answered.
‘I shall require you to answer a few questions,’ said Poirot. ‘I am a private detective sent for by your master before he died.’
‘A detective!’ the butler gasped. ‘Why?’
‘You will please answer my questions. As to the shot now—’
He listened to the butler’s account.
‘So there were four of you in the hall?’
‘Yes, sir; Mr Dalehouse and Miss Ashby and Mr Keene came from the drawing room.’
‘Where were the others?’
‘The others, sir?’
‘Yes, Mrs Lytcham Roche, Miss Cleves and Mr Barling.’
‘Mrs Lytcham Roche and Mr Barling came down later, sir.’
‘And Miss Cleves?’
‘I think Miss Cleves was in the drawing room, sir.’
Poirot asked a few more questions, then dismissed the butler with the command to request Miss Cleves to come to him.
She came immediately, and he studied her attentively in view of Barling’s revelations. She was certainly beautiful in her white satin frock with the rosebud on the shoulder.
He explained the circumstances which had brought him to Lytcham Close, eyeing her very closely, but she showed only what seemed to be genuine astonishment, with no signs of uneasiness. She spoke of Marshall indifferently with tepid approval. Only at mention of Barling did she approach animation.
‘That man’s a crook,’ she said sharply. ‘I told the Old Man so, but he wouldn’t listen—went on putting money into his rotten concerns.’
‘Are you sorry, mademoiselle, that your—father is dead?’
She stared at him.
‘Of course. I’m modern, you know, M. Poirot. I don’t indulge in sob stuff. But I was fond of the Old Man. Though, of course, it’s best for him.’
‘Best for him?’
‘Yes. One of these days he would have had to be locked up. It was growing on him—this belief that the last Lytcham Roche of Lytcham Close was omnipotent.’
Poirot nodded thoughtfully.
‘I see, I see—yes, decided signs of mental trouble. By the way, you permit that I examine your little bag? It is charming—all these silk rosebuds. What was I saying? Oh, yes, did you hear the shot?’
‘Oh, yes! But I thought it was a car or a poacher, or something.’
‘You were in the drawing room?’
‘No. I was out in the garden.’
‘I see. Thank you, mademoiselle. Next I would like to see M. Keene, is it not?’
‘Geoffrey? I’ll send him along.’
Keene came in, alert and interested.
‘Mr Barling has been telling me of the reason for your being down here. I don’t know that there’s anything I can tell you, but if I can—’
Poirot interrupted him. ‘I only want to know one thing, Monsieur Keene. What was it that you stooped and picked up just before we got to the study door this evening?’
‘I—’ Keene half sprang up from his chair, then subsided again. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said lightly.
‘Oh, I think you do, monsieur. You were behind me, I know, but a friend of mine he says I have eyes in the back of my head. You picked up something and you put it in the right hand pocket of your dinner jacket.’
There was a pause. Indecision was written plainly on Keene’s handsome face. At last he made up his mind.
‘Take your choice, M. Poirot,’ he said, and leaning forward he turned his pocket inside out. There was a cigarette holder, a handkerchief, a tiny silk rosebud, and a little gold match box.
A moment’s silence and then Keene said, ‘As a matter of fact it was this.’ He picked up the match box. ‘I must have dropped it earlier in the evening.’
‘I think not,’ said Poirot.
‘What do you mean?’
‘What I say. I, monsieur, am a man of tidiness, of method, of order. A match box on the ground, I should see it and pick it up—a match box of this size, assuredly I should see it! No, monsieur, I think it was something very much smaller—such as this, perhaps.’
He picked up the little silk rosebud.
‘From Miss Cleve’s bag, I think?’
There was a moment’s pause, then Keene admitted it with a laugh.
‘Yes, that’s so. She—gave it to me last night.’
‘I see,’ said Poirot, and at the moment the door opened and a tall fair-haired man in a lounge suit strode into the room.
‘Keene—what’s all this? Lytcham Roche shot himself? Man, I can’t believe it. It’s incredible.’
‘Let me introduce you,’ said Keene, ‘to M. Hercule Poirot.’ The other started. ‘He will tell you all about it.’ And he left the room, banging the door.
‘M. Poirot—’ John Marshall was all eagerness ‘—I’m most awfully pleased to meet you. It is a bit of luck your being down here. Lytcham Roche never told me you were coming. I’m a most frightful admirer of yours, sir.’
A disarming young man, thought Poirot—not so young, either, for there was grey hair at the temples and lines in the forehead. It was the voice and manner that gave the impression of boyishness.
‘The police—’
‘They are here now, sir. I came up with them on hearing the news. They don’t seem particularly surprised. Of course, he was mad as a hatter, but even then—’
‘Even then you are surprised at his committing suicide?’
‘Frankly, yes. I shouldn’t have thought that—well, that Lytcham Roche could have imagined the world getting on without him.’
‘He has had money troubles of late, I understand?’
Marshall nodded.
‘He speculated. Wildcat schemes of Barling’s.’
Poirot said quietly, ‘I will be very frank. Had you any reason to suppose that Mr Lytcham Roche suspected you of tampering with your accounts?’
Marshall stared at Poirot in a kind of ludicrous bewilderment. So ludicrous was it that Poirot was forced to smile.
‘I see that you are utterly taken aback, Captain Marshall.’
‘Yes, indeed. The idea’s ridiculous.’
‘Ah! Another question. He did not suspect you of robbing him of his adopted daughter?’
‘Oh, so you know about me and Di?’ He laughed in an embarrassed fashion.
‘It is so, then?’
Marshall nodded.
‘But the old man didn’t know anything about it. Di wouldn’t have him told. I suppose she was right. He’d have gone up like a—a basketful of rockets. I should have been chucked out of a job, and that would have been that.’
‘And instead what was your plan?’
‘Well, upon my word, sir, I hardly know. I left things to Di. She said she’d fix it. As a matter of fact I was looking out for a job. If I could have got one I would have chucked this up.’
‘And mademoiselle would have married you? But M. Lytcham Roche might have stopped her allowance. Mademoiselle