Chapter 22

(Not from Captain Hastings’ Personal Narrative)

Mr Alexander Bonaparte Cust sat very still. His breakfast lay cold and untasted on his plate. A newspaper was propped up against the teapot and it was this newspaper that Mr Cust was reading with avid interest.

Suddenly he got up, paced to and fro for a minute, then sank back into a chair by the window. He buried his head in his hands with a stifled groan.

He did not hear the sound of the opening door. His landlady, Mrs Marbury, stood in the doorway.

‘I was wondering, Mr Cust, if you’d fancy a nice—why, whatever is it? Aren’t you feeling well?’

Mr Cust raised his head from his hands.

‘Nothing. It’s nothing at all, Mrs Marbury. I’m not— feeling very well this morning.’

Mrs Marbury inspected the breakfast tray.

‘So I see. You haven’t touched your breakfast. Is it your head troubling you again?’

‘No. At least, yes… I—I just feel a bit out of sorts.’

‘Well, I’m sorry, I’m sure. You’ll not be going away today, then?’

Mr Cust sprang up abruptly.

‘No, no. I have to go. It’s business. Important. Very important.’

His hands were shaking. Seeing him so agitated, Mrs Marbury tried to soothe him.

‘Well, if you must—you must. Going far this time?’

‘No. I’m going to’– he hesitated for a minute or two—‘Cheltenham.’

There was something so peculiar about the tentative way he said the word that Mrs Marbury looked at him in surprise.

‘Cheltenham’s a nice place,’ she said conversationally. ‘I went there from Bristol one year. The shops are ever so nice.’

‘I suppose so—yes.’

Mrs Marbury stooped rather stiffly—for stooping did not suit her figure—to pick up the paper that was lying crumpled on the floor.

‘Nothing but this murdering business in the papers nowadays,’ she said as she glanced at the headlines before putting it back on the table. ‘Gives me the creeps, it does. I don’t read it. It’s like Jack the Ripper all over again.’

Mr Cust’s lips moved, but no sound came from them.

‘Doncaster—that’s the place he’s going to do his next murder,’ said Mrs Marbury. ‘And tomorrow! Fairly makes your flesh creep, doesn’t it? If I lived in Doncaster and my name began with a D, I’d take the first train away, that I would. I’d run no risks. What did you say, Mr Cust?’

‘Nothing, Mrs Marbury—nothing.’

‘It’s the races and all. No doubt he thinks he’ll get his opportunity there. Hundreds of police, they say, they’re drafting in and —Why, Mr Cust, you do look bad. Hadn’t you better have a little drop of something? Really, now, you oughtn’t to go travelling today.’

Mr Cust drew himself up.

‘It is necessary, Mrs Marbury. I have always been punctual in my—engagements. People must have—must have confidence in you! When I have undertaken to do a thing, I carry it through. It is the only way to get on in—in—business.’

‘But if you’re ill?’

‘I am not ill, Mrs Marbury. Just a little worried over— various personal matters. I slept badly. I am really quite all right.’

His manner was so firm that Mrs Marbury gathered up the breakfast things and reluctantly left the room.

Mr Cust dragged out a suitcase from under the bed and began to pack. Pyjamas, sponge-bag, spare collar, leather slippers. Then unlocking a cupboard, he transferred a dozen or so flattish cardboard boxes about ten inches by seven from a shelf to the suitcase.

He just glanced at the railway guide on the table and then left the room, suitcase in hand.

Setting it down in the hall, he put on his hat and overcoat. As he did so he sighed deeply, so deeply that the girl who came out from a room at the side looked at him in concern.

‘Anything the matter, Mr Cust?’

‘Nothing, Miss Lily.’

‘You were sighing so!’

Mr Cust said abruptly:

‘Are you at all subject to premonitions, Miss Lily? To presentiments?’

‘Well, I don’t know that I am, really… Of course, there are days when you just feel everything’s going wrong, and days when you feel everything’s going right.’

‘Quite,’ said Mr Cust.

He sighed again.

‘Well, goodbye, Miss Lily. Goodbye. I’m sure you’ve been very kind to me always here.’

‘Well, don’t say goodbye as though you were going away for ever,’ laughed Lily.

‘No, no, of course not.’

‘See you Friday,’ laughed the girl. ‘Where are you going this time? Seaside again.’

‘No, no—er—Cheltenham.’

‘Well, that’s nice, too. But not quite as nice as Torquay. That must have been lovely. I want to go there for my holiday next year. By the way, you must have been quite near where the murder was—the ABC murder. It happened while you were down there, didn’t it?’

‘Er—yes. But Churston’s six or seven miles away.’

‘All the same, it must have been exciting! Why, you may have passed the murderer in the street! You may have been quite near to him!’

‘Yes, I may, of course,’ said Mr Cust with such a ghastly and contorted smile that Lily Marbury noticed it.

‘Oh, Mr Cust, you don’t look well.’

‘I’m quite all right, quite all right. Goodbye, Miss Marbury.’

He fumbled to raise his hat, caught up his suitcase and fairly hastened out of the front door.

‘Funny old thing,’ said Lily Marbury indulgently. ‘Looks half batty to my mind.’

Inspector Crome said to his subordinate:

‘Get me out a list of all stocking manufacturing firms and circularize them. I want a list of all their agents—you know, fellows who sell on commission and tout for orders.’

‘This the ABC case, sir?’

‘Yes. One of Mr Hercule Poirot’s ideas.’ The inspector’s tone was disdainful. ‘Probably nothing in it, but it doesn’t do to neglect any chance, however faint.’

‘Right, sir. Mr Poirot’s done some good stuff in his time, but I think he’s a bit gaga now, sir.’

‘He’s a mountebank,’ said Inspector Crome. ‘Always posing. Takes in some people. It doesn’t take in me. Now then, about the arrangement for Doncaster…’

Tom Hartigan said to Lily Marbury:

‘Saw your old dugout this morning.’

‘Who? Mr Cust?’

‘Cust it was. At Euston. Looking like a lost hen, as usual. I think the fellow’s half loony. He needs someone to look after him. First he dropped his paper and then he dropped his ticket. I picked that up—he hadn’t the faintest idea he’d lost it. Thanked me in an agitated sort of manner, but I don’t think he recognized me.’

‘Oh, well,’ said Lily. ‘He’s only seen you passing in the hall, and not very often at that.’

They danced once round the floor.

‘You dance something beautiful,’ said Tom.

‘Go on,’ said Lily and wriggled yet a little closer.

They danced round again.

‘Did you say Euston or Paddington?’ asked Lily abruptly. ‘Where you saw old Cust, I mean?’

‘Euston.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. What do you think?’

‘Funny. I thought you went to Cheltenham from Paddington.’

‘So you do. But old Cust wasn’t going to Cheltenham. He was going to Doncaster.’

‘Cheltenham.’

‘Doncaster. I know, my girl! After all, I picked up his ticket, didn’t I?’

‘Well, he told me he was going to Cheltenham. I’m sure he did.’

‘Oh, you’ve got it wrong. He was going to Doncaster all right. Some people have all the luck. I’ve got a bit on Firefly for the Leger and I’d love to see it run.’

‘I shouldn’t think Mr Cust went to race-meetings, he doesn’t look the kind. Oh, Tom, I hope he won’t get murdered. It’s Doncaster the ABC murder’s going to be.’

‘Cust’ll be all right. His name doesn’t begin with a D.’

‘He might have been murdered last time. He was down near Churston at Torquay when the last murder happened.’

‘Was he? That’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’

He laughed.

‘He wasn’t at Bexhill the time before, was he?’

Lily crinkled her brows.

‘He was away… Yes, I remember he was away… because he forgot his bathing-dress. Mother was mending it for him. And she said: “There—Mr Cust went away yesterday without his bathing-dress after all,” and I said: “Oh, never mind the old bathing-dress—there’s been the most awful murder,” I said, “a girl strangled at Bexhill.’”

‘Well, if he wanted his bathing-dress, he must have been going to the seaside. I say, Lily’– his face crinkled up with amusement. ‘What price your old dugout being the murderer himself?’

‘Poor Mr Cust? He wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ laughed Lily.

They danced on happily—in their conscious minds nothing but the pleasure of being together.

In their unconscious minds something stirred…

Chapter 23

September 11th. Doncaster

Doncaster!

I shall, I think, remember that 11th of September all my life.

Indeed, whenever I see a mention of the St Leger my mind flies automatically not to horse-racing but to murder.

When I recall my own sensations, the thing that stands out most is a sickening sense of insufficiency. We were here—on the spot—Poirot, myself, Clarke, Fraser, Megan Barnard, Thora Grey and Mary Drower, and in the last resort what could any of us do?

We were building on a forlorn hope—on the chance of recognizing amongst a crowd of thousands of people a face or figure imperfectly seen on an occasion one, two or three months back.

The odds were in reality greater than that. Of us all, the only person likely to make such a recognition was Thora Grey.

Some of her serenity had broken down under the strain. Her calm, efficient manner was gone. She sat twisting her hands together, almost weeping, appealing incoherently to Poirot.

‘I never really looked at him… Why didn’t I? What a fool I was. You’re depending on me, all of you… and I shall let you down. Because even if I did see him again I mightn’t recognize him. I’ve got a bad memory for faces.’

Poirot, whatever he might say to me, and however harshly he might seem to criticize the girl, showed nothing but kindness now. His manner was tender in the extreme. It struck me that Poirot was no more indifferent to beauty in distress than I was.

He patted her shoulder kindly.

‘Now then, petite, not the hysteria. We cannot have that. If you should see this man you would recognize him.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Oh, a great many reasons—for one, because the red succeeds the black.’

‘What do you mean, Poirot?’ I cried.

‘I speak the language of the tables. At roulette there may be a long run on the black—but in the end red must turn up. It is the mathematical laws of chance.’

‘You mean that luck turns?’

‘Exactly, Hastings. And that is where the gambler (and the murderer, who is, after all, only a supreme kind of gambler since what he risks is not his money but his life) often lacks intelligent anticipation. Because he has won he thinks he will continue to win! He does not leave the tables in good time with his pocket full. So in crime the murderer who is successful cannot conceive the possibility of not being successful! He takes to himself all the credit for a successful performance—but I tell you, my friends, however carefully planned, no crime can be successful without luck!’

‘Isn’t that going rather far?’ demurred Franklin Clarke.

Poirot waved his hands excitedly.

‘No, no. It is an even chance, if you like, but it must be in your favour. Consider! It might have happened that someone enters Mrs Ascher’s shop just as the murderer is leaving. That person might have thought of looking behind the counter, have seen the dead woman—and either laid hands on the murderer straight away or else been able to give such an accurate description of him to the police that he would have been arrested forthwith.’

‘Yes, of course, that’s possible,’ admitted Clarke. ‘What it comes to is that a murderer’s got to take a chance.’

‘Precisely. A murderer is always a gambler. And, like many gamblers, a murderer often does not know when to stop. With each crime his opinion of his own abilities is strengthened. His sense of proportion is warped. He does not say “I have been clever and lucky!” No, he says only “I have been clever!” And his opinion of his cleverness grows and then, mes amis, the ball spins, and the run of colour is over—it drops into a new number and the croupier calls out “Rouge.”’

‘You think that will happen in this case?’ asked Megan, drawing her brows together in a frown.

‘It must happen sooner or later! So far the luck has been with the criminal—sooner or later it must turn and be with us. I believe that it has turned! The clue of the stockings is the beginning. Now, instead of everything going right for him, everything will go wrong for him! And he, too, will begin to make mistakes…’

‘I will say you’re heartening,’ said Franklin Clarke.

‘We all need a bit of comfort. I’ve had a paralysing feeling of helplessness ever since I woke up.’

‘It seems to me highly problematical that we can accomplish anything of practical value,’ said Donald Fraser.

Megan rapped out:

‘Don’t be a defeatist, Don.’

Mary Drower, flushing up a little, said:

‘What I say is, you never know. That wicked fiend’s in this place, and so are we—and after all, you do run up against people in the funniest way sometimes.’

I fumed:

‘If only we could do something more.’

‘You must remember, Hastings, that the police are doing everything reasonably possible. Special constables have been enrolled. The good Inspector Crome may have the irritating manner, but he is a very able police officer, and Colonel Anderson, the Chief Constable, is a man of action. They have taken the fullest measures for watching and patrolling the town and the race-course. There will be plain-clothes men everywhere. There is also the press campaign. The public is fully warned.’

Donald Fraser shook his head.

‘He’ll never attempt it, I’m thinking,’ he said more hopefully. ‘The man would just be mad!’

‘Unfortunately,’ said Clarke dryly, ‘he is mad! What do you think, M. Poirot? Will he give it up or will he try to carry it through?’

‘In my opinion the strength of his obsession is such that he must attempt to carry out his promise! Not to do so would be to admit failure, and that his insane egoism would never allow. That, I may say, is also Dr Thompson’s opinion. Our hope is that he may be caught in the attempt.’

Donald shook his head again.

‘He’ll be very cunning.’

Poirot glanced at his watch. We took the hint. It had been agreed that we were to make an all-day session of it, patrolling as many streets as possible in the morning, and later, stationing ourselves at various likely points on the race-course.

I say ‘we’. Of course, in my own case such a patrol was of little avail since I was never likely to have set eyes on А В C. However, as the idea was to separate so as to cover as wide an area as possible I had suggested that I should act as escort to one of the ladies.

Poirot had agreed—I am afraid with somewhat of a twinkle in his eye.

The girls went off to get their hats on. Donald Fraser was standing by the window looking out, apparently lost in thought.

Franklin Clarke glanced over at him, then evidently deciding that the other was too abstracted to count as a listener, he lowered his voice a little and addressed Poirot.

‘Look here, M. Poirot. You went down to Churston, I know, and saw my sister-in-law. Did she say—or hint—I mean—did she suggest at all —?’

He stopped, embarrassed.

Poirot answered with a face of blank innocence that aroused my strongest suspicions.

‘Comment? Did your sister-in-law say, hint, or suggest—what?’

Franklin Clarke got rather red.

‘Perhaps you think this isn’t a time for butting in with personal things —’

‘Du tout!’

‘But I feel I’d like to get things quite straight.’

‘An admirable course.’

This time I think Clarke began to suspect Poirot’s bland face of concealing some inner amusement. He ploughed on rather heavily.

‘My sister-in-law’s an awfully nice woman—I’ve been very fond of her always—but of course she’s been ill some time—and in that kind of illness—being given drugs and all that—one tends to—well, to fancy things about people!’

‘Ah?’

By now there was no mistaking the twinkle in Poirot’s eye.

But Franklin Clarke, absorbed in his diplomatic task, was past noticing it.

‘It’s about Thora—Miss Grey,’ he said.

‘Oh, it is of Miss Grey you speak?’ Poirot’s tone held innocent surprise.

‘Yes. Lady Clarke got certain ideas in her head. You see, Thora—Miss Grey is well, rather a good-looking girl —’

‘Perhaps—yes,’ conceded Poirot.

‘And women, even the best of them, are a bit catty about other women. Of course, Thora was invaluable to my brother—he always said she was the best secretary he ever had—and he was very fond of her, too. But it was all perfectly straight and above-board. I mean, Thora isn’t the sort of girl —’

‘No?’ said Poirot helpfully.

‘But my sister-in-law got it into her head to be—well—jealous, I suppose. Not that she ever showed anything. But after Car’s death, when there was a question of Miss Grey staying on—well, Charlotte cut up rough. Of course, it’s partly the illness and the morphia and all that—Nurse Capstick says so—she says we mustn’t blame Charlotte for getting these ideas into her head —’

He paused.

‘Yes?’

‘What I want you to understand, M. Poirot, is that there isn’t anything in it at all. It’s just a sick woman’s imaginings. Look here’– he fumbled in his pocket—‘here’s a letter I received from my brother when I was in the Malay States. I’d like you to read it because it shows exactly what terms they were on.’

Poirot took it. Franklin came over beside him and with a pointing finger read some of the extracts out loud.

—things go on here much as usual. Charlotte is moderately free from pain. I wish one could say more. You may remember Thora Grey? She is a dear girl and a greater comfort to me than I can tell you. I should not have known what to do through this bad time but for her. Her sympathy and interest are unfailing. She has an exquisite taste and flair for beautiful things and shares my passion for Chinese art. I was indeed lucky to find her. No daughter could be a closer or more sympathetic companion. Her life had been a difficult and not always a happy one, but I am glad to feel that here she has a home and true affection.

‘You see,’ said Franklin, ‘that’s how my brother felt to her. He thought of her like a daughter. What I feel so unfair is the fact that the moment my brother is dead, his wife practically turns her out of the house! Women really are devils, M. Poirot.’

‘Your sister-in-law is ill and in pain, remember.’

‘I know. That’s what I keep saying to myself. One mustn’t judge her. All the same, I thought I’d show you this. I don’t want you to get a false impression of Thora from anything Lady Clarke may have said.’

Poirot returned the letter.

‘I can assure you,’ he said, smiling, ‘that I never permit myself to get false impressions from anything anyone tells me. I form my own judgments.’

‘Well,’ said Clarke, stowing away the letter. ‘I’m glad I showed it to you anyway. Here come the girls. We’d better be off.’

As we left the room, Poirot called me back.

‘You are determined to accompany the expedition, Hastings?’

‘Oh, yes. I shouldn’t be happy staying here inactive.’

‘There is activity of mind as well as body, Hastings.’

‘Well, you’re better at it than I am,’ I said.

‘You are incontestably right, Hastings. Am I correct in supposing that you intend to be a cavalier to one of the ladies?’

‘That was the idea.’

‘And which lady did you propose to honour with your company?’

‘Well—I—er—hadn’t considered yet.’

‘What about Miss Barnard?’

‘She’s rather the independent type,’ I demurred.

‘Miss Grey?’

‘Yes. She’s better.’

‘I find you, Hastings, singularly though transparently dishonest! All along you had made up your mind to spend the day with your blonde angel!’

‘Oh, really, Poirot!’

‘I am sorry to upset your plans, but I must request you to give your escort elsewhere.’

‘Oh, all right. I think you’ve got a weakness for that Dutch doll of a girl.’

‘The person you are to escort is Mary Drower—and I must request you not to leave her.’

‘But, Poirot, why?’

‘Because, my dear friend, her name begins with a D. We must take no chances.’

I saw the justice of his remark. At first it seemed farfetched, but then I realized that if А В C had a fanatical hatred of Poirot, he might very well be keeping himself informed of Poirot’s movements. And in that case the elimination of Mary Drower might strike him as a very pat fourth stroke.

I promised to be faithful to my trust.

I went out leaving Poirot sitting in a chair near the window.

In front of him was a little roulette wheel. He spun it as I went out of the door and called after me:

‘Rouge—that is a good omen, Hastings. The luck, it turns!’