Enjoining caution he led the way round the shed until we were out of earshot.
‘What were you doing there?’ I asked.
‘Exactly what you were doing—listening.’
‘But I was not there on purpose!’
‘Ah!’ said Giraud. ‘I was.’
As always, I admired the man while disliking him. He looked me up and down with a sort of contemptuous disfavour.
‘You didn’t help matters by butting in. I might have heard something useful in a minute. What have you done with your old fossil?’
‘Monsieur Poirot has gone to Paris,’ I replied coldly.
Giraud snapped his fingers disdainfully. ‘So he has gone to Paris, has he? Well, a good thing. The longer he stays there the better. But what does he think he will find there?’
I thought I read in the question a tinge of uneasiness. I drew myself up.
‘That I am not at liberty to say,’ I said quietly.
Giraud subjected me to a piercing stare. ‘He has probably enough sense not to tell you,’ he remarked rudely. ‘Good afternoon. I’m busy.’ And with that he turned on his heel, and left me without ceremony.
Matters seemed at a standstill at the Villa Genevieve.
Giraud evidently did not desire my company and, from what I had seen, it seemed fairly certain that Jack Renauld did not either.
I went back to the town, had an enjoyable bath, and returned to the hotel. I walked in early, wondering whether the following day would bring forth anything of interest.
I was wholly unprepared for what it did bring forth. I was eating my petit dejuner in the dining room, when the waiter, who had been talking to someone outside, came back in obvious excitement. He hesitated for a minute, fidgeting with his napkin, and then burst out: ‘Monsieur will pardon me, but he is connected, is he not, with the affair at the Villa Genevieve?’
‘Yes,’ I said eagerly. ‘Why?’
‘Monsieur has not heard the news, though?’
‘What news?’
‘That there has been another murder there last night!’
‘What?’
Leaving my breakfast, I caught up my hat and ran as fast as I could. Another murder—and Poirot away! What fatality. But who had been murdered?
I dashed in at the gate. A group of servants were in the drive, talking and gesticulating. I caught hold of Françoise.
‘What has happened?’
‘Oh, monsieur! monsieur! Another death! It is terrible. There is a curse upon the house. But yes, I say it, a curse! They should send for Monsieur le Curé to bring some holy water. Never will I sleep another night under that roof. It might be my turn who knows?’
She crossed herself.
‘Yes,’ I cried, ‘but who has been killed?’
‘Do I know—me? A man—a stranger. They found him up there—in the shed—not a hundred yards from where they found poor Monsieur. And that is not all. He is stabbed—stabbed in the heart with that dagger!’
[Missing a lot. Also the beginning of Chapter 14.]
explained. ‘It pleases the examining magistrate. Well, do you notice anything else?’
I was forced to shake my head.
‘Look at his hands.’
I did. The nails were broken and discoloured and the skin was hard. It hardly enlightened me as much as I should have liked it to have done. I looked up at Giraud.
‘They are not the hands of a gentleman,’ he said, answering my look. ‘On the contrary, his clothes are those of a well-to-do man. That is curious is it not?’
‘Very curious,’ I agreed.
‘And none of his clothing is marked. What do we learn from that? This man was trying to pass himself off as other than he was. He was masquerading. Why? Did he fear something? Was he trying to escape by disguising himself? As yet we do not know, but one thing we do know—he was as anxious to conceal his identity as we are to discover it.’
He looked down at the body again. ‘As before, there are no fingerprints on the handle of the dagger. The murderer again wore gloves.’
‘You think, then, that the murderer was the same in both cases?’ I asked eagerly.
Giraud became inscrutable. ‘Never mind what I think. We shall see. Marchaud!’ The sergent de ville appeared at the door.