The ABC Murders (12 page)

“No?”

“No?”

“I've dreamed it now three nights running, sir…I think I'm going mad….”

“Tell me—”

The man's face was livid. His eyes were staring out of his head. As a matter of fact, he
looked
mad.

“It's always the same. I'm on the beach. Looking for Betty. She's lost—only lost, you understand. I've got to find her. I've got to give her her belt. I'm carrying it in my hand. And then—”

“Yes?”

“The dream changes…I'm not looking any more. She's there in front of me—sitting on the beach. She doesn't see me coming—It's—oh, I can't—”

“Go on.”

Poirot's voice was authoritative—firm.

“I come up behind her…she doesn't hear me…I slip the belt round her neck and pull—oh—pull….”

The agony in his voice was frightful…I gripped the arms of my chair…The thing was too real.

“She's choking…she's dead…I've strangled her—and then her head falls back and I see her face…and it's
Megan
—not Betty!”

He leant back white and shaking. Poirot poured out another glass of wine and passed it over to him.

“What's the meaning of it, M. Poirot? Why does it come to me? Every night…?”

“Drink up your wine,” ordered Poirot.

The young man did so, then he asked in a calmer voice:

“What does it mean? I—I didn't kill her, did I?”

What Poirot answered I do not know, for at that minute I heard the postman's knock and automatically I left the room.

What I took out of the letter box banished all my interest in Donald Fraser's extraordinary revelations.

I raced back into the sitting room.

“Poirot,” I cried. “It's come. The fourth letter.”

He sprang up, seized it from me, caught up his paper knife and slit it open. He spread it out on the table.

The three of us read it together.

I
t was at this moment, I think, that what Poirot called the human element began to fade out of the picture again. It was as though, the mind being unable to stand unadulterated horror, we had had an interval of normal human interests.

We had, one and all, felt the impossibility of doing anything until the fourth letter should come revealing the projected scene of the D murder. That atmosphere of waiting had brought a release of tension.

But now, with the printed words jeering from the white stiff paper, the hunt was up once more.

Inspector Crome had come round from the Yard, and while he was still there, Franklin Clarke and Megan Barnard came in.

The girl explained that she, too, had come up from Bexhill.

“I wanted to ask Mr. Clarke something.”

She seemed rather anxious to excuse and explain her procedure. I just noted the fact without attaching much importance to it.

The letter naturally filled my mind to the exclusion of all else.

Crome was not, I think, any too pleased to see the various participants in the drama. He became extremely official and noncommittal.

“I'll take this with me, M. Poirot. If you care to take a copy of it—”

“No, no, it is not necessary.”

“What are your plans, inspector?” asked Clarke.

“Fairly comprehensive ones, Mr. Clarke.”

“This time we've got to get him,” said Clarke. “I may tell you, inspector, that we've formed an association of our own to deal with the matter. A legion of interested parties.”

Inspector Crome said in his best manner:

“Oh, yes?”

“I gather you don't think much of amateurs, inspector?”

“You've hardly the same resources at your command, have you, Mr. Clarke?”

“We've got a personal axe to grind—and that's something.”

“Oh, yes?”

“I fancy your own task isn't going to be too easy, inspector. In fact, I rather fancy old A B C has done you again.”

Crome, I noticed, could often be goaded into speech when other methods would have failed.

“I don't fancy the public will have much to criticize in our arrangements this time,” he said. “The fool has given us ample warning. The 11th isn't till Wednesday of next week. That gives ample time for a publicity campaign in the press. Doncaster will be thoroughly warned. Every soul whose name begins with a D will be on his or her guard—that's so much to the good. Also, we'll
draft police into the town on a fairly large scale. That's already been arranged for by consent of all the Chief Constables in England. The whole of Doncaster, police and civilians, will be out to catch one man—and with reasonable luck, we ought to get him!”

Clarke said quietly:

“It's easy to see you're not a sporting man, inspector.”

Crome stared at him.

“What do you mean, Mr. Clarke?”

“Man alive, don't you realize that on
next Wednesday the St. Leger is being run at Doncaster?
”

The inspector's jaw dropped. For the life of him he could not bring out the familiar “Oh, yes?” Instead he said:

“That's true. Yes, that complicates matters….”

“A B C is no fool, even if he
is
a madman.”

We were all silent for a minute or two, taking in the situation. The crowds on the race course—the passionate, sport-loving English public—the endless complications.

Poirot murmured:

“C'est ingénieux. Tout de même c'est bien imaginé, ça.”

“It's my belief,” said Clarke, “that the murder will take place on the race course—perhaps actually while the Leger is being run.”

For the moment his sporting instincts took a momentary pleasure in the thought….

Inspector Crome rose, taking the letter with him.

“The St. Leger is a complication,” he allowed. “It's unfortunate.”

He went out. We heard a murmur of voices in the hallway. A minute later Thora Grey entered.

She said anxiously:

“The inspector told me there is another letter. Where this time?”

It was raining outside. Thora Grey was wearing a black coat and skirt and furs. A little black hat just perched itself on the side of her golden head.

It was to Franklin Clarke that she spoke and she came right up to him and, with a hand on his arm, waited for his answer.

“Doncaster—and on the day of the St. Leger.”

We settled down to a discussion. It went without saying that we all intended to be present, but the race-meeting undoubtedly complicated the plans we had made tentatively beforehand.

A feeling of discouragement swept over me. What could this little band of six people do, after all, however strong their personal interest in the matter might be? There would be innumerable police, keen-eyed and alert, watching all likely spots. What could six more pairs of eyes do?

As though in answer to my thought, Poirot raised his voice. He spoke rather like a schoolmaster or a priest.

“Mes enfants,”
he said. “We must not disperse the strength. We must approach this matter with method and order in our thoughts. We must look within and not without for the truth. We must say to ourselves—each one of us—what do
I
know about the murderer? And so we must build up a composite picture of the man we are going to seek.”

“We know nothing about him,” sighed Thora Grey helplessly.

“No, no, mademoiselle. That is not true. Each one of us knows something about him—
if we only knew what it is we know. I am convinced that the knowledge is there
if we could only get at it.”

Clarke shook his head.

“We don't know anything—whether he's old or young, fair or dark! None of us has ever seen him or spoken to him! We've gone over everything we all know again and again.”

“Not everything! For instance, Miss Grey here told us that she did not see or speak to any stranger on the day that Sir Carmichael Clarke was murdered.”

Thora Grey nodded.

“That's quite right.”

“Is it?
Lady Clarke told us, mademoiselle, that from her window she saw you standing on the front doorstep talking to a man.
”

“She saw
me
talking to a strange man?” The girl seemed genuinely astonished. Surely that pure, limpid look could not be anything but genuine.

She shook her head.

“Lady Clarke must have made a mistake. I never—Oh!”

The exclamation came suddenly—jerked out of her. A crimson wave flooded her cheeks.

“I remember now! How stupid! I'd forgotten all about it. But it wasn't important. Just one of those men who come round selling stockings—you know, ex-army people. They're very persistent. I had to get rid of him. I was just crossing the hall when he came to the door. He spoke to me instead of ringing but he was quite a harmless sort of person. I suppose that's why I forgot about him.”

Poirot was swaying to and fro, his hands clasped to his head. He was muttering to himself with such vehemence that nobody else said anything, but stared at him instead.

“Stockings,” he was murmuring. “Stockings…stockings…stockings…
ça vient
…stockings…stockings…it is the
motif—
yes
…three months ago…and the other day…and now.
Bon Dieu,
I have it!”

He sat upright and fixed me with an imperious eye.

“You remember, Hastings? Andover. The shop. We go upstairs. The bedroom. On a chair.
A pair of new silk stockings
. And now I know what it was that roused my attention two days ago. It was you, mademoiselle—” He turned on Megan. “You spoke of your mother who wept
because she had bought your sister some new stockings on the very day of the murder
….”

He looked round on us all.

“You see?
It is the same motif
three times repeated. That cannot be coincidence. When mademoiselle spoke I had the feeling that what she said linked up with something. I know now with what. The words spoken by Mrs. Ascher's next-door neighbour, Mrs. Fowler. About people who were always trying to
sell
you things—and she mentioned
stockings
. Tell me, mademoiselle, it is true, is it not, that your mother bought those stockings, not at a shop, but from someone who came to the door?”

“Yes—yes—she did…I remember now. She said something about being sorry for these wretched men who go round and try to get orders.”

“But what's the connection?” cried Franklin. “That a man came selling stockings proves nothing!”

“I tell you, my friends, it
cannot
be coincidence. Three crimes—and every time a man selling stockings and spying out the land.”

He wheeled round on Thora.

“
A vous la parole!
Describe this man.”

She looked at him blankly.

“I can't…I don't know how…He had glasses, I think—and a shabby overcoat….”

“Mieux que ça, mademoiselle.”

“He stooped…I don't know. I hardly looked at him. He wasn't the sort of man you'd notice….”

Poirot said gravely:

“You are quite right, mademoiselle. The whole secret of the murders lies there in your description of the murderer—for without a doubt he
was
the murderer!
‘He wasn't the sort of man you'd notice.'
Yes—there is no doubt about it…You have described the murderer!”

I

M
r. 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 A B C 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.”

II

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 A B C 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….”

III

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 A B C 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….