The Murder on the Links, Agatha Christie [best classic novels TXT] 📗
- Author: Agatha Christie
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“Why, this is a golf course,” I cried.
Bex nodded.
“The limits are not completed yet,” he explained. “It is hoped to be able to open them sometime next month. It was some of the men working on them who discovered the body early this morning.”
I gave a gasp. A little to my left, where for the moment I had overlooked it, was a long narrow pit, and by it, face downwards, was the body of a man! For a moment, my heart gave a terrible leap, and I had a wild fancy that the tragedy had been duplicated. But the commissary dispelled my illusion by moving forward with a sharp exclamation of annoyance:
“What have my police been about? They had strict orders to allow no one near the place without proper credentials!”
The man on the ground turned his head over his shoulder.
“But I have proper credentials,” he remarked, and rose slowly to his feet.
“My dear M. Giraud,” cried the commissary. “I had no idea that you had arrived, even. The examining magistrate has been awaiting you with the utmost impatience.”
As he spoke, I was scanning the new-comer with the keenest curiosity. The famous detective from the Paris Sûreté was familiar to me by name, and I was extremely interested to see him in the flesh. He was very tall, perhaps about thirty years of age, with auburn hair and moustache, and a military carriage. There was a trace of arrogance in his manner which showed that he was fully alive to his own importance. Bex introduced us, presenting Poirot as a colleague. A flicker of interest came into the detective’s eye.
“I know you by name, M. Poirot,” he said. “You cut quite a figure in the old days, didn’t you? But methods are very different now.”
“Crimes, though, are very much the same,” remarked Poirot gently.
I saw at once that Giraud was prepared to be hostile. He resented the other being associated with him, and I felt that if he came across any clue of importance he would be more than likely to keep it to himself.
“The examining magistrate—” began Bex again. But Giraud interrupted him rudely:
“A fig for the examining magistrate! The light is the important thing. For all practical purposes it will be gone in another half-hour or so. I know all about the case, and the people at the house will do very well until tomorrow, but, if we’re going to find a clue to the murderers, here is the spot we shall find it. Is it your police who have been trampling all over the place? I thought they knew better nowadays.”
“Assuredly they do. The marks you complain of were made by the workmen who discovered the body.”
The other grunted disgustedly.
“I can see the tracks where the three of them came through the hedge—but they were cunning. You can just recognize the centre footmarks as those of M. Renauld, but those on either side have been carefully obliterated. Not that there would really be much to see anyway on this hard ground, but they weren’t taking any chances.”
“The external sign,” said Poirot. “That is what you seek, eh?”
The other detective stared.
“Of course.”
A very faint smile came to Poirot’s lips. He seemed about to speak, but checked himself. He bent down to where a spade was lying.
“That’s what the grave was dug with, right enough,” said Giraud. “But you’ll get nothing from it. It was Renauld’s own spade, and the man who used it wore gloves. Here they are.” He gesticulated with his foot to where two soiled earth-stained gloves were lying. “And they’re Renauld’s too—or at least his gardener’s. I tell you, the men who planned out this crime were taking no chances. The man was stabbed with his own dagger, and would have been buried with his own spade. They counted on leaving no traces! But I’ll beat them. There’s always something! And I mean to find it.”
But Poirot was now apparently interested in something else, a short discoloured piece of lead-piping which lay beside the spade. He touched it delicately with his finger.
“And does this, too, belong to the murdered man?” he asked, and I thought I detected a subtle flavour of irony in the question.
Giraud shrugged his shoulders to indicate that he neither knew nor cared.
“May have been lying around here for weeks. Anyway, it doesn’t interest me.”
“I, on the contrary, find it very interesting,” said Poirot sweetly.
I guessed that he was merely bent on annoying the Paris detective and, if so, he succeeded. The other turned away rudely, remarking that he had no time to waste, and bending down he resumed his minute search of the ground.
Meanwhile Poirot, as though struck by a sudden idea, stepped back over the boundary, and tried the door of the little shed.
“That’s locked,” said Giraud over his shoulder. “But it’s only a place where the gardener keeps his rubbish. The spade didn’t come from there, but from the toolshed up by the house.”
“Marvellous,” murmured M. Bex, to me ecstatically. “He has been here but half an hour, and he already knows everything! What a man! Undoubtedly Giraud is the greatest detective alive today.”
Although I disliked the detective heartily, I nevertheless was secretly impressed. Efficiency seemed to radiate from the man. I could not help feeling that, so far, Poirot had not greatly distinguished himself, and it vexed me. He seemed to be directing his attention to all sorts of silly, puerile points that had nothing to do with the case. Indeed, at this juncture, he suddenly asked:
“M. Bex, tell me, I pray you, the meaning of this whitewashed line that extends all round the grave. Is it a device of the police?”
“No, M. Poirot, it is an affair of the golf course. It shows that there is here to be a ‘bunkair,’ as you call it.”
“A bunkair?” Poirot turned to me. “That is the irregular hole filled with sand and a bank at one side, is it not?”
I concurred.
“You do not play the golf, M. Poirot?” inquired Bex.
“I? Never! What a game!” He became excited. “Figure to yourself, each hole it is of a different length. The obstacles, they are not arranged mathematically. Even the greens are frequently up one side! There is only one pleasing thing—the how do you call them?—tee boxes! They, at least, are symmetrical.”
I could not refrain from a laugh at the way the game appeared to Poirot, and my little friend smiled at me affectionately, bearing no malice. Then he asked:
“But M. Renauld, without doubt he played the golf?”
“Yes, he was a keen golfer. It’s mainly owing to him, and to his large subscriptions, that this work is being carried forward. He even had a say in the designing of it.”
Poirot nodded thoughtfully.
Then he remarked:
“It was not a very good choice they made—of a spot to bury the body? When the men began to dig up the ground, all would have been discovered.”
“Exactly,” cried Giraud triumphantly. “And that proves that they were strangers to the place. It’s an excellent piece of indirect evidence.”
“Yes,” said Poirot doubtfully. “No one who knew would bury a body there—unless—unless—they wanted it to be discovered. And that is clearly absurd, is it not?”
Giraud did not even trouble to reply.
“Yes,” said Poirot, in a somewhat dissatisfied voice. “Yes—undoubtedly—absurd!”
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
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