‘Come now, George, don’t get started on communists,’ said Mrs Legge. ‘I’ll come and help you deal with the rabid women.’
She led him out of the window and called over her shoulder: ‘Come on, Jim. Come and be torn to pieces in a good cause.’
‘All right, but I want to put M. Poirot in the picture about the Murder Hunt since he’s going to present the prizes.’
‘You can do that presently.’
‘I will await you here,’ said Poirot agreeably.
In the ensuing silence, Alec Legge stretched himself out in his chair and sighed.
‘Women!’ he said. ‘Like a swarm of bees.’
He turned his head to look out of the window.
‘And what’s it all about? Some silly garden fête that doesn’t matter to anyone.’
‘But obviously,’ Poirot pointed out, ‘there are those to whom it does matter.’
‘Why can’t people have some sense? Why can’t they think? Think of the mess the whole world has got itself into. Don’t they realize that the inhabitants of the globe are busy committing suicide?’
Poirot judged rightly that he was not intended to reply to this question. He merely shook his head doubtfully.
‘Unless we can do something before it’s too late…’ Alec Legge broke off. An angry look swept over his face. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘I know what you’re thinking. That I’m nervy, neurotic—all the rest of it. Like those damned doctors. Advising rest and change and sea air. All right, Sally and I came down here and took the Mill Cottage for three months, and I’ve followed their prescription. I’ve fished and bathed and taken long walks and sunbathed—’
‘I noticed that you had sunbathed, yes,’ said Poirot politely.
‘Oh, this?’ Alec’s hand went to his sore face. ‘That’s the result of a fine English summer for once in a way. But what’s the good of it all? You can’t get away from facing truth just by running away from it.’
‘No, it is never any good running away.’
‘And being in a rural atmosphere like this just makes you realize things more keenly—that and the incredible apathy of the people of this country. Even Sally, who’s intelligent enough, is just the same. Why bother? That’s what she says. It makes me mad! Why bother?’
‘As a matter of interest, why do you?’
‘Good God, you too?’
‘No, it is not advice. It is just that I would like to know your answer.’
‘Don’t you see, somebody’s got to do something.’
‘And that somebody is you?’
‘No, no, not me personally. One can’t be personal in times like these.’
‘I do not see why not. Even in “these times” as you call it, one is still a person.’
‘But one shouldn’t be! In times of stress, when it’s a matter of life or death, one can’t think of one’s own insignificant ills or preoccupations[48].’
‘I assure you, you are quite wrong. In the late war, during a severe air-raid, I was much less preoccupied by the thought of death than of the pain from a corn on my little toe. It surprised me at the time that it should be so. “Think,” I said to myself, “at any moment now, death may come.” But I was still conscious of my corn—indeed, I felt injured that I should have that to suffer as well as the fear of death. It was because I might die that every small personal matter in my life acquired increased importance. I have seen a woman knocked down in a street accident, with a broken leg, and she has burst out crying because she sees that there is a ladder in her stocking.’
‘Which just shows you what fools women are!’
‘It shows you what people are. It is, perhaps, that absorption in one’s personal life that has led the human race to survive.’
Alec Legge gave a scornful laugh.
‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘I think it’s a pity they ever did.’
‘It is, you know,’ Poirot persisted, ‘a form of humility. And humility is valuable. There was a slogan that was written up in your underground railways here, I remember, during the war. “It all depends on you.” It was composed, I think, by some eminent divine—but in my opinion it was a dangerous and undesirable doctrine. For it is not true. Everything does not depend on, say, Mrs Blank of Little-Blank-in-the-Marsh[49]. And if she is led to think it does, it will not be good for her character. While she thinks of the part she can play in world affairs, the baby pulls over the kettle.’
‘You are rather old-fashioned in your views, I think. Let’s hear what your slogan would be.’
‘I do not need to formulate one of my own. There is an older one in this country which contents me very well.’
‘What is that?’
‘“Put your trust in God, and keep your powder dry.”[50]’
‘Well, well…’ Alec Legge seemed amused. ‘Most unexpected coming from you. Do you know what I should like to see done in this country?’
‘Something, no doubt, forceful and unpleasant,’ said Poirot, smiling.
Alec Legge remained serious.
‘I should like to see every feebleminded person put out—right out! Don’t let them breed. If, for one generation, only the intelligent were allowed to breed, think what the result would be.’
‘A very large increase of patients in the psychiatric wards, perhaps,’ said Poirot dryly. ‘One needs roots as well as flowers on a plant, Mr Legge. However large and beautiful the flowers, if the earthy roots are destroyed there will be no more flowers.’ He added in a conversational tone: ‘Would you consider Lady Stubbs a candidate for the lethal chamber[51]?’
‘Yes, indeed. What’s the good of a woman like that? What contribution has she ever made to society? Has she ever had an idea in her head that wasn’t of clothes or furs or jewels? As I say, what good is she?’
‘You and I,’ said Poirot blandly, ‘are certainly much more intelligent than Lady Stubbs. But’—he shook his head sadly—‘it is true, I fear, that we are not nearly so ornamental.’
‘Ornamental…’ Alec was beginning with a fierce snort, but he was interrupted by the re-entry of Mrs Oliver and Captain Warburton through the window.
CHAPTER 4
‘You must come and see the clues and things for the Murder Hunt, M. Poirot,’ said Mrs Oliver breathlessly.
Poirot rose and followed them obediently.
The three of them went across the hall and into a small room furnished plainly as a business office.
‘Lethal weapons to your left,’ observed Captain Warburton, waving his hand towards a small baize-covered card table. On it were laid out a small pistol, a piece of lead piping with a rusty sinister stain on it, a blue bottle labelled Poison, a length of clothes line and a hypodermic syringe.
‘Those are the Weapons,’ explained Mrs Oliver, ‘and