It was the face of Cinderella.
CHAPTER 22
I FIND LOVE
For a moment or two I sat as though frozen, the photograph still in my hand. Then summoning all my courage to appear unmoved, I handed it back. At the same time I stole a quick glance at Poirot. Had he noticed anything? But to my relief he did not seem to be observing me. Anything unusual in my manner had certainly escaped him.
He rose briskly to his feet. ‘We have no time to lose. We must make our departure with all dispatch. All is well—the sea it will be calm!’
In the bustle of departure, I had no time for thinking, but once on board the boat, secure from Poirot’s observation, I pulled myself together, and attacked the facts dispassionately.
How much did Poirot know, and why was he bent on finding this girl? Did he suspect her of having seen Jack Renauld commit the crime? Or did he suspect— But that was impossible!
The girl had no grudge against the elder Renauld, no possible motive for wishing his death. What had brought her back to the scene of the murder? I went over the facts carefully. She must have left the train at Calais where I parted from her that day. No wonder I had been unable to find her on the boat. If she had dined in Calais, and then taken a train out to Merlinville, she would have arrived at the Villa Genevieve just about the time that Françoise said.
What had she done when she left the house just after ten?
Presumably either gone to an hotel, or returned to Calais.
And then? The crime had been committed on Tuesday night. On Thursday morning she was once more in Merlinville.
Had she ever left France at all? I doubted it very much.
What kept her there—the hope of seeing Jack Renauld? I had told her (as at the time we believed) that he was on the high seas en route to Buenos Aires. Possibly she was aware that the Aurora had not sailed. But to know that she must have seen Jack. Was that what Poirot was after? Had Jack Renauld, returning to see Marthe Daubreuil, come face to face instead with Bella Duveen the girl he had heartlessly thrown over?
I began to see daylight. If that were indeed the case, it might furnish Jack with the alibi he needed. Yet under those circumstances his silence seemed difficult to explain. Why could he not have spoken out boldly? Did he fear for this former entanglement of his to come to the ears of Marthe Daubreuil? I shook my head, dissatisfied. The thing had been harmless enough, a foolish boy-and-girl affair, and I reflected cynically that the son of a millionaire was not likely to be thrown over by a penniless French girl, who moreover loved him devotedly, without a much graver cause.
Poirot reappeared brisk and smiling at Dover, and our journey to London was uneventful. It was past nine o’clock when we arrived, and I supposed that we should return straight away to our rooms and do nothing till the morning.
But Poirot had other plans.
‘We must lose no time, mon ami. The news of the arrest will not be in the English papers until the day after tomorrow, but still we must lose no time.’
I did not quite follow his reasoning, but I merely asked how he proposed to find the girl.
‘You remember Joseph Aarons, the theatrical agent? No? I assisted him in a little matter of a Japanese wrestler. A pretty little problem, I must recount it to you one day.’
‘He, without doubt, will be able to put us in the way of finding out what we want to know.’
It took us some time to run Mr. Aarons to earth, and it was after midnight when we finally managed it. He greeted Poirot with every evidence of warmth, and professed himself ready to be of service to us in any way.
‘There’s not much about the profession I don’t know,’ he said, beaming genially.
‘Et bien, Monsieur Aarons, I desire to find a young girl called Bella Duveen.’