Christine said slowly:
‘I think I see what you mean. No, I was not, perhaps, surprised. Shocked, yes. But she was the kind of woman-’
Poirot finished the sentence for her.
‘She was the kind of woman to whom such a thing might happen…Yes, Madame, that is the truest and most significant thing that has been said in this room this morning. Laying all-er (he stressed it carefully)personal feeling aside, what did you really think of the late Mrs Marshall?’
Christine Redfern said calmly:
‘Is it really worth while going into all that now?’
‘I think it might be, yes.’
‘Well, what shall I say?’ Her fair skin was suddenly suffused with colour. The careful poise of her manner was relaxed. For a short space the natural raw woman looked out. ‘She’s the kind of woman that to my mind is absolutely worthless! She did nothing to justify her existence. She had no mind-no brains. She thought of nothing but men and clothes and admiration. Useless, a parasite! She was attractive to men, I suppose-Oh, of course, she was. And she lived for that kind of life. And so, I suppose, I wasn’t really surprised at her coming to a sticky end. She was the sort of woman who would be mixed up with everything sordid-blackmail-jealousy-violence-every kind of crude emotion. She-she appealed to the worst in people.’
She stopped, panting a little. Her rather short top lip lifted itself in a kind of fastidious disgust. It occured to Colonel Weston that you could not have found a more complete contrast to Arlena Stuart than Christine Redfern. It also occurred to him that if you were married to Christine Redfern, the atmosphere might be so rarefied that the Arlena Stuarts of this world would hold a particular attraction for you.
And then, immediately following on these thoughts, a single word out of the words she had spoken fastened on his attention with particular intensity.
He leaned forward and said:
‘Mrs Redfern, why, in speaking of her, did you mention the wordblackmail?’
Chapter 7
I
Christine stared at him, not seeming at once to take in what he meant. She answered almost mechanically.
‘I suppose-because shewas 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:
II
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 arendezvous 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:
III
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 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-’
Colonel Weston opened his mouth to comply with this invitation, but had momentarily to postpone speech while Mrs Gardener went on.
‘That’s what I said, Odell, isn’t it? And that’s so, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, darling,’ said Mr Gardener.
Colonel Weston spoke hastily.
‘I understand, Mrs Gardener, that you and your husband were on the beach all the morning?’
For once Mr Gardener was able to get in first.
‘That’s so,’ he said.
‘Why, certainly we were,’ said Mrs Gardener. ‘And a lovely peaceful morning it was, just like any other morning if you get me, perhaps even more so, and not the slightest idea in our minds of what was happening round the corner on that lonely beach.’
‘Did you see Mrs Marshall at all today?’
‘We did not. And I said to Odell, why wherever can Mrs Marshall have got to this morning? I said. And first her husband coming looking for her and then that good-looking young man, Mr Redfern, and so impatient he was, just sitting there on the beach scowling at everyone and everything. And I said to myself why, when he has that nice pretty little wife of his own, must he go running after that dreadful woman? Because that’s just what I felt she was. I always felt that about her, didn’t I, Odell?’
‘Yes, darling.’
‘However that nice Captain Marshall came to marry such a woman I just cannot imagine and with that nice young daughter growing up, and it’s so important for girls to have the right influence. Mrs Marshall was not at all the right person-no breeding at all-and I should say a very animal nature. Now if Captain Marshall had had any sense he’d have married Miss Darnley, who’s a very very charming woman and a very distinguished one. I must say I admire the way she’s gone straight ahead and built up a first-class business as she has. It takes brains to do a thing like that-and you’ve only got to look at Rosamund Darnley to see she’s just frantic with brains. She could plan and carry out any mortal thing she liked. I just admire that woman more than I can say. And I said to Mr Gardener the other day that any one could see she was very much in love with Captain Marshall-crazy about him was what I said, didn’t I, Odell?’
‘Yes, darling.’
‘It seems they knew each other as children, and why now, who knows, it may all come right after all with that woman out of the way. I’m not a narrow-minded woman, Colonel Weston, and it isn’t that I disapprove of the stage as such-why, quite a lot of my best friends are actresses-but I’ve said to Mr Gardener all along that there was something evil about that woman. And you see, I’ve been proved right.’
She paused triumphantly.
The lips of Hercule Poirot quivered in a little smile. His eyes met for a minute the shrewd grey eyes of Mr Gardener.
Colonel Weston said rather desperately:
‘Well, thank you, Mrs Gardener. I suppose there’s nothing that either of you has noticed since you’ve been here that might have a bearing upon the case?’