“Yes, and Burrows’s account of Sir Gervase’s attitude this evening is a bit fishy. High spirits, pleased about something! That doesn’t fit with anything else we’ve been told.”
“There is, too, Mr. Forbes. Most correct, most severe, of an o
ld and well-established firm. But lawyers, even the most respectable, have been known to embezzle their client’s money when they themselves are in a hole.”
“You’re getting a bit too sensational, I think, Poirot.”
“You think what I suggest is too like the pictures? But life, Major Riddle, is often amazingly like the pictures.”
“It has been, so far, in Westshire,” said the chief constable. “We’d better finish interviewing the rest of them, don’t you think? It’s getting late. We haven’t seen Ruth Chevenix-Gore yet, and she’s probably the most important of the lot.”
“I agree. There is Miss Cardwell, too. Perhaps we might see her first, since that will not take long, and interview Miss Chevenix-Gore last.
“Quite a good idea.”
Nine
That evening Poirot had only given Susan Cardwell a fleeting glance. He examined her now more attentively. An intelligent face, he thought, not strictly good-looking, but possessing an attraction that a merely pretty girl might envy. Her hair was magnificent, her face skilfully made-up. Her eyes, he thought, were watchful.
After a few preliminary questions, Major Riddle said:
“I don’t know how close a friend you are of the family, Miss Cardwell?”
“I don’t know them at all. Hugo arranged that I should be asked down here.”
“You are, then, a friend of Hugo Trent’s?”
“Yes, that’s my position. Hugo’s girlfriend.” Susan Cardwell smiled as she drawled out the words.
“You have known him a long time?”
“Oh, no, just a month or so.”
She paused and then added:
“I’m by way of being engaged to him.”
“And he brought you down here to introduce you to his people?”
“Oh, dear no, nothing like that. We were keeping it very hush-hush. I just came down to spy out the land. Hugo told me the place was just like a madhouse. I thought I’d better come and see for myself. Hugo, poor sweet, is a perfect pet, but he’s got absolutely no brains. The position, you see, was rather critical. Neither Hugo nor I have any money, and old Sir Gervase, who was Hugo’s main hope, had set his heart on Hugo making a match of it with Ruth. Hugo’s a bit weak, you know. He might agree to this marriage and count on being able to get out of it later.”
“That idea did not commend itself to you, mademoiselle?” inquired Poirot gently.
“Definitely not. Ruth might have gone all peculiar and refused to divorce him or something. I put my foot down. No trotting off to St. Paul’s, Knightsbridge, until I could be there dithering with a sheaf of lilies.”
“So you came down to study the situation for yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Eh bien!” said Poirot.
“Well, of course, Hugo was right! The whole family were bughouse! Except Ruth, who seems perfectly sensible. She’d got her own boyfriend and wasn’t any keener on the marriage idea than I was.”
“You refer to M. Burrows?”
“Burrows? Of course not. Ruth wouldn’t fall for a bogus person like that.”
“Then who was the object of her affection?”