“A bath? What do you mean?”
“That is what I mean. A bath! The receptacle of porcelain, one turns the taps and fills it, one gets in, one gets out and ghoosh—ghoosh—ghoosh, the water goes down the waste pipe!”
“M. Poirot, are you quite mad?”
“No, I am extremely sane.”
“Well, anyway, I didn’t take a bath.”
“Ha!” said Poirot. “So nobody took a bath. That is extremely interesting.”
“But why should anyone take a bath?”
Hercule Poirot said: “Why, indeed?”
Rosamund said with some exasperation:
“I suppose this is the Sherlock Holmes touch!”
Hercule Poirot smiled.
Then he sniffed the air delicately.
“Will you permit me to be impertinent, Mademoiselle?”
“I’m sure you couldn’t be impertinent, M. Poirot.”
“That is very kind of you. Then may I venture to say that the scent you use is delicious—it has a nuance—a delicate elusive charm.” He waved his hands, and then added in a practical voice, “Gabrielle, No. 8, I think?”
“How clever you are. Yes, I always use it.”
“So did the late Mrs. Marshall. It is chic, eh? And very expensive?”
Rosamund shrugged her shoulders with a faint smile.
Poirot said:
“You sat here where we are now, Mademoiselle, on the morning of the crime. You were seen here, or at least your sunshade was seen by Miss Brewster and Mr. Redfern as they passed on the sea. During the morning, Mademoiselle, are you sure you did not happen to go down to Pixy Cove and enter the cave there—the famous Pixy’s Cave?”
Rosamund turned her head and stared at him.
She said in a quiet level voice:
“Are you asking me if I killed Arlena Marshall?”
“No, I am asking you if you went into the Pixy’s Cave?”
“I don’t even know where it is. Why should I go into it? For what reason?”
“On the day of the crime, Mademoiselle, somebody had been in that cave who used Gabrielle No 8.”
Rosamund said sharply:
“You’ve just said yourself, M. Poirot, that Arlena Marshall used Gabrielle No. 8. She was on the beach there that day. Presumably she went into the cave.”
“Why should she go into the cave? It is dark there and narrow and very uncomfortable.”
Rosamund said impatiently: