– С кем именно?
– Это были капитан Маршалл, мистер Гарднер и мисс Дарнли. Мы сыграли два сета. Мы уже собирались начать еще один, когда пришло известие… о миссис Маршалл.
Пуаро подался вперед.
– И что вы подумали, мадам, узнав об этом?
– Что я подумала?
На лице у Кристины отобразилось легкое недовольство этим вопросом.
– Да.
– Это… это было ужасно, – медленно произнесла миссис Редферн.
– О да, у вас внутри все перевернулось. Я понимаю. Но что это означало лично для вас?
Кристина бросила на него быстрый взгляд – наполненный мольбой. Пуаро на него откликнулся.
– Я взываю к вам, мадам, – сухо промолвил он, – как к женщине мудрой, благоразумной и рассудительной. Несомненно, за время пребывания здесь у вас уже сложилось мнение о миссис Маршалл. Какой женщиной она была?
– Полагаю, – осторожно сказала Кристина, – на отдыхе всем свойственно оценивать своих знакомых.
– Разумеется, это совершенно естественно. Поэтому я спрашиваю у вас, мадам, были ли вы очень удивлены обстоятельствами ее смерти?
– Кажется, я понимаю, что вы имеете в виду, – медленно произнесла миссис Редферн. – Нет, пожалуй, я не была удивлена. Потрясена – да. Но миссис Маршалл была такой женщиной…
– Она была такой женщиной, – закончил за нее Пуаро, – с кем могло произойти именно это. Да, мадам, это самая правильная и самая существенная вещь, которая была высказана сегодня в этом кабинете. Отбросив в сторону все… э… личные, – он тщательно подчеркнул это слово, – чувства, что вы на самом деле думаете о покойной миссис Маршалл?
– Имеет ли смысл сейчас углубляться во все это? – спокойно спросила Кристина.
– Думаю, да, имеет.
– Ну, что я могу сказать? – Ее бледное лицо внезапно залилось краской. Тщательная сдержанность поведения исчезла, и на какой-то краткий миг проступила естественная, обнаженная натура. – На мой взгляд, подобные люди абсолютно бесполезны! Она не сделала ничего, чтобы оправдать свое существование. У нее не было ума – не было мозгов. Она думала только о мужчинах, о тряпках и о том, чтобы ею восторгались. Паразит, от которого нет никакого толку! Наверное, мужчинам она нравилась… о, ну конечно, она нравилась мужчинам. И она жила ради этого. Вот почему, думаю, я не очень-то удивилась, что ее постиг такой конец. Она была из тех, кто оказывается замаран самой разной грязью – шантаж, ревность, жестокость, все самые низменные чувства. Она… она пробуждала в людях самое плохое.
Миссис Редферн остановилась, учащенно дыша. Ее несколько коротковатая верхняя губа чуть приподнялась в брезгливом отвращении. Полковнику Уэстону вдруг подумалось, что трудно найти более полные противоположности, чем Арлена Стюарт и Кристина Редферн. И еще он подумал, что для мужчины, женатого на Кристине Редферн, атмосфера вокруг становится настолько разряженной, что арлены стюарт этого мира приобретают для него особую притягательность.
А затем, сразу же после этих мыслей, все его внимание полностью сосредоточилось на одном-единственном слове, сказанном Кристиной.
– Миссис Редферн, – подавшись вперед, спросил главный констебль, – почему, говоря об Арлене Маршалл, вы употребили слово «шантаж»?
Chapter 7
Christine stared at him, not seeming at once to take in what he meant.
She answered almost mechanically. “I suppose – because she was being blackmailed. She was the sort of person who would be.”
Colonel Weston said earnestly: “But – do you know she was being blackmailed?”
A faint colour rose in the girl’s cheeks.
She said rather awkwardly: “As a matter of fact I do happen to know it. I–I overheard something.”
“Will you explain, Mrs Redfern?”
Flushing still more, Christine Redfern said:
“I–I didn’t mean to overhear. It was an accident. It was two – no, three nights ago. We were playing bridge.” She turned towards Poirot. “You remember? My husband and I, M. Poirot and Miss Darnley. I was dummy. It was very stuffy in the card room, and I slipped out of the window for a breath of fresh air. I went down towards the beach and I suddenly heard voices. One – it was Arlena Marshall’s – I knew it at once – said: ‘It’s no good pressing me. I can’t get any more money now. My husband will suspect something.’ And then a man’s voice said: ‘I’m not taking any excuses. You’ve got to cough up.’ And then Arlena Marshall said: ‘You blackmailing brute!’ And the man said: ‘Brute or not, you’ll pay up, my lady.’” Christine paused. “I’d turned back and a minute after Arlena Marshall rushed past me. She looked – well, frightfully upset.”
Weston said: “And the man? Do you know who he was?”
Christine Redfern shook her head. She said:
“He was keeping his voice low. I barely heard what he said.”
“It didn’t suggest the voice to you of any one you knew?”
She thought again, but once more shook her head. She said:
“No, I don’t know. It was gruff and low. It – oh, it might have been anybody’s.”
Colonel Weston said: “Thank you, Mrs Redfern.”
When the door had closed behind Christine Redfern Inspector Colgate said:
“Now we are getting somewhere!”
Weston said: “You think so, eh?”
“Well, it’s suggestive, sir, you can’t get away from it. Somebody in this hotel was blackmailing the lady.”
Poirot murmured: “But it is not the wicked blackmailer who lies dead. It is the victim.”
“That’s a bit of a setback, I agree,” said the Inspector. “Blackmailers aren’t in the habit of bumping off their victims. But what it does give us is this, it suggests a reason for Mrs Marshall’s curious behaviour this morning. She’d got a rendezvous with this fellow who was blackmailing her, and she didn’t want either her husband or Redfern to know about it.”
“It certainly explains that point,” agreed Poirot.
Inspector Colgate went on: “And think of the place chosen. The very spot for the purpose. The lady goes off on her float. That’s natural enough. It’s what she does every day. She goes round to Pixy Cove where no one ever goes in the morning and which will be a nice quiet place for an interview.”
Poirot said: “But yes, I too was struck by that point. It is, as you say, an ideal spot for a rendezvous. It is deserted, it is only accessible from the land side by descending a vertical steel ladder which is not everybody’s money, bien entendu. Moreover, most of the beach is invisible from above because of the overhanging cliff. And it has another advantage. Mr Redfern told me of that one day. There is a cave on it, the entrance to which is not easy to find but where any one could wait unseen.”
Weston said: “Of course, the Pixy’s Cave – remember hearing about it.”
Inspector Colgate said: “Haven’t heard it spoken of for years, though. We’d better have a look inside it. Never know, we might find a pointer of some kind.”
Weston said: “Yes, you’re right, Colgate, we’ve got the solution to part one of the puzzle. Why did Mrs Marshall go to Pixy’s Cove? We want the other half of that solution, though. Who did she go there to meet? Presumably someone staying in this hotel. None of them fitted as a lover – but a blackmailer’s a different proposition.” He drew the register towards him. “Excluding the waiters, boots, etc., whom I don’t think likely, we’ve got the following. The American – Gardener, Major Barry, Mr Horace Blatt, and the Reverend Stephen Lane.”
Inspector Colgate said: “We can narrow it down a bit, sir. We might almost rule out the American, I think. He was on the beach all the morning. That’s so, isn’t it, M. Poirot?”
Poirot replied: “He was absent for a short time when he fetched a skein of wool for his wife.”
Colgate said: “Oh, well, we needn’t count that.”
Weston said: “And what about the other three?”
“Major Barry went out at ten o’clock this morning. He returned at one-thirty. Mr Lane was earlier still. He breakfasted at eight. Said he was going for a tramp. Mr Blatt went off for a sail at nine-thirty same as he does most days. Neither of them is back yet?”
“A sail, eh?” Colonel Weston’s voice was thoughtful.
Inspector Colgate’s voice was responsive. He said: “Might fit in rather well, sir.”
Weston said: “Well, we’ll have a word with this Major bloke – and let me see, who else is there? Rosamund Darnley. And there’s the Brewster woman who found the body with Redfern. What’s she like, Colgate?”
“Oh, a sensible party, sir. No nonsense about her.”
“She didn’t express any opinions on the death?”
The inspector shook his head.
“I don’t think she’ll have anything more to tell us, sir, but we’ll have to make sure. Then there are the Americans.”
Colonel Weston nodded. He said:
“Let’s have ‘em all in and get it over as soon as possible. Never know, might learn something. About the blackmailing stunt if about nothing else.”
Mr and Mrs Gardener came into the presence of authority together. Mrs Gardener explained immediately.
“I hope you’ll understand how it is, Colonel Weston (that is the name, I think?).” Reassured on this point she went on: “But this has been a very bad shock to me and Mr Gardener is always very, very careful of my health – ”
Mr Gardener here interpolated. “Mrs Gardener,” he said, “is very sensitive.”
“– and he said to me, ‘Why, Carrie,’ he said, ‘naturally I’m coming right along with you.’ It’s not that we haven’t the highest admiration for British police methods, because we have. I’ve been told that British police procedure is the most refined and delicate and I’ve never doubted it and certainly when I once had a bracelet missing at the Savoy Hotel nothing could have been more lovely and sympathetic than the young man who came to see me about it, and of course I hadn’t really lost the bracelet at all, but just mislaid it, that’s the worst of rushing about so much, it makes you kind of forgetful where you put things – ” Mrs Gardener paused, inhaled gently and started off again. “And what I say is, and I know Mr Gardener agrees with me, that we’re only too anxious to do anything to help the British police in every way. So go right ahead and ask me anything at all you want to know – ”