Brewster said abruptly:
‘You talked about evil just now, M. Poirot. Now to my mind that woman’s a personification of evil! She’s a bad lot through and through. I happen to know a good deal about her.’
Major Barry said reminiscently:
‘I remember a gal out in Simla. She had red hair too. Wife of a subaltern. Did she set the place by the ears? I’ll say she did! Men went mad about her! All the women, of course, would have liked to gouge her eyes out! She upset the apple cart in more homes than one.’
He chuckled reminiscently.
‘Husband was a nice quiet fellow. Worshipped the ground she walked on. Never saw a thing—or made out he didn’t.’
Stephen Lane said in a low voice full of intense feeling:
‘Such women are a menace—a menace to—’
He stopped.
Arlena Stuart had come to the water’s edge. Two young men, little more than boys, had sprung up and come eagerly towards her. She stood smiling at them.
Her eyes slid past them to where Patrick Redfern was coming along the beach.
It was, Hercule Poirot thought, like watching the needle of a compass. Patrick Redfern was deflected, his feet changed their direction. The needle, do what it will, must obey the law of magnetism and turn to the north. Patrick Redfern’s feet brought him to Arlena Stuart.
She stood smiling at him. Then she moved slowly along the beach by the side of the waves. Patrick Redfern went with her. She stretched herself out by a rock. Redfern dropped to the shingle beside her.
Abruptly, Christine Redfern got up and went into the hotel.
V
There was an uncomfortable little silence after she had left.
Then Emily Brewster said:
‘It’s rather too bad. She’s a nice little thing. They’ve only been married a year or two.’
‘Gal I was speaking of,’ said Major Barry, ‘the one in Simla. She upset a couple of really happy marriages. Seemed a pity, what?’
‘There’s a type of woman,’ said Miss Brewster, ‘who likes smashing up homes.’ She added after a minute or two, ‘Patrick Redfern’s a fool!’
Hercule Poirot said nothing. He was gazing down the beach, but he was not looking at Patrick Redfern and Arlena Stuart.
Miss Brewster said:
‘Well, I’d better go and get hold of my boat.’
She left them.
Major Barry turned his boiled gooseberry eyes with mild curiosity on Poirot.
‘Well, Poirot,’ he said. ‘What are you thinking about? You’ve not opened your mouth. What do you think of the siren? Pretty hot?’
Poirot said:
‘C’est possible.’
‘Now then, you old dog. I know you Frenchmen!’
Poirot said coldly:
‘I am not a Frenchman!’
‘Well, don’t tell me you haven’t got an eye for a pretty girl! What do you think of her, eh?’
Hercule Poirot said:
‘She is not young.’
‘What does that matter? A woman’s as old as she looks! Her looks are all right.’
Hercule Poirot nodded. He said:
‘Yes, she is beautiful. But it is not beauty that counts in the end. It is not beauty that makes every head (except one) turn on the beach to look at her.’
‘It’s IT, my boy,’ said the Major. ‘That’s what it is—IT.’
Then he said with sudden curiosity.
‘What are you looking at so steadily?’
Hercule Poirot replied: ‘I am looking at the exception. At the one man who did not look up when she passed.’
Major Barry followed his gaze to where it rested on a man of about forty, fair-haired and sun-tanned. He had a quiet pleasant face and was sitting on the beach smoking a pipe and reading The Times.
‘Oh, that!’ said Major Barry. ‘That’s the husband, my boy. That’s Marshall.’
Hercule Poirot said:
‘Yes, I know.’
Major Barry chuckled. He himself was a bachelor. He was accustomed to think of The Husband in three lights only—as ‘the Obstacle’, ‘the Inconvenience’ or ‘the Safeguard’.
He said:
‘Seems a nice fellow. Quiet. Wonder if my Times has come?’
He got up and went up towards the hotel.
Poirot’s glance shifted slowly to the face of Stephen Lane.
Stephen Lane was watching Arlena Marshall and Patrick Redfern. He turned suddenly to Poirot. There was a stern fanatical light in his eyes.
He said:
‘That woman is evil through and through. Do you doubt it?’
Poirot said slowly:
‘It is difficult to be sure.’
Stephen Lane said:
‘But, man alive, don’t you feel it in the air? All round you? The presence of Evil.’
Slowly, Hercule Poirot nodded his head.
When Rosamund Darnley came and sat down by him, Hercule Poirot made no attempt to disguise his pleasure.
As he has since admitted, he admired Rosamund Darnley as much as any woman he had ever met. He liked her distinction, the graceful lines of her figure, the alert proud carriage of her head. He liked the neat sleek waves of her dark hair and the ironic quality of her smile.
She was wearing a dress of some navy blue material with touches of white. It looked very simple owing to the expensive severity of its line. Rosamund Darnley as Rose Mond Ltd was one of London’s best-known dressmakers.
She said:
