The Murder on the Links
by Agatha Christie
7
The Mysterious Madame Daubreuil
As we retraced our steps to the house, M. Bex excused himself for
leaving us, explaining that he must immediately acquaint the examining
magistrate with the fact of Giraud’s arrival. Giraud himself had been
obviously delighted when Poirot declared that he had seen all he
wanted. The last thing we observed, as we left the spot, was Giraud,
crawling about on all fours, with a thoroughness in his search that I
could not but admire. Poirot guessed my thoughts, for as soon as we
were alone he remarked ironically:
“At last you have seen the detective you admire—the human foxhound! Is
it not so, my friend?”
“At any rate, he’s _doing___ something,” I said, with asperity. “If
there’s anything to find, he’ll find it. Now you—”
“_Eh bien!___ I also have found something! A piece of lead-piping.”
“Nonsense, Poirot. You know very well that’s got nothing to do with it.
I meant _little___ things—traces that may lead us infallibly to the
murderers.”
“_Mon ami___, a clue of two feet long is every bit as valuable as one
measuring two millimetres! But it is the romantic idea that all
important clues must be infinitesimal! As to the piece of lead-piping
having nothing to do with the crime, you say that because Giraud told
you so. No”—as I was about to interpose a question—“we will say no
more. Leave Giraud to his search, and me to my ideas. The case seems
straightforward enough—and yet—and yet, _mon ami___, I am not
satisfied! And do you know why? Because of the wrist watch that is two
hours fast. And then there are several curious little points that do
not seem to fit in. For instance, if the object of the murderers was
revenge, why did they not stab Renauld in his sleep and have done with
it?”
“They wanted the ‘secret,’ ” I reminded him.
Poirot brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve with a dissatisfied air.
“Well, where is this ‘secret’? Presumably some distance away, since
they wish him to dress himself. Yet he is found murdered close at hand,
almost within ear-shot of the house. Then again, it is pure chance that
a weapon such as the dagger should be lying about casually, ready to
hand.”
He paused frowning, and then went on:
“Why did the servants hear nothing? Were they drugged? Was there an
accomplice and did that accomplice see to it that the front door should
remain open? I wonder if—”
He stopped abruptly. We had reached the drive in front of the house.
Suddenly he turned to me.
“My friend, I am about to surprise you—to please you! I have taken your
reproaches to heart! We will examine some footprints!”
“Where?”
“In that right-hand bed yonder. M. Bex says that they are the footmarks
of the gardener. Let us see if that is so. See, he approaches with his
wheelbarrow.”
Indeed an elderly man was just crossing the drive with a barrowful of
seedlings. Poirot called to him, and he set down the barrow and came
hobbling towards us.
“You are going to ask him for one of his boots to compare with the
footmarks?” I asked breathlessly. My faith in Poirot revived a little.
Since he said the footprints in this right-hand bed were important,
presumably they _were___.
“Exactly,” said Poirot.
“But won’t he think it very odd?”
“He will not think about it at all.”
We could say no more, for the old man had joined us.
“You want me for something, monsieur?”
“Yes. You have been gardener here a long time, haven’t you?”
“Twenty-four years, monsieur.”
“And your name is—?”
“Auguste, monsieur.”
“I was admiring these magnificent geraniums. They are truly superb.
They have been planted long?”
“Some time, monsieur. But of course, to keep the beds looking smart,
one must keep bedding out a few new plants, and remove those that are
over, besides keeping the old blooms well picked off.”
“You put in some new plants yesterday, didn’t you? Those in the middle
there, and in the other bed also?”
“Monsieur has a sharp eye. It takes always a day or so for them to
‘pick up.’ Yes, I put ten new plants in each bed last night. As
Monsieur doubtless knows, one should not put in plants when the sun is
hot.”
Auguste was charmed with Poirot’s interest, and was quite inclined to
be garrulous.
“That is a splendid specimen there,” said Poirot, pointing. “Might I
perhaps have a cutting of it?”
“But certainly, monsieur.” The old fellow stepped into the bed, and
carefully took a slip from the plant Poirot had admired.
Poirot was profuse in his thanks, and Auguste departed to his barrow.
“You see?” said Poirot with a smile, as he bent over the bed to examine
the indentation of the gardener’s hobnailed boot. “It is quite simple.”
“I did not realize—”
“That the foot would be inside the boot? You do not use your excellent
mental capacities sufficiently. Well, what of the footmark?”
I examined the bed carefully.
“All the footmarks in the bed were made by the same boot,” I said at
length after a careful study.
“You think so? _Eh bien___, I agree with you,” said Poirot.
He seemed quite uninterested, and as though he were thinking of
something else.
“At any rate,” I remarked, “you will have one bee less in your bonnet
now.”
“_Mon Dieu!___ But what an idiom! What does it mean?”
“What I meant was that now you will give up your interest in these
footmarks.”
But to my surprise Poirot shook his head.
“No, no, _mon ami___. At last I am on the right track. I am still in
the dark, but, as I hinted just now to M. Bex, these footmarks are the
most important and interesting things in the case! That poor Giraud—I
should not be surprised if he took no notice of them whatever.”
At that moment, the front door opened, and M. Hautet and the commissary
came down the steps.
“Ah, M. Poirot, we were coming to look for you,” said the magistrate.
“It is getting late, but I wish to pay a visit to Madame Daubreuil.
Without doubt she will be very much upset by M. Renauld’s death, and we
may be fortunate enough to get a clue from her. The secret that he did
not confide to his wife, it is possible that he may have told it to the
woman whose love held him enslaved. We know where our Samsons are weak,
don’t we?”
I admired the picturesqueness of M. Hautet’s language. I suspected that
the examining magistrate was by now thoroughly enjoying his part in the
mysterious drama.
“Is M. Giraud not going to accompany us?” asked Poirot.
“M. Giraud has shown clearly that he prefers to conduct the case in his
own way,” said M. Hautet dryly. One could see easily enough that
Giraud’s cavalier treatment of the examining magistrate had not
prejudiced the latter in his favour. We said no more, but fell into
line. Poirot walked with the examining magistrate, and the commissary
and I followed a few paces behind.
“There is no doubt that Françoise’s story is substantially correct,” he
remarked to me in a confidential tone. “I have been telephoning
headquarters. It seems that three times in the last six weeks—that is
to say since the arrival of M. Renauld at Merlinville—Madame Daubreuil
has paid a large sum in notes into her banking account. Altogether the
sum totals two hundred thousand francs!”
“Dear me,” I said, considering, “that must be something like four
thousand pounds!”
“Precisely. Yes, there can be no doubt that he was absolutely
infatuated. But it remains to be seen whether he confided his secret to
her. The examining magistrate is hopeful, but I hardly share his
views.”
During this conversation we were walking down the lane towards the fork
in the road where our car had halted earlier in the afternoon, and in
another moment I realized that the Villa Marguerite, the home of the
mysterious Madame Daubreuil, was the small house from which the
beautiful girl had emerged.
“She has lived here for many years,” said the commissary, nodding his
head towards the house. “Very quietly, very unobtrusively. She seems to
have no friends or relations other than the acquaintances she has made
in Merlinville. She never refers to the past, nor to her husband. One
does not even know if he is alive or dead. There is a mystery about
her, you comprehend.” I nodded, my interest growing.
“And—the daughter?” I ventured.
“A truly beautiful young girl—modest, devout, all that she should be.
One pities her, for, though she may know nothing of the past, a man who
wants to ask her hand in marriage must necessarily inform himself, and
then—” The commissary shrugged his shoulders cynically.
“But it would not be her fault!” I cried, with rising indignation.
“No. But what will you? A man is particular about his wife’s
antecedents.”
I was prevented from further argument by our arrival at the door. M.
Hautet rang the bell. A few minutes elapsed, and then we heard a
footfall within, and the door was opened. On the threshold stood my
young goddess of that afternoon. When she saw us, the colour left her
cheeks, leaving her deathly white, and her eyes widened with
apprehension. There was no doubt about it, she was afraid!
“Mademoiselle Daubreuil,” said M. Hautet, sweeping off his hat, “we
regret infinitely to disturb you, but the exigencies of the Law—you
comprehend? My compliments to Madame your mother, and will she have the
goodness to grant me a few moments’ interview.”
For a moment the girl stood motionless. Her left hand was pressed to
her side, as though to still the sudden unconquerable agitation of her
heart. But she mastered herself, and said in a low voice:
“I will go and see. Please come inside.”
She entered a room on the left of the hall, and we heard the low murmur
of her voice. And then another voice, much the same in timbre, but with
a slightly harder inflection behind its mellow roundness said:
“But certainly. Ask them to enter.”
In another minute we were face to face with the mysterious Madame
Daubreuil.
She was not nearly so tall as her daughter, and the rounded curves of
her figure had all the grace of full maturity. Her hair, again unlike
her daughter’s, was dark, and parted in the middle in the madonna
style. Her eyes, half hidden by the drooping lids, were blue. There was
a dimple in the round chin, and the half parted lips seemed always to
hover on the verge of a mysterious smile. There was something almost
exaggeratedly feminine about her, at once yielding and seductive.
Though very well preserved, she was certainly no longer young, but her
charm was of the quality which is independent of age.
Standing there, in her black dress with the fresh white collar and
cuffs, her hands clasped together, she looked subtly appealing and
helpless.
“You wished to see me, monsieur?” she asked.
“Yes, madame.” M. Hautet cleared his throat. “I am investigating the
death of M. Renauld. You have heard of it, no doubt?”
She bowed her head without speaking. Her expression did not change.
“We came to ask you whether you can—er—throw any light upon the
circumstances surrounding it?”
“I?” The surprise of her tone was excellent.
“Yes, madame. It would, perhaps, be better if we could speak to you
alone.” He looked meaningly in the direction of the girl.
Madame Daubreuil turned to her.
“Marthe, dear—”
But the girl shook her head.
“No, _maman___, I will not go. I am not a child. I am twenty-two. I
shall not go.”
Madame Daubreuil turned back to the examining magistrate.
“You see, monsieur.”
“I should prefer not to speak before Mademoiselle Daubreuil.”
“As my daughter says, she is not a child.”
For a moment the magistrate hesitated, baffled.
“Very well, madame,” he said at last. “Have it your own way. We have
reason to believe that you were in the habit of visiting the dead man
at his Villa in the evenings. Is that so?”
The colour rose in the lady’s pale cheeks, but she replied quietly:
“I deny your right to ask me such a question!”
“Madame, we are investigating a murder.”
“Well, what of it? I had nothing to do with the murder.”
“Madame, we do not say that for a moment. But you knew the dead man
well. Did he ever confide in you as to any danger that threatened him?”
“Never.”
“Did he ever mention his life in Santiago, and any enemies he may have
made there?”
“No.”
“Then you can give us no help at all?”
“I fear not. I really do not see why you should come to me. Cannot his
wife tell you what you want to know?” Her voice held a slender
inflection of irony.
“Madame Renauld has told us all she can.”
“Ah!” said Madame Daubreuil. “I wonder—”
“You wonder what, madame?”
“Nothing.”
The examining magistrate looked at her. He was aware that he was
fighting a duel, and that he had no mean antagonist.
“You persist in your statement that M. Renauld confided nothing in
you?”
“Why should you think it likely that he should confide in me?”
“Because, madame,” said M. Hautet, with calculated brutality. “A man
tells to his mistress what he does not always tell to his wife.”
“Ah!” she sprang forward. Her eyes flashed fire. “Monsieur, you insult
me! And before my daughter! I can tell you nothing. Have the goodness
to leave my house!”
The honours undoubtedly rested with the lady. We left the Villa
Marguerite like a shamefaced pack of schoolboys. The magistrate
muttered angry ejaculations to himself. Poirot seemed lost in thought.
Suddenly he came out of his reverie with a start, and inquired of M.
Hautet if there was a good hotel near at hand.
“There is a small place, the Hotel des Bains, on this side of town. A
few hundred yards down the road. It will be handy for your
investigations. We shall see you in the morning then, I presume?”
“Yes, I thank you, M. Hautet.”
With mutual civilities, we parted company, Poirot and I going towards
Merlinville, and the others returning to the Villa Geneviève.
“The French police system is very marvellous,” said Poirot, looking
after them. “The information they possess about every one’s life, down
to the most commonplace detail, is extraordinary. Though he has only
been here a little over six weeks, they are perfectly well acquainted
with M. Renauld’s tastes and pursuits, and at a moment’s notice they
can produce information as to Madame Daubreuil’s banking account, and
the sums that have lately been paid in! Undoubtedly the _dossier___ is
a great institution. But what is that?” He turned sharply.
A figure was running hatless, down the road after us. It was Marthe
Daubreuil.
“I beg your pardon,” she cried breathlessly, as she reached us. “I—I
should not do this, I know. You must not tell my mother. But is it
true, what the people say, that M. Renauld called in a detective before
he died, and—and that you are he?”
“Yes, mademoiselle,” said Poirot gently. “It is quite true. But how did
you learn it?”
“Françoise told our Amélie,” explained Marthe, with a blush.
Poirot made a grimace.
“The secrecy, it is impossible in an affair of this kind! Not that it
matters. Well, mademoiselle, what is it you want to know?”
The girl hesitated. She seemed longing, yet fearing, to speak. At last,
almost in a whisper, she asked:
“Is—any one suspected?”
Poirot eyed her keenly.
Then he replied evasively:
“Suspicion is in the air at present, mademoiselle.”
“Yes, I know—but—any one in particular?”
“Why do you want to know?”
The girl seemed frightened by the question. All at once Poirot’s words
about her earlier in the day recurred to me. The “girl with the anxious
eyes!”
“M. Renauld was always very kind to me,” she replied at last. “It is
natural that I should be interested.”
“I see,” said Poirot. “Well, mademoiselle, suspicion at present is
hovering round two persons.”
“Two?”
I could have sworn there was a note of surprise and relief in her
voice.
“Their names are unknown, but they are presumed to be Chilians from
Santiago. And now, mademoiselle, you see what comes of being young and
beautiful! I have betrayed professional secrets for you!”
The girl laughed merrily, and then, rather shyly, she thanked him.
“I must run back now. _Maman___ will miss me.”
And she turned and ran back up the road, looking like a modern
Atalanta. I stared after her.
“_Mon ami___,” said Poirot, in his gentle ironical voice, “is it that
we are to remain planted here all night—just because you have seen a
beautiful young woman, and your head is in a whirl?”
I laughed and apologized.
“But she _is___ beautiful, Poirot. Any one might be excused for being
bowled over by her.”
Poirot groaned.
“_Mon Dieu!___ But it is that you have the susceptible heart!”
“Poirot,” I said, “do you remember after the Styles Case when—”
“When you were in love with two charming women at once, and neither of
them were for you? Yes, I remember.”
“You consoled me by saying that perhaps some day we should hunt
together again, and that then—”
“_Eh bien?___”
“Well, we are hunting together again, and—” I paused, and laughed
rather self-consciously.
But to my surprise Poirot shook his head very earnestly.
“Ah, _mon ami___, do not set your heart on Marthe Daubreuil. She is not
for you, that one! Take it from Papa Poirot!”
“Why,” I cried, “the commissary assured me that she was as good as she
is beautiful! A perfect angel!”
“Some of the greatest criminals I have known had the faces of angels,”
remarked Poirot cheerfully. “A malformation of the grey cells may
coincide quite easily with the face of a madonna.”
“Poirot,” I cried, horrified, “you cannot mean that you suspect an
innocent child like this!”
“Ta-ta-ta! Do not excite yourself! I have not said that I suspected
her. But you must admit that her anxiety to know about the case is
somewhat unusual.”
“For once, I see further than you do,” I said. “Her anxiety is not for
herself—but for her mother.”
“My friend,” said Poirot, “as usual, you see nothing at all. Madame
Daubreuil is very well able to look after herself without her daughter
worrying about her. I admit I was teasing you just now, but all the
same I repeat what I said before. Do not set your heart on that girl.
She is not for you! I, Hercule Poirot, know it. _Sacré!___ if only I
could remember where I had seen that face!”
“What face?” I asked, surprised. “The daughter’s?”
“No. The mother’s.”
Noting my surprise, he nodded emphatically.
“But yes—it is as I tell you. It was a long time ago, when I was still
with the Police in Belgium. I have never actually seen the woman
before, but I have seen her picture—and in connection with some case. I
rather fancy—”
“Yes?”
“I may be mistaken, but I rather fancy that it was a murder case!”
****
