The murder on the links by Agatha Christie

Author:Agatha Christie
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Crime & mystery, Private investigators - England, Sports & Recreation, Fiction, Hercule (Fictitious character), Women Sleuths, Crime & Thriller, Poirot, Murder, Mystery fiction, Traditional British, Comics & Graphic Novels, Mystery, Mystery & Detective - General, Police Procedural, Juvenile Fiction, Mysteries & Detective Stories, English, Mystery & Detective - Series, Mystery & Detective - Traditional British, Detective, Golf, Mystery & Detective, Fiction - Mystery, General, Suspense
ISBN: 9780425067949
Publisher: Berkley Books
Published: 1923-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

A PHOTOGRAPH

The doctor's words were so surprising that we were all momentarily taken aback. Here was a man stabbed with a dagger which we knew to have been stolen only twenty-four hours previously, and yet Dr. Durand asserted positively that he had been dead at least forty-eight hours! The whole thing was fantastic to the last extreme.

We were still recovering from the surprise of the doctor's announcement when a telegram was brought to me. It had been sent up from the hotel to the villa. I tore it open. It was from Poirot, and announced his return by the train arriving at Merlinville at [garbled].

I looked at my watch and saw that I had just time to get comfortably to the station and meet him there. I felt that it was of the utmost importance that he should know at once of the new and startling developments in the case.

Evidently, I reflected, Poirot had had no difficulty in finding what he wanted in Paris. The quickness of his return proved that. Very few hours had sufficed. I wondered how he would take the exciting news I had to impart.

The train was some minutes late, and I strolled aimlessly up and down the platform until it occurred to me that I might pass the time by asking a few questions as to who had left Merlinville by the last train on the evening of the tragedy.

I approached the chief porter, an intelligent-looking man, and had little difficulty in persuading him to enter upon the subject. It was a disgrace to the police, he hotly affirmed, that such brigands or assassins should be allowed to go about unpunished. I hinted that there was some possibility they might have left by the midnight train but he negatived the idea decidedly. He would have noticed two foreigners—he was sure of it. Only about twenty people had left by the train, and he could not have failed to observe them.

I do not know what put the idea into my head—possibly it was the deep anxiety underlying Marthe Daubreuil's eyes—but I asked suddenly: 'Young Monsieur Renauld—he did not leave by that train, did he?'

'Ah, no, monsieur. To arrive and start off again within half an hour, it would not be amusing, that!'

I stared at the man, the significance of his words almost escaping me. Then I saw.

'You mean,' I said, my heart beating a little, 'that Monsieur Jack Renauld arrived at Merlinville that evening?'

'But yes, monsieur. By the last train arriving the other way, the [??]4[?].'

My brain whirled. That, then, was the reason of Marthe's poignant anxiety. Jack Renauld had been in Merlinville on the night of the crime. But why had he not said so? Why, on the contrary, had he led us to believe that he had remained in Cherbourg? Remembering his frank boyish countenance, I could hardly bring myself to believe that he had any connexion with the crime. Yet why this silence on his part about so vital a matter? One thing was certain, Marthe had known all along.

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