligent look. “So you're not satisfied?”

“Why should you think that, Dr. Cloade?”

“Come, man, it's true, isn't it?” Twittering about tea, Mrs. Cloade left the room. The doctor went on: “You've a feeling, haven't you, that something's wrong?”

Poirot was startled.

“It is odd that you should say that. Do you, then, feel that yourself?”

Cloade hesitated.

“N-n-o. Hardly that…perhaps it's just a feeling of
unreality.
In books the blackmailer gets slugged. Does he in real life? Apparently the answer is Yes. But it seems unnatural.”

“Was there anything unsatisfactory about the medical aspect of the case? I ask unofficially, of course.”

Dr. Cloade said thoughtfully:

“No, I don't think so.”

“Yes—there is something. I can see there is something.”

When he wished, Poirot's voice could assume an almost hypnotic quality. Dr. Cloade frowned a little, then he said hesitatingly:

“I've no experience, of course, of police cases. And anyway medical evidence isn't the hard-and-fast, cast-iron business that laymen or novelists seem to think. We're fallible—medical science is fallible. What's diagnosis? A guess, based on a very little knowledge, and some indefinite clues which point in more than one direction. I'm pretty sound, perhaps, at diagnosing measles because, at my time of life, I've seen hundreds of cases of measles and I know an extraordinary wide variation of signs and symptoms. You hardly ever get what a text book tells you is a ‘typical case' of measles. But I've known some queer things in my time—I've seen a woman practically on the operating table ready for her appendix to be whipped out—and paratyphoid diagnosed just in time! I've seen a child with skin trouble pronounced as a case of serious vitamin deficiency by an earnest and conscientious young doctor—and the local vet, comes along and mentions to the mother that the cat the child is hugging has got ringworm and that the child has caught it!