Twenty
LADY CLARKE
There was an air of deep and settled melancholy over Combeside when we saw it again for the second time. This may, perhaps, have been partly due to the weather—it was a moist September day with a hint of autumn in the air, and partly, no doubt, it was the semi-shut-up state of the house. The downstairs rooms were closed and shuttered, and the small room into which we were shown smelt damp and airless.
A capable-looking hospital nurse came to us there pulling down her starched cuffs.
“M. Poirot?” she said briskly. “I am Nurse Capstick. I got Mr. Clarke’s letter saying you were coming.”
Poirot inquired after Lady Clarke’s health.
“Not at all bad really, all things considered.”
“All things considered,” I presumed, meant considering she was under sentence of death.
“One can’t hope for much improvement, of course, but some new treatment has made things a little easier for her. Dr. Logan is quite pleased with her condition.”
“But it is true, is it not, that she can never recover?”
“Oh, we never actually say that,” said Nurse Capstick, a little shocked by this plain speaking.
“I suppose her husband’s death was a terrible shock to her?”
“Well, M. Poirot, if you understand what I mean, it wasn’t as much of a shock as it would have been to anyone in full possession of her health and faculties. Things are dimmed for Lady Clarke in her condition.”
“Pardon my asking, but was she deeply attached to her husband and he to her?”
“Oh, yes, they were a very happy couple. He was very worried and upset about her, poor man. It’s always worse for a doctor, you know. They can’t buoy themselves up with false hopes. I’m afraid it preyed on his mind very much to begin with.”
“To begin with? Not so much afterwards?”
“One gets used to everything, doesn’t one? And then Sir Carmichael had his collection. A hobby is a great consolation to a man. He used to run up to sales occasionally, and then he and Miss Grey were busy recataloguing and rearranging the museum on a new system.”
“Oh, yes—Miss Grey. She has left, has she not?”
“Yes—I’m very sorry about it—but ladies do take these fancies sometimes when they’re not well. And there’s no arguing with them. It’s better to give in. Miss Grey was very sensible about it.”
“Had Lady Clarke always disliked her?”
“No—that is to say, not disliked. As a matter of fact, I think she rather liked her to begin with. But there, I mustn’t keep you gossiping. My patient will be wondering what has become of us.”
She led us upstairs to a room on the first floor. What had at one time been a bedroom had been turned into a cheerful-looking sitting room.
Lady Clarke was sitting in a big armchair near the window. She was painfully thin, and her face had the grey, haggard look of one who suffers much pain. She had a slightly faraway, dreamy look, and I noticed that the pupils of her eyes were mere pinpoints.
“This is M. Poirot whom you wanted to see,” said Nurse Capstick in her high, cheerful voice.
“Oh, yes, M. Poirot,” said Lady Clarke vaguely.
She extended her hand.
“My friend Captain Hastings, Lady Clarke.”
“How do you do? So good of you both to come.”
We sat down as her vague gesture directed. There was a silence. Lady Clarke seemed to have lapsed into a dream.
Presently with a slight effort she roused herself.
“It was about Car, wasn’t it? About Car’s death. Oh, yes.”
She sighed, but still in a faraway manner, shaking her head.
“We never thought it would be that way round…I was so sure I should be the first to go…” She mused a minute or two. “Car was very strong—wonderful for his age. He was never ill. He was nearly sixty—but he seemed more like fifty…Yes, very strong….”
She relapsed again into her dream. Poirot, who was well acquainted with the effects of certain drugs and of how they give their taker the impression of endless time, said nothing.
Lady Clarke said suddenly:
“Yes—it was good of you to come. I told Franklin. He said he wouldn’t forget to tell you. I hope Franklin isn’t going to be foolish…he’s so easily taken in, in spite of having knocked about the world so much. Men are like that…They remain boys…Franklin, in particular.”
“He has an impulsive nature,” said Poirot.
“Yes—yes…And very chivalrous. Men are so foolish that way. Even Car—” Her voice tailed off.
She shook her head with a febrile impatience.
“Everything’s so dim…One’s body is a nuisance, M. Poirot, especially when it gets the upper hand. One is conscious of nothing else—whether the pain will hold off or not—nothing else seems to matter.”
“I know, Lady Clarke. It is one of the tragedies of this life.”
“It makes me so stupid. I cannot even remember what it was I wanted to say to you.”
“Was it something about your husband’s death?”
“Car’s death? Yes, perhaps…Mad, poor creature—the murderer, I mean. It’s all the noise and the speed nowadays—people can’t stand it. I’ve always been sorry for mad people—their heads must feel so queer. And then, being shut up—it must be so terrible. But what else can one do? If they kill people…” She shook her head—gently pained. “You haven’t caught him yet?” she asked.
“No, not yet.”
“He must have been hanging round here that day.”
“There were so many strangers about, Lady Clarke. It is the holiday season.”
“Yes—I forgot…But they keep down by the beaches, they don’t come up near the house.”
“No stranger came to the house that day.”
“Who says so?” demanded Lady Clarke, with a sudden vigour.
Poirot looked slightly taken aback.
“The servants,” he said. “Miss Grey.”
Lady Clarke said very distinctly:
“That girl is a liar!”
I started on my chair. Poirot threw me a glance.
Lady Clarke was going on, speaking now rather feverishly.
“I didn’t like her. I never liked her. Car thought all the world of her. Used to go on about her being an orphan and alone in the world. What’s wrong with being an orphan? Sometimes it’s a blessing in disguise. You might have a good-for-nothing father and a mother who drank—then you would have something to complain about. Said she was so brave and such a good worker. I dare say she did her work well! I don’t know where all this bravery came in!”
“Now don’t excite yourself, dear,” said Nurse Capstick, intervening. “We mustn’t have you getting tired.”
“I soon sent her packing! Franklin had the impertinence to suggest that she might be a comfort to me. Comfort to me indeed! The sooner I saw the last of her the better—that’s what I said! Franklin’s a fool! I didn’t want him getting mixed up with her. He’s a boy! No sense! ‘I’ll give her three months’ salary, if you like,’ I said. ‘But out she goes. I don’t want her in the house a day longer.’ There’s one thing about being ill—men can’t argue with you. He did what I said and she went. Went like a martyr, I expect—with more sweetness and bravery!”
“Now, dear, don’t get so excited. It’s bad for you.”
Lady Clarke waved Nurse Capstick away.
“You were as much of a fool about her as anyone else.”
“Oh! Lady Clarke, you mustn’t say that. I did think Miss Grey a very nice girl—so romantic-looking, like someone out of a novel.”
“I’ve no patience with the lot of you,” said Lady Clarke feebly.
“Well, she’s gone now, my dear. Gone right away.”
Lady Clarke shook her head with feeble impatience but she did not answer.
Poirot said:
“Why did you say that Miss Grey was a liar?”
“Because she is. She told you no strangers came to the house, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Very well, then. I saw her—with my own eyes—out of this window—talking to a perfectly strange man on the front doorstep.”
“When was this?”
“In the morning of the day Car died—about eleven o’clock.”
“What did this man look like?”
“An ordinary sort of man. Nothing special.”
“A gentleman—or a tradesman?”
“Not a tradesman. A shabby sort of person. I can’t remember.”
A sudden quiver of pain shot across her face.
“Please—you must go now—I’m a little tired—Nurse.”
We obeyed the cue and took our departure.
“That’s an extraordinary story,” I said to Poirot as we journeyed back to London. “About Miss Grey and a strange man.”
“You see, Hastings? It is, as I tell you: there is always something to be found out.”
“Why did the girl lie about it and say she had seen no one?”
“I can think of seven separate reasons—one of them an extremely simple one.”
“Is that a snub?” I asked.
“It is, perhaps, an invitation to use your ingenuity. But there is no need for us to perturb ourselves. The easiest way to answer the question is to ask her.”
“And suppose she tells us another lie.”
“That would indeed be interesting—and highly suggestive.”
“It is monstrous to suppose that a girl like that could be in league with a madman.”
“Precisely—so I do not suppose it.”
I thought for some minutes longer.
“A good-looking girl has a hard time of it,” I said at last with a sigh.
“Du tout. Disabuse your mind of that idea.”
“It’s true,” I insisted, “everyone’s hand is against her simply because she is good-looking.”
“You speak the bêtises, my friend. Whose hand was against her at Combeside? Sir Carmichael’s? Franklin’s? Nurse Capstick’s?”
“Lady Clarke was down on her, all right.”