The ABC Murders (6 page)

In the end it boiled down to this. Elizabeth Barnard had not confided in anyone in the café as to her plans for the evening, but in Miss Higley's opinion she had been going to meet her “friend.” She had had on a new white dress, “ever so sweet with one of the new necks.”

We had a word with each of the other two girls but with no further results. Betty Barnard had not said anything as to her plans and no one had noticed her in Bexhill during the course of the evening.

E
lizabeth Barnard's parents lived in a minute bungalow, one of fifty or so recently run up by a speculative builder on the confines of the town. The name of it was Llandudno. Mr. Barnard, a stout, bewildered-looking man of fifty-five or so, had noticed our approach and was standing waiting in the doorway.

“Come in, gentlemen,” he said.

Inspector Kelsey took the initiative.

“This is Inspector Crome of Scotland Yard, sir,” he said. “He's come down to help us over this business.”

“Scotland Yard?” said Mr. Barnard hopefully. “That's good. This murdering villain's got to be laid by the heels. My poor little girl—” His face was distorted by a spasm of grief.

“And this is Mr. Hercule Poirot, also from London, and er—”

“Captain Hastings,” said Poirot.

“Pleased to meet you, gentlemen,” said Mr. Barnard mechanically. “Come into the snuggery. I don't know that my poor wife's up to seeing you. All broken up, she is.”

However, by the time that we were ensconced in the living room of the bungalow, Mrs. Barnard had made her appearance. She had evidently been crying bitterly, her eyes were reddened and she walked with the uncertain gait of a person who had had a great shock.

“Why, mother, that's fine,” said Mr. Barnard. “You're sure you're all right—eh?”

He patted her shoulder and drew her down into a chair.

“The superintendent was very kind,” said Mr. Barnard. “After he'd broken the news to us, he said he'd leave any questions till later when we'd got over the first shock.”

“It is too cruel. Oh, it is too cruel,” cried Mrs. Barnard tearfully. “The cruellest thing that ever was, it is.”

Her voice had a faintly sing-song intonation that I thought for a moment was foreign till I remembered the name on the gate and realized that the “effer wass” of her speech was in reality proof of her Welsh origin.

“It's very painful, madam, I know,” said Inspector Crome. “And we've every sympathy for you, but we want to know all the facts we can so as to get to work as quick as possible.”

“That's sense, that is,” said Mr. Barnard, nodding approval.

“Your daughter was twenty-three, I understand. She lived here with you and worked at the Ginger Cat café, is that right?”

“That's it.”

“This is a new place, isn't it? Where did you live before?”

“I was in the ironmongery business in Kennington. Retired two years ago. Always meant to live near the sea.”

“You have two daughters?”

“Yes. My elder daughter works in an office in London.”

“Weren't you alarmed when your daughter didn't come home last night?”

“We didn't know she hadn't,” said Mrs. Barnard tearfully. “Dad and I always go to bed early. Nine o'clock's our time. We never knew Betty hadn't come home till the police officer came and said—and said—”

She broke down.

“Was your daughter in the habit of—er—returning home late?”

“You know what girls are nowadays, inspector,” said Barnard. “Independent, that's what they are. These summer evenings they're not going to rush home. All the same, Betty was usually in by eleven.”

“How did she get in? Was the door open?”

“Left the key under the mat—that's what we always did.”

“There is some rumour, I believe, that your daughter was engaged to be married?”

“They don't put it as formally as that nowadays,” said Mr. Barnard.

“Donald Fraser his name is, and I liked him. I liked him very much,” said Mrs. Barnard. “Poor fellow, it'll be trouble for him—this news. Does he know yet, I wonder?”

“He works in Court & Brunskill's, I understand?”

“Yes, they're the estate agents.”

“Was he in the habit of meeting your daughter most evenings after her work?”

“Not every evening. Once or twice a week would be nearer.”

“Do you know if she was going to meet him yesterday?”

“She didn't say. Betty never said much about what she was
doing or where she was going. But she was a good girl, Betty was. Oh, I can't believe—”

Mrs. Barnard started sobbing again.

“Pull yourself together, old lady. Try to hold up, mother,” urged her husband. “We've got to get to the bottom of this.”

“I'm sure Donald would never—would never—” sobbed Mrs. Barnard.

“Now just you pull yourself together,” repeated Mr Barnard.

“I wish to God I could give you some help—but the plain fact is I know nothing—nothing at all that can help you to find the dastardly scoundrel who did this. Betty was just a merry, happy girl—with a decent young fellow that she was—well, we'd have called it walking out with in my young days. Why anyone should want to murder her simply beats me—it doesn't make sense.”

“You're very near the truth there, Mr. Barnard,” said Crome. “I tell you what I'd like to do—have a look over Miss Barnard's room. There may be something—letters—or a diary.”

“Look over it and welcome,” said Mr. Barnard, rising.

He led the way. Crome followed him, then Poirot, then Kelsey, and I brought up the rear.

I stopped for a minute to retie my shoelaces, and as I did so a taxi drew up outside and a girl jumped out of it. She paid the driver and hurried up the path to the house, carrying a small suitcase. As she entered the door she saw me and stopped dead.

There was something so arresting in her pose that it intrigued me.

“Who are you?” she said.

I came down a few steps. I felt embarrassed as to how exactly to reply. Should I give my name? Or mention that I had come here
with the police? The girl, however, gave me no time to make a decision.

“Oh, well,” she said, “I can guess.”

She pulled off the little white woollen cap she was wearing and threw it on the ground. I could see her better now as she turned a little so that the light fell on her.

My first impression was of the Dutch dolls that my sisters used to play with in my childhood. Her hair was black and cut in a straight bob and a bang across the forehead. Her cheek-bones were high and her whole figure had a queer modern angularity that was not, somehow, unattractive. She was not good-looking—plain rather—but there was an intensity about her, a forcefulness that made her a person quite impossible to overlook.

“You are Miss Barnard?” I asked.

“I am Megan Barnard. You belong to the police, I suppose?”

“Well,” I said. “Not exactly—”

She interrupted me.

“I don't think I've got anything to say to you. My sister was a nice bright girl with no men friends. Good morning.”

She gave me a short laugh as she spoke and regarded me challengingly.

“That's the correct phrase, I believe?” she said.

“I'm not a reporter, if that's what you're getting at.”

“Well, what are you?” She looked around. “Where's mum and dad?”

“Your father is showing the police your sister's bedroom. Your mother's in there. She's very upset.”

The girl seemed to make a decision.

“Come in here,” she said.

She pulled open a door and passed through. I followed her and found myself in a small, neat kitchen.

I was about to shut the door behind me—but found an unexpected resistance. The next moment Poirot had slipped quietly into the room and shut the door behind him.

“Mademoiselle Barnard?” he said with a quick bow.

“This is M. Hercule Poirot,” I said.

Megan Barnard gave him a quick, appraising glance.

“I've heard of you,” she said. “You're the fashionable private sleuth, aren't you?”

“Not a pretty description—but it suffices,” said Poirot.

The girl sat down on the edge of the kitchen table. She felt in her bag for a cigarette. She placed it between her lips, lighted it, and then said in between two puffs of smoke:

“Somehow, I don't see what M. Hercule Poirot is doing in our humble little crime.”

“Mademoiselle,” said Poirot. “What you do not see and what I do not see would probably fill a volume. But all that is of no practical importance. What
is
of practical importance is something that will not be easy to find.”

“What's that?”

“Death, mademoiselle, unfortunately creates a
prejudice
. A prejudice in favour of the deceased. I heard what you said just now to my friend Hastings. ‘A nice bright girl with no men friends.' You said that in mockery of the newspapers. And it is very true—when a young girl is dead, that is the kind of thing that is said. She was bright. She was happy. She was sweet-tempered. She had not a care in the world. She had no undesirable acquaintances. There is a great charity always to the dead. Do you know what I should like this
minute? I should like to find someone who knew Elizabeth Barnard
and who does not know she is dead!
Then, perhaps, I should hear what is useful to me—the truth.”

Megan Barnard looked at him for a few minutes in silence whilst she smoked. Then, at last, she spoke. Her words made me jump.

“Betty,” she said, “was an unmitigated little ass!”

A
s I said, Megan Barnard's words, and still more the crisp businesslike tone in which they were uttered, made me jump.

Poirot, however, merely bowed his head gravely.

“A la bonne heure,”
he said. “You are intelligent, mademoiselle.”

Megan Barnard said, still in the same detached tone:

“I was extremely fond of Betty. But my fondness didn't blind me from seeing exactly the kind of silly little fool she was—and even telling her so upon occasions! Sisters are like that.”

“And did she pay any attention to your advice?”

“Probably not,” said Megan cynically.

“Will you, mademoiselle, be precise.”

The girl hesitated for a minute or two.

Poirot said with a slight smile:

“I will help you. I heard what you said to Hastings. That your sister was a bright, happy girl with no men friends. It was—
un peu
—the
opposite
that was true, was it not?”

Megan said slowly:

“There wasn't any harm in Betty. I want you to understand that. She'd always go straight. She's not the weekending kind. Nothing of that sort. But she liked being taken out and dancing and—oh, cheap flattery and compliments and all that sort of thing.”

“And she was pretty—yes?”

This question, the third time I had heard it, met this time with a practical response.

Megan slipped off the table, went to her suitcase, snapped it open and extracted something which she handed to Poirot.

In a leather frame was a head and shoulders of a fair-haired, smiling girl. Her hair had evidently recently been permed, it stood out from her head in a mass of rather frizzy curls. The smile was arch and artificial. It was certainly not a face that you could call beautiful, but it had an obvious and cheap prettiness.

Poirot handed it back, saying:

“You and she do not resemble each other, mademoiselle.”

“Oh! I'm the plain one of the family. I've always known that.” She seemed to brush aside the fact as unimportant.

“In what way exactly do you consider your sister was behaving foolishly? Do you mean, perhaps, in relation to Mr. Donald Fraser?”

“That's it, exactly. Don's a very quiet sort of person—but he—well, naturally he'd resent certain things—and then—”

“And then what, mademoiselle?”

His eyes were on her very steadily.

It may have been my fancy but it seemed to me that she hesitated a second before answering.

“I was afraid that he might—chuck her altogether. And that
would have been a pity. He's a very steady and hard-working man and would have made her a good husband.”

Poirot continued to gaze at her. She did not flush under his glance but returned it with one of her own equally steady and with something else in it—something that reminded me of her first defiant, disdainful manner.

“So it is like that,” he said at last. “We do not speak the truth any longer.”

She shrugged her shoulders and turned towards the door.

“Well,” she said. “I've done what I could to help you.”

Poirot's voice arrested her.

“Wait, mademoiselle. I have something to tell you. Come back.”

Rather unwillingly, I thought, she obeyed.

Somewhat to my surprise, Poirot plunged into the whole story of the A B C letters, the murder of Andover, and the railway guide found by the bodies.

He had no reason to complain of any lack of interest on her part. Her lips parted, her eyes gleaming, she hung on his words.

“Is this all true, M. Poirot?”

“Yes, it is true.”

“You really mean that my sister was killed by some horrible homicidal maniac?”

“Precisely.”

She drew a deep breath.

“Oh! Betty—Betty—how—how
ghastly!
”

“You see, mademoiselle, that the information for which I ask you can give freely without wondering whether or not it will hurt anyone.”

“Yes, I see that now.”

“Then let us continue our conversation. I have formed the idea that this Donald Fraser has, perhaps, a violent and jealous temper, is that right?”

Megan Barnard said quietly:

“I'm trusting you now, M. Poirot. I'm going to give you the absolute truth. Don is, as I say, a very quiet person—a bottled-up person, if you know what I mean. He can't always express what he feels in words. But underneath it all he minds things terribly. And he's got a jealous nature. He was always jealous of Betty. He was devoted to her—and of course she was very fond of him, but it wasn't in Betty to be fond of one person and not notice anybody else. She wasn't made that way. She'd got a—well, an eye for any nice-looking man who'd pass the time of day with her. And of course, working in the Ginger Cat, she was always running up against men—especially in the summer holidays. She was always very pat with her tongue and if they chaffed her she'd chaff back again. And then perhaps she'd meet them and go to the pictures or something like that. Nothing serious—never anything of that kind—but she just liked her fun. She used to say that as she'd got to settle down with Don one day she might as well have her fun now while she could.”

Megan paused and Poirot said:

“I understand. Continue.”

“It was just that attitude of mind of hers that Don couldn't understand. If she was really keen on him he couldn't see why she wanted to go out with other people. And once or twice they had flaming big rows about it.”

“M. Don, he was no longer quiet?”

“It's like all those quiet people, when they do lose their tempers they lose them with a vengeance. Don was so violent that Betty was frightened.”

“When was this?”

“There was one row nearly a year ago and another—a worse one—just over a month ago. I was home for the weekend—and I got them to patch it up again, and it was then I tried to knock a little sense into Betty—told her she was a little fool. All she would say was that there hadn't been any harm in it. Well, that was true enough, but all the same she was riding for a fall. You see, after the row a year ago, she'd got into the habit of telling a few useful lies on the principle that what the mind doesn't know the heart doesn't grieve over. This last flare-up came because she'd told Don she was going to Hastings to see a girl pal—and he found out that she'd really been over to Eastbourne with some man. He was a married man, as it happened, and he'd been a bit secretive about the business anyway—and so that made it worse. They had an awful scene—Betty saying that she wasn't married to him yet and she had a right to go about with whom she pleased and Don all white and shaking and saying that one day—one day—”

“Yes?”

“He'd commit murder—” said Megan in a lowered voice.

She stopped and stared at Poirot.

He nodded his head gravely several times.

“And so, naturally, you were afraid….”

“I didn't think he'd actually done it—not for a minute! But I was afraid it might be brought up—the quarrel and all that he'd said—several people knew about it.”

Again Poirot nodded his head gravely.

“Just so. And I may say, mademoiselle, that but for the egoistical vanity of a killer, that is just what would have happened. If Donald Fraser escapes suspicion, it will be thanks to A B C's maniacal boasting.”

He was silent for a minute or two, then he said:

“Do you know if your sister met this married man, or any other man, lately?”

Megan shook her head.

“I don't know. I've been away, you see.”

“But what do you think?”

“She mayn't have met that particular man again. He'd probably sheer off if he thought there was a chance of a row, but it wouldn't surprise me if Betty had—well, been telling Don a few lies again. You see, she did so enjoy dancing and the pictures, and of course, Don couldn't afford to take her all the time.”

“If so, is she likely to have confided in anyone? The girl at the café, for instance?”

“I don't think that's likely. Betty couldn't bear the Higley girl. She thought her common. And the others would be new. Betty wasn't the confiding sort anyway.”

An electric bell trilled sharply above the girl's head.

She went to the window and leaned out. She drew back her head sharply.

“It's Don….”

“Bring him in here,” said Poirot quickly. “I would like a word with him before our good inspector takes him in hand.”

Like a flash Megan Barnard was out of the kitchen, and a couple of seconds later she was back again leading Donald Fraser by the hand.