Poirot abandoned the subtleties of Mrs Oliver’s plot to ask a practical question:
‘But how do you arrange for a suitable body?’
‘Girl Guide,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Sally Legge was going to be it—but now they want her to dress up in a turban and do the fortune telling[24]. So it’s a Girl Guide called Marlene Tucker. Rather dumb and sniffs,[25]’ she added in an explanatory manner. ‘It’s quite easy—just peasant scarves and a rucksack—and all she has to do when she hears someone coming is to flop down on the floor and arrange the cord round her neck. Rather dull for the poor kid—just sticking inside that boathouse until she’s found, but I’ve arranged for her to have a nice bundle of comics—there’s a clue to the murderer scribbled on one of them as a matter of fact—so it all works in.’
‘Your ingenuity leaves me spellbound! The things you think of!’
‘It’s never difficult to think of things,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘The trouble is that you think of too many, and then it all becomes too complicated, so you have to relinquish some of them and that is rather agony. We go up this way now.’
They started up a steep zig-zagging path that led them back along the river at a higher level. At a twist through the trees they came out on a space surmounted by a small white pilastered temple. Standing back and frowning at it was a young man wearing dilapidated flannel trousers and a shirt of rather virulent green. He spun round towards them.
‘Mr Michael Weyman, M. Hercule Poirot,’ said Mrs Oliver.
The young man acknowledged the introduction with a careless nod.
‘Extraordinary,’ he said bitterly, ‘the places people put things! This thing here, for instance. Put up only about a year ago—quite nice of its kind and quite in keeping with the period of the house. But why here? These things were meant to be seen—“situated on an eminence”—that’s how they phrased it—with a nice grassy approach and daffodils, et cetera. But here’s this poor little devil, stuck away in the midst of trees—not visible from anywhere—you’d have to cut down about twenty trees before you’d even see it from the river.’
‘Perhaps there wasn’t any other place,’ said Mrs Oliver.
Michael Weyman snorted.
‘Top of that grassy bank by the house—perfect natural setting. But no, these tycoon fellows are all the same—no artistic sense. Has a fancy for a “Folly,” as he calls it, orders one. Looks round for somewhere to put it. Then, I understand, a big oak tree crashes down in a gale. Leaves a nasty scar. “Oh, we’ll tidy the place up by putting a Folly there,” says the silly ass. That’s all they ever think about, these rich city fellows, tidying up! I wonder he hasn’t put beds of red geraniums and calceolarias all round the house! A man like that shouldn’t be allowed to own a place like this!’
He sounded heated.
‘This young man,’ Poirot observed to himself, ‘assuredly does not like Sir George Stubbs.’
‘It’s bedded down in concrete,’ said Weyman. ‘And there’s loose soil underneath—so it’s subsided. Cracked all up here—it will be dangerous soon… Better pull the whole thing down and re-erect it on the top of the bank near the house. That’s my advice, but the obstinate old fool won’t hear of it.’
‘What about the tennis pavilion?’ asked Mrs Oliver.
Gloom settled even more deeply on the young man. ‘He wants a kind of Chinese pagoda,[26]’ he said, with a groan. ‘Dragons if you please! Just because Lady Stubbs fancies herself in Chinese coolie hats[27]. Who’d be an architect? Anyone who wants something decent built hasn’t got the money, and those who have the money want something too utterly goddam awful!’
‘You have my commiserations,’ said Poirot gravely.
‘George Stubbs,’ said the architect scornfully. ‘Who does he think he is? Dug himself into some cushy Admiralty job in the safe depths of Wales during the war—and grows a beard to suggest he saw active naval service on convoy duty—or that’s what they say. Stinking with money—absolutely stinking!’
‘Well, you architects have got to have someone who’s got money to spend, or you’d never have a job,’ Mrs Oliver pointed out reasonably enough. She moved on towards the house and Poirot and the dispirited architect prepared to follow her.
‘These tycoons,’ said the latter bitterly, ‘can’t understand first principles.’ He delivered a final kick to the lopsided Folly. ‘If the foundations are rotten—everything’s rotten.’
‘It is profound what you say there,’ said Poirot. ‘Yes, it is profound.’
The path they were following came out from the trees and the house showed white and beautiful before them in its setting of dark trees rising up behind it.
‘It is of a veritable beauty, yes,’ murmured Poirot.
‘He wants to build a billiard room on,’ said Mr Weyman venomously.
On the bank below them a small elderly lady was busy with secateurs on a clump of shrubs. She climbed up to greet them, panting slightly.
‘Everything neglected for years,’ she said. ‘And so difficult nowadays to get a man who understands shrubs. This hillside should be a blaze of colour in March and April, but very disappointing this year—all this dead wood ought to have been cut away last autumn—’
‘M. Hercule Poirot, Mrs Folliat,’ said Mrs Oliver.
The elderly lady beamed.
‘So this is the great M. Poirot! It is kind of you to come and help us tomorrow. This clever lady here has thought out a most puzzling problem—it will be such a novelty.’
Poirot was faintly puzzled by the graciousness of the little lady’s manner. She might, he thought, have been his hostess.
He said politely:
‘Mrs Oliver is an old friend of mine. I was delighted to be able to respond to her request. This is indeed a beautiful spot, and what a superb and noble mansion.’
Mrs Folliat nodded in a matter-of-fact manner.
‘Yes. It was built by my husband’s great-grandfather in 1790. There was an Elizabethan house[28] previously. It fell into disrepair[29] and burned down in about 1700. Our family has lived here since 1598.’
Her voice was calm and matter of fact. Poirot looked at her with closer attention. He saw a very small and compact little person, dressed in shabby tweeds. The most noticeable feature about her was her clear china-blue eyes[30]. Her grey hair was closely confined by a hairnet. Though obviously careless of her appearance, she had that indefinable air of being someone which is so hard to explain.
As they walked together towards the house, Poirot said diffidently, ‘It must be hard for you to have strangers living here.’
There was a moment’s pause before Mrs Folliat answered. Her voice was clear and precise and curiously devoid of emotion.
‘So many things are hard, M. Poirot,’ she said.
CHAPTER 3
It was Mrs Folliat who led the way into the house and Poirot followed her. It was a gracious house, beautifully proportioned. Mrs Folliat went through a door on the left into a small daintily furnished sitting-room and on into the big drawing-room beyond, which was full