The Murder on the Links (13 page)

I
was dumbfounded. Up to the last, I had not been able to bring myself to believe Jack Renauld guilty. I had expected a ringing proclamation of his innocence when Poirot challenged him. But now, watching him as he stood, white and limp against the wall, and hearing the damning admission fall from his lips, I doubted no longer.

But Poirot had turned to Giraud.

“What are your grounds for arresting him?”

“Do you expect me to give them to you?”

“As a matter of courtesy, yes.”

Giraud looked at him doubtfully. He was torn between a desire to refuse rudely and the pleasure of triumphing over his adversary.

“You think I have made a mistake, I suppose?” he sneered.

“It would not surprise me,” replied Poirot, with a soupçon of malice.

Giraud's face took on a deeper tinge of red.

“
Eh bien,
come in here. You shall judge for yourself.”

He flung open the door of the salon, and we passed in, leaving Jack Renauld in the care of the two other men.

“Now, Monsieur Poirot,” said Giraud, laying his hat on the table, and speaking with the utmost sarcasm, “I will treat you to a little lecture on detective work. I will show how we moderns work.”

“
Bien!
” said Poirot, composing himself to listen. “I will show you how admirably the Old Guard can listen.” And he leaned back and closed his eyes, opening them for a moment to remark: “Do not fear that I shall sleep. I will attend most carefully.”

“Of course,” began Giraud, “I soon saw through all that Chilean tomfoolery. Two men were in it—but they were not mysterious foreigners! All that was a blind.”

“Very creditable so far, my dear Giraud,” murmured Poirot. “Especially after that clever trick of theirs with the match and cigarette end.”

Giraud glared, but continued.

“A man must have been connected with the case, in order to dig the grave. There is no man who actually benefits by the crime, but there was a man who
thought
he would benefit. I heard of Jack Renauld's quarrel with his father, and of the threats that he had used. The motive was established. Now as to means. Jack Renauld was in Merlinville that night. He concealed the fact—which turned suspicion into certainty. Then we found a second victim—
stabbed with the same dagger.
We know when that dagger was stolen. Captain Hastings here can fix the time. Jack Renauld, arriving from Cherbourg, was the only person who could have taken it. I have accounted for all the other members of the household.”

Poirot interrupted.

“You are wrong. There is one other person who could have taken the dagger.”

“You refer to Monsieur Stonor? He arrived at the front door, in an automobile which had brought him straight from Calais. Ah! believe me, I have looked into everything. Monsieur Jack Renauld arrived by train. An hour elapsed between his arrival and the moment when he presented himself at the house. Without doubt, he saw Captain Hastings and his companion leave the shed, slipped in himself and took the dagger, stabbed his accomplice in the shed—”

“Who was already dead!”

Giraud shrugged his shoulders.

“Possibly he did not observe that. He may have judged him to be sleeping. Without doubt they had a rendezvous. In any case he knew this apparent second murder would greatly complicate the case. It did.”

“But it could not deceive Monsieur Giraud,” murmured Poirot.

“You mock at me! But I will give you one last irrefutable proof. Madame Renauld's story was false—a fabrication from beginning to end. We believe Madame Renauld to have loved her husband—
yet she lied to shield his murderer.
For whom will a woman lie? Sometimes for herself, usually for the man she loves,
always
for her children. That is the last—the irrefutable proof. You cannot get round it.”

Giraud paused, flushed and triumphant. Poirot regarded him steadily.

“That is my case,” said Giraud. “What have you to say to it?”

“Only that there is one thing you have failed to take into account.”

“What is that?”

“Jack Renauld was presumably acquainted with the planning out of the golf course. He knew that the body would be discovered almost at once, when they started to dig the bunker.”

Giraud laughed out loud.

“But it is idiotic what you say there! He wanted the body to be found! Until it was found, he could not presume death, and would have been unable to enter into his inheritance.”

I saw a quick flash of green in Poirot's eyes as he rose to his feet.

“Then why bury it?” he asked very softly. “Reflect, Giraud. Since it was to Jack Renauld's advantage that the body should be found without delay,
why dig a grave at all?
”

Giraud did not reply. The question found him unprepared. He shrugged his shoulders as though to intimate that it was of no importance.

Poirot moved towards the door. I followed him.

“There is one more thing that you have failed to take into account,” he said over his shoulder.

“What is that?”

“The piece of lead piping,” said Poirot, and left the room.

Jack Renauld still stood in the hall, with a white dumb face, but as we came out of the salon he looked up sharply. At the same moment there was the sound of a footfall on the staircase. Mrs. Renauld was descending it. At the sight of her son, standing between the two myrmidons of the law, she stopped as though petrified.

“Jack,” she faltered. “Jack, what is this?”

He looked up at her, his face set.

“They have arrested me, mother.”

“What?”

She uttered a piercing cry, and before anyone could get to her,
swayed, and fell heavily. We both ran to her and lifted her up. In a minute Poirot stood up again.

“She has cut her head badly, on the corner of the stairs. I fancy there is slight concussion also. If Giraud wants a statement from her, he will have to wait. She will probably be unconscious for at least a week.”

Denise and Françoise had run to their mistress, and leaving her in their charge Poirot left the house. He walked with his head down, frowning thoughtfully. For some time I did not speak, but at last I ventured to put a question to him:

“Do you believe then, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, that Jack Renauld may not be guilty?”

Poirot did not answer at once, but after a long wait he said gravely:

“I do not know, Hastings. There is just a chance of it. Of course Giraud is all wrong—wrong from beginning to end. If Jack Renauld is guilty, it is in spite of Giraud's arguments, not
because
of them. And the gravest indictment against him is known only to me.”

“What is that?” I asked, impressed.

“If you would use your grey cells, and see the whole case clearly as I do, you too would perceive it, my friend.”

This was what I called one of Poirot's irritating answers. He went on, without waiting for me to speak:

“Let us walk this way to the sea. We will sit on that little mound there, overlooking the beach, and review the case. You shall know all that I know, but I would prefer that you should come at the truth by your own efforts—not by my leading you by the hand.”

We established ourselves on the grassy knoll as Poirot had suggested, looking out to sea.

“Think, my friend,” said Poirot's voice encouragingly. “Arrange your ideas. Be methodical. Be orderly. There is the secret of success.”

I endeavoured to obey him, casting my mind back over all the details of the case. And suddenly I started as an idea of bewildering luminosity shot into my brain. Tremblingly I built up my hypothesis.

“You have a little idea, I see,
mon ami!
Capital. We progress.”

I sat up, and lit a pipe.

“Poirot,” I said, “it seems to me we have been strangely remiss. I say
we
—although I dare say
I
would be nearer the mark. But you must pay the penalty of your determined secrecy. So I say again we have been strangely remiss. There is someone we have forgotten.”

“And who is that?” inquired Poirot, with twinkling eyes.

“Georges Conneau!”

T
he next moment Poirot embraced me warmly on the cheek.

“
Enfin!
You have arrived! And all by yourself. It is superb! Continue your reasoning. You are right. Decidedly we have done wrong to forget Georges Conneau.”

I was so flattered by the little man's approval that I could hardly continue. But at last I collected my thoughts and went on.

“Georges Conneau disappeared twenty years ago, but we have no reason to believe that he is dead.”

“Aucunement,”
agreed Poirot. “Proceed.”

“Therefore we will assume that he is alive.”

“Exactly.”

“Or that he was alive until recently.”

“De mieux en mieux!”

“We will presume,” I continued, my enthusiasm rising, “that he has fallen on evil days. He has become a criminal, an apache, a tramp—a what you will. He chances to come to Merlinville. There he finds the woman he has never ceased to love.”

“Eh eh! The sentimentality,” warned Poirot.

“Where one hates one also loves,” I quoted or misquoted. “At any rate he finds her there, living under an assumed name. But she has a new lover, the Englishman, Renauld. Georges Conneau, the memory of old wrongs rising in him, quarrels with this Renauld. He lies in wait for him as he comes to visit his mistress, and stabs him in the back. Then, terrified at what he has done, he starts to dig a grave. I imagine it likely that Madame Daubreuil comes out to look for her lover. She and Conneau have a terrible scene. He drags her into the shed, and there suddenly falls down in an epileptic fit. Now supposing Jack Renauld to appear. Madame Daubreuil tells him all, points out to him the dreadful consequences to her daughter if this scandal of the past is revived. His father's murderer is dead—let them do their best to hush it up. Jack Renauld consents—goes to the house and has an interview with his mother, winning her over to his point of view. Primed with the story that Madame Daubreuil has suggested to him, she permits herself to be gagged and bound. There, Poirot, what do you think of that?” I leaned back, flushed with the pride of successful reconstruction.

Poirot looked at me thoughtfully.

“I think that you should write for the Kinema,
mon ami,
” he remarked at last.

“You mean—”

“It would mean a good film, the story that you have recounted to me there—but it bears no sort of resemblance to everyday life.”

“I admit that I haven't gone into all the details, but—”

“You have gone farther—you have ignored them magnificently. What about the way the two men were dressed? Do you
suggest that after stabbing his victim, Conneau removed his suit of clothes, donned it himself, and replaced the dagger?”

“I don't see that that matters,” I objected rather huffily. “He may have obtained clothes and money from Madame Daubreuil by threats earlier in the day.”

“By threats—eh? You seriously advance that supposition?”

“Certainly. He could have threatened to reveal her identity to the Renaulds, which would probably have put an end to all hopes of her daughter's marriage.”

“You are wrong, Hastings. He could not blackmail her, for she had the whip hand. Georges Conneau, remember, is still wanted for murder. A word from her and he is in danger of the guillotine.”

I was forced, rather reluctantly, to admit the truth of this.

“
Your
theory,” I remarked acidly, “is doubtless correct as to all the details?”

“My theory is the truth,” said Poirot quietly. “And the truth is necessarily correct. In your theory you made a fundamental error. You permitted your imagination to lead you astray with midnight assignations and passionate love scenes. But in investigating crime we must take our stand upon the commonplace. Shall I demonstrate my methods to you?”

“Oh, by all means let us have a demonstration!”

Poirot sat very upright and began, wagging his forefinger emphatically to emphasize his points:

“I will start as you started from the basic fact of Georges Conneau. Now the story told by Madame Beroldy in court as to the ‘Russians' was admittedly a fabrication. If she was innocent of connivance in the crime, it was concocted by her, and by her only as
she stated. If, on the other hand, she was
not
innocent, it might have been invented by either her or Georges Conneau.

“Now, in this case we are investigating, we meet the same tale. As I pointed out to you, the facts render it very unlikely that Madame Daubreuil inspired it. So we turn to the hypothesis that the story had its origin in the brain of Georges Conneau. Very good. Georges Conneau, therefore, planned the crime, with Mrs. Renauld as his accomplice. She is in the limelight, and behind her is a shadowy figure whose present
alias
is unknown to us.

“Now let us go carefully over the Renauld Case from the beginning, setting down each significant point in its chronological order. You have a notebook and pencil? Good. Now what is the earliest point to note down?”

“The letter to you?”

“That was the first we knew of it, but it is not the proper beginning of the case. The first point of any significance, I should say, is the change that came over Monsieur Renauld shortly after arriving in Merlinville, and which is attested to by several witnesses. We have also to consider his friendship with Madame Daubreuil, and the large sums of money paid over to her. From thence we can come directly to the 23rd May.”

Poirot paused, cleared his throat, and signed to me to write:

“
23rd May.
M. Renauld quarrels with his son over latter's wish to marry Marthe Daubreuil. Son leaves for Paris.

“
24th May.
M. Renauld alters his will, leaving entire control of his fortune in his wife's hands.

“
7th June.
Quarrel with tramp in garden, witnessed by Marthe Daubreuil.

“Letter written to M. Hercule Poirot, imploring assistance.

“Telegram sent to M. Jack Renauld, bidding him proceed by the
Anzora
to Buenos Aires.

“Chauffeur, Masters, sent off on a holiday.

“Visit of a lady that evening. As he is seeing her out, his words are ‘Yes, yes—but for God's sake go now….'”

Poirot paused.

“There, Hastings, take each of those facts one by one, consider them carefully by themselves and in relation to the whole, and see if you do not get new light on the matter.”

I endeavoured conscientiously to do as he had said. After a moment or two, I said rather doubtfully:

“As to the first points, the question seems to be whether we adopt the theory of blackmail, or of an infatuation for this woman.”

“Blackmail, decidedly. You heard what Stonor said as to his character and habits.”

“Mrs. Renauld did not confirm his view,” I argued.

“We have already seen that Madame Renauld's testimony cannot be relied upon in any way. We must trust to Stonor on that point.”

“Still, if Renauld had an affair with a woman called Bella, there seems no inherent improbability in his having another with Madame Daubreuil.”

“None whatever, I grant you, Hastings. But did he?”

“The letter, Poirot. You forget the letter.”

“No, I do not forget. But what makes you think that letter was written to Monsieur Renauld?”

“Why, it was found in his pocket, and—and—”

“And that is all!” cut in Poirot. “There was no mention of any name to show to whom the letter was addressed. We assumed it
was to the dead man because it was in the pocket of his overcoat. Now,
mon ami,
something about that overcoat struck me as unusual. I measured it, and made the remark that he wore his overcoat very long. That remark should have given you to think.”

“I thought you were just saying it for the sake of saying something,” I confessed.

“Ah,
quelle idée!
Later you observed me measuring the overcoat of Monsieur Jack Renauld.
Eh bien,
Monsieur Jack Renauld wears his overcoat very short. Put those two facts together with a third, namely, that Monsieur Jack Renauld flung out of the house in a hurry on his departure for Paris, and tell me what you make of it!”

“I see,” I said slowly, as the meaning of Poirot's remarks bore in upon me. “That letter was written to Jack Renauld—not to his father. He caught up the wrong overcoat in his haste and agitation.”

Poirot nodded.

“
Précisément!
We can return to this point later. For the moment let us content ourselves with accepting the letter as having nothing to do with Monsieur Renauld
père,
and pass to the next chronological event.”

“‘23rd May.'”
I read: “‘M. Renauld quarrels with his son over latter's wish to marry Marthe Daubreuil. Son leaves for Paris.' I don't see anything much to remark upon there, and the altering of the will the following day seems straightforward enough. It was the direct result of the quarrel.”

“We agree,
mon ami
—at least as to the cause. But what exact motive underlay this procedure of Monsieur Renauld's?”

I opened my eyes in surprise.

“Anger against his son of course.”

“Yet he wrote him affectionate letters to Paris?”

“So Jack Renauld says, but he cannot produce them.”

“Well, let us pass from that.”

“Now we come to the day of the tragedy. You have placed the events of the morning in a certain order. Have you any justification for that?”

“I have ascertained that the letter to me was posted at the same time as the telegram was dispatched. Masters was informed he could take a holiday shortly afterwards. In my opinion the quarrel with the tramp took place anterior to these happenings.”

“I do not see that you can fix that definitely unless you question Madame Daubreuil again.”

“There is no need. I am sure of it. And if you do not see that, you see nothing, Hastings!”

I looked at him for a moment.

“Of course! I am an idiot. If the tramp was Georges Conneau, it was after the stormy interview with him that Mr. Renauld apprehended danger. He sent away the chauffeur, Masters, whom he suspected of being in the other's pay, he wired to his son, and sent for you.”

A faint smile crossed Poirot's lips.

“You do not think it strange that he should use exactly the same expressions in his letter as Madame Renauld used, later in her story? If the mention of Santiago was a blind, why should Renauld speak of it, and—what is more—send his son there?”

“It is puzzling, I admit, but perhaps we shall find some explanation later. We come now to the evening, and the visit of the mysterious lady. I confess that that fairly baffles me, unless it was indeed Madame Daubreuil, as Françoise all along maintained.”

Poirot shook his head.

“My friend, my friend, where are your wits wandering? Remember the fragment of cheque, and the fact that the name Bella Duveen was faintly familiar to Stonor, and I think we may take it for granted that Bella Duveen is the full name of Jack's unknown correspondent, and that it was she who came to the Villa Geneviève that night. Whether she intended to see Jack, or whether she meant all along to appeal to his father, we cannot be certain, but I think we may assume that this is what occurred. She produced her claim upon Jack, probably showed letters that he had written her, and the older man tried to buy her off by writing a cheque. This she indignantly tore up. The terms of her letter are those of a woman genuinely in love, and she would probably deeply resent being offered money. In the end he got rid of her, and here the words that he used are significant.”

“‘Yes, yes, but for God's sake go now,'” I repeated. “They seem to me a little vehement, perhaps, that is all.”

“That is enough. He was desperately anxious for the girl to go. Why? Not because the interview was unpleasant. No, it was the time that was slipping by, and for some reason time was precious.”

“Why should it be?” I asked bewildered.

“That is what we ask ourselves. Why should it be? But later we have the incident of the wristwatch—which again shows us that time plays a very important part in the crime. We are now fast approaching the actual drama. It is half past ten when Bella Duveen leaves, and by the evidence of the wristwatch we know that the crime was committed, or at any rate that it was staged, before twelve o'clock. We have reviewed all the events anterior to the murder, there remains only one unplaced. By the doctor's evidence, the tramp, when found, had been dead at least forty-eight
hours—with a possible margin of twenty-four hours more. Now, with no other facts to help me than those we have discussed, I place the death as having occurred on the morning of 7th June.”

I stared at him, stupefied.

“But how? Why? How can you possibly know?”

“Because only in that way can the sequence of events be logically explained.
Mon ami,
I have taken you step by step along the way. Do you not now see what is so glaringly plain?”

“My dear Poirot, I can't see anything glaring about it. I did think I was beginning to see my way before, but I'm now hopelessly fogged. For goodness' sake, get on, and tell me who killed Mr. Renauld.”

“That is just what I am not sure of as yet.”

“But you said it was glaringly clear!”

“We talk at cross-purposes, my friend. Remember, it is
two
crimes we are investigating—for which, as I pointed out to you, we have the necessary two bodies. There, there,
ne vous impatientez pas!
I explain all. To begin with, we apply our psychology. We find three points at which Monsieur Renauld displays a distinct change of view and action—three psychological points therefore. The first occurs immediately after arriving in Merlinville, the second after quarrelling with his son on a certain subject, the third on the morning of 7th June. Now for the three causes. We can attribute No 1 to meeting Madame Daubreuil. No 2 is indirectly connected with her, since it concerns a marriage between Monsieur Renauld's son and her daughter. But the cause of No 3 is hidden from us. We had to deduce it. Now,
mon ami,
let me ask you a question: whom do we believe to have planned this crime?”