The Murder on the Links
by Agatha Christie
9
M. Giraud Finds Some Clues
In the _Salon___ I found the examining magistrate busily interrogating
the old gardener Auguste. Poirot and the commissary, who were both
present, greeted me respectively with a smile and a polite bow. I
slipped quietly into a seat. M. Hautet was painstaking and meticulous
in the extreme, but did not succeed in eliciting anything of
importance.
The gardening gloves Auguste admitted to be his. He wore them when
handling a certain species of primula plant which was poisonous to some
people. He could not say when he had worn them last. Certainly he had
not missed them. Where were they kept? Sometimes in one place,
sometimes in another. The spade was usually to be found in the small
tool shed. Was it locked? Of course it was locked. Where was the key
kept? _Parbleu___, it was in the door of course! There was nothing of
value to steal. Who would have expected a party of bandits, of
assassins? Such things did not happen in Madame la Vicomtesse’s time.
M. Hautet signifying that he had finished with him, the old man
withdrew, grumbling to the last. Remembering Poirot’s unaccountable
insistence on the footprints in the flower beds, I scrutinized him
narrowly as he gave his evidence. Either he had nothing to do with the
crime or he was a consummate actor. Suddenly, just as he was going out
of the door, an idea struck me. “_Pardon___ M. Hautet,” I cried, “but
will you permit me to ask him one question?”
“But certainly, monsieur.”
Thus encouraged, I turned to Auguste.
“Where do you keep your boots?”
“_Sac à papier!___” growled the old man. “On my feet. Where else?”
“But when you go to bed at night?”
“Under my bed.”
“But who cleans them?”
“Nobody. Why should they be cleaned? Is it that I promenade myself on
the front like a young man? On Sunday I wear the Sunday boots, _bien
entendu___, but otherwise—!” he shrugged his shoulders.
I shook my head, discouraged.
“Well, well,” said the magistrate. “We do not advance very much.
Undoubtedly we are held up until we get the return cable from Santiago.
Has any one seen Giraud? In verity that one lacks politeness! I have a
very good mind to send for him and—”
“You will not have to send far, M. le juge.”
The quiet voice startled us. Giraud was standing outside looking in
through the open window.
He leaped lightly into the room, and advanced to the table.
“Here I am, M. le juge, at your service. Accept my excuses for not
presenting myself sooner.”
“Not at all. Not at all,” said the magistrate, rather confused.
“Of course I am only a detective,” continued the other. “I know nothing
of interrogatories. Were I conducting one, I should be inclined to do
so without an open window. Any one standing outside can so easily hear
all that passes. … But no matter.”
M. Hautet flushed angrily. There was evidently going to be no love lost
between the examining magistrate and the detective in charge of the
case. They had fallen foul of each other at the start. Perhaps in any
event it would have been much the same. To Giraud, all examining
magistrates were fools, and to M. Hautet who took himself seriously,
the casual manner of the Paris detective could not fail to give
offence.
“_Eh bien___, M. Giraud,” said the magistrate rather sharply. “Without
doubt you have been employing your time to a marvel? You have the names
of the assassins for us, have you not? And also the precise spot where
they find themselves now?”
Unmoved by this irony, Giraud replied:
“I know at least where they have come from.”
“_Comment?___”
Giraud took two small objects from his pocket and laid them down on the
table. We crowded round. The objects were very simple ones: the stub of
a cigarette, and an unlighted match. The detective wheeled round on
Poirot.
“What do you see there?” he asked.
There was something almost brutal in his tone. It made my cheeks flush.
But Poirot remained unmoved. He shrugged his shoulders.
“A cigarette end, and a match.”
“And what does that tell you?”
Poirot spread out his hands.
“It tells me—nothing.”
“Ah!” said Giraud, in a satisfied voice. “You haven’t made a study of
these things. That’s not an ordinary match—not in this country at
least. It’s common enough in South America. Luckily it’s unlighted. I
mightn’t have recognized it otherwise. Evidently one of the men threw
away his cigarette end, and lit another, spilling one match out of the
box as he did so.”
“And the other match?” asked Poirot.
“Which match?”
“The one he _did___ light his cigarette with. You have found that
also?”
“No.”
“Perhaps you didn’t search very thoroughly.”
“Not search thoroughly—” For a moment it seemed as though the detective
were going to break out angrily, but with an effort he controlled
himself. “I see you love a joke, M. Poirot. But in any case, match or
no match, the cigarette end would be sufficient. It is a South American
cigarette with liquorice pectoral paper.”
Poirot bowed. The commissary spoke:
“The cigarette end and match might have belonged to M. Renauld.
Remember, it is only two years since he returned from South America.”
“No,” replied the other confidently. “I have already searched among the
effects of M. Renauld. The cigarettes he smoked and the matches he used
are quite different.”
“You do not think it odd,” asked Poirot, “that these strangers should
come unprovided with a weapon, with gloves, with a spade, and that they
should so conveniently find all these things?”
Giraud smiled in a rather superior manner.
“Undoubtedly it is strange. Indeed, without the theory that I hold, it
would be inexplicable.”
“Aha!” said M. Hautet. “An accomplice. An accomplice within the house!”
“Or outside it,” said Giraud with a peculiar smile.
“But some one must have admitted them? We cannot allow that, by an
unparalleled piece of good fortune, they found the door ajar for them
to walk in?”
“_D’accord___, M. le juge. The door was opened for them, but it could
just as easily be opened from outside—by some one who possessed a key.”
“But who did possess a key?”
Giraud shrugged his shoulders.
“As for that, no one who possesses one is going to admit the fact if
they can help it. But several people _might___ have had one. M. Jack
Renauld, the son, for instance. It is true that he is on his way to
South America, but he might have lost the key or had it stolen from
him. Then there is the gardener—he has been here many years. One of the
younger servants may have a lover. It is easy to take an impression of
a key and have one cut. There are many possibilities. Then there is
another person who, I should judge, is exceedingly likely to have such
a thing in her keeping.”
“Who is that?”
“Madame Daubreuil,” said the detective dryly.
“Eh, eh!” said the magistrate, his face falling a little, “so you have
heard about that, have you?”
“I hear everything,” said Giraud imperturbably.
“There is one thing I could swear you have not heard,” said M. Hautet,
delighted to be able to show superior knowledge, and without more ado,
he retailed the story of the mysterious visitor the night before. He
also touched on the cheque made out to “Duveen,” and finally handed
Giraud the letter signed “Bella.”
Giraud listened in silence, studied the letter attentively, and then
handed it back.
“All very interesting, M. le juge. But my theory remains unaffected.”
“And your theory is?”
“For the moment I prefer not to say. Remember, I am only just beginning
my investigations.”
“Tell me one thing, M. Giraud,” said Poirot suddenly. “Your theory
allows for the door being opened. It does not explain why it was
_left___ open. When they departed, would it not have been natural for
them to close it behind them. If a _sergent de ville___ had chanced to
come up to the house, as is sometimes done to see that all is well,
they might have been discovered and overtaken almost at once.”
“Bah! They forgot it. A mistake, I grant you.”
Then, to my surprise, Poirot uttered almost the same words as he had
uttered to Bex the previous evening:
“_I do not agree with you.___ The door being left open was the result
of either design or necessity, and any theory that does not admit that
fact is bound to prove vain.”
We all regarded the little man with a good deal of astonishment. The
confession of ignorance drawn from him over the match end had, I
thought, been bound to humiliate him, but here he was self satisfied as
ever, laying down the law to the great Giraud without a tremor.
The detective twisted his moustache, eyeing my friend in a somewhat
bantering fashion.
“You don’t agree with me, eh? Well, what strikes you particularly about
the case. Let’s hear your views.”
“One thing presents itself to me as being significant. Tell me, M.
Giraud, does nothing strike you as familiar about this case? Is there
nothing it reminds you of?”
“Familiar? Reminds me of? I can’t say off-hand. I don’t think so,
though.”
“You are wrong,” said Poirot quietly. “A crime almost precisely similar
has been committed before.”
“When? And where?”
“Ah, that, unfortunately, I cannot for the moment remember—but I shall
do so. I had hoped you might be able to assist me.”
Giraud snorted incredulously.
“There have been many affairs of masked men! I cannot remember the
details of them all. These crimes all resemble each other more or
less.”
“There is such a thing as the individual touch.” Poirot suddenly
assumed his lecturing manner, and addressed us collectively. “I am
speaking to you now of the psychology of crime. M. Giraud knows quite
well that each criminal has his particular method, and that the police,
when called in to investigate—say a case of burglary—can often make a
shrewd guess at the offender, simply by the peculiar method he has
employed. (Japp would tell you the same, Hastings.) Man is an
unoriginal animal. Unoriginal within the law in his daily respectable
life, equally unoriginal outside the law. If a man commits a crime, any
other crime he commits will resemble it closely. The English murderer
who disposed of his wives in succession by drowning them in their baths
was a case in point. Had he varied his methods, he might have escaped
detection to this day. But he obeyed the common dictates of human
nature, arguing that what had once succeeded would succeed again, and
he paid the penalty of his lack of originality.”
“And the point of all this?” sneered Giraud.
“That when you have two crimes precisely similar in design and
execution, you find the same brain behind them both. I am looking for
that brain, M. Giraud—and I shall find it. Here we have a true clue—a
psychological clue. You may know all about cigarettes and match ends,
M. Giraud, but I, Hercule Poirot, know the mind of man!” And the
ridiculous little fellow tapped his forehead with emphasis.
Giraud remained singularly unimpressed.
“For your guidance,” continued Poirot, “I will also advise you of one
fact which might fail to be brought to your notice. The wrist watch of
Madame Renauld, on the day following the tragedy, had gained two hours.
It might interest you to examine it.”
Giraud stared.
“Perhaps it was in the habit of gaining?”
“As a matter of fact, I am told it did.”
“_Eh bien___, then!”
“All the same, two hours is a good deal,” said Poirot softly. “Then
there is the matter of the footprints in the flower-bed.”
He nodded his head towards the open window. Giraud took two eager
strides, and looked out.
“This bed here?”
“Yes.”
“But I see no footprints?”
“No,” said Poirot, straightening a little pile of books on a table.
“There are none.”
For a moment an almost murderous rage obscured Giraud’s face. He took
two strides towards his tormentor, but at that moment the _salon___
door was opened, and Marchaud announced.
“M. Stonor, the secretary, has just arrived from England. May he
enter?”
*****
