"See you Friday," laughed the girl. "Where are you going this time? Seaside again?"
"No, no—er—Cheltenham."
"Well, that's nice, too. But not quite as nice as Torquay. That must have been lovely. I want to go there for my holiday next year. By the way, you must have been quite near where the murder was—the A.B.C. murder. It happened while you were down there, didn't it?"
"Er—yes. But Churston's six or seven miles away."
"All the same, it must have been exciting! Why, you may have passed the murderer in the street! You may have been quite near to him!"
"Yes, I may, of course," said Mr. Cust with such a ghastly and contorted smile that Lily Marbury noticed it.
"Oh, Mr. Cust, you don't look well."
"I'm quite all right, quite all right. Goodbye, Miss Marbury."
He fumbled to raise his hat, caught up his suitcase and fairly hastened out of the front door.
"Funny old thing," said Lily Marbury indulgently. "Looks half batty to my mind."
Inspector Crome said to his subordinate: "Get me out a list of all stocking manufacturing firms and circularise them. I want a list of all their agents, you know, fellows who sell on commission and tout for orders."
"This the A.B.C. case, sir?"
"Yes. One of Mr. Hercule Poirot's ideas." The inspector's tone was disdainful. "Probably nothing in it, but it doesn't do to neglect any chance, however faint."
"Right, sir. Mr. Poirot done some good stuff in his time, but I think he's a bit gaga now, sir."
"He's a mountebank," said Inspector Crome. "Always posing. Takes in some people. It doesn't take in me. Now then, about the arrangement for Doncaster . . . ."
Tom Hartigan said to Lily Marbury: "Saw your old dugout this morning."
"Who? Mr. Cust?"
"Cust it was. At Euston. Looking like a lost hen, as usual. I think the fellow's half a loony. He needs someone to look after him. First he dropped his paper and then he dropped his ticket. I picked that up—he hadn't the faintest idea he'd lost it. Thanked me in an agitated sort of manner, but I don't think he recognized me."
"Oh, well," said Lily. "He's only seen you passing in the hall, and not very often at that."
They danced once round the floor.
"You dance something beautiful," said Tom.
"Go on," said Lily and wriggled yet a little closer.
They danced round again.
"Did you say Euston or Paddington?" asked Lily abruptly. "Where you saw old Cust, I mean?"
"Euston."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. What do you think?"
"Funny. I thought you went to Cheltenham from Paddington."
"So you do. But old Cust wasn't going to Cheltenham. He was going to Doncaster."
"Cheltenham."
"Doncaster. I know, my girl! After all, I picked up his ticket, didn't I?"
"Well, he told me he was going to Cheltenham. I'm sure he did."
"Oh, you've got it wrong. He was going to Doncaster all right. Some people have all the luck. I've got a bit on Firefly for the Leger and I'd love to see it run."
"I shouldn't think Mr. Cust went to race-meetings; he doesn't look the kind. Oh, Tom, I hope he won't get murdered. It's Doncaster the A.B.C. murder's going to happen."
"Cust'll be all right. His name doesn't begin with a D."
"He might have been murdered last time. He was down near Churston at Torquay when the last murder happened."
"Was he? That's a bit of a coincidence, isn't it?"
He laughed. "He wasn't at Bexhill the time before, was he?"
Lily crinkled her brows. "He was away . . . . Yes, I remember he was away . . . because he forgot his bathing-dress. Mother was mending it for him. And she said: 'There—Mr. Cust went away yesterday without his bathing-dress after all,' and I said: 'Oh, never mind the old bathing-dress—there's been the most awful murder,' I said, 'a girl strangled at Bexhill.'"
"Well, if he wanted his bathing-dress, he must have been going to the seaside. I say, Lily"—his face crinkled up with amusement. "What price your old dugout being the murderer himself?"
"Poor Mr. Cust? He wouldn't hurt a fly," laughed Lily.
They danced on happily—in their conscious minds nothing but the pleasure of being together.
In their unconscious minds something stirred . . . .
I shall, I think, remember that 11th of September all my life.
Indeed, whenever I see a mention of the St. Leger my mind flies automatically not to horse-racing but to murder.
When I recall my own sensations, the thing that stands out most is a sickening sense of insufficiency. We were here on the spot—Poirot, myself, Clarke, Fraser, Megan Barnard, Thora Grey and Mary Drower and in the last resort what could any of us do?
We were building on a forlorn hope on the chance of recognizing amongst a crowd of thousands of people a face or figure imperfectly seen on an occasion one, two or three months back.
The odds were in reality greater than that. Of us all, the only person likely to make such a recognition was Thora Grey.
Some of her serenity had broken down under the strain. Her usual efficient manner was gone. She sat twisting her hands together, almost weeping, appealing incoherently to Poirot.
"I never really looked at him . . . . Why didn't I? What a fool I was. You're depending on me, all of you . . . and I shall let you down. Because even if I did see him again I mightn't recognize him. I've got bad memory for faces."
Poirot, whatever he might say to me, and however harshly he might seem to criticize the girl, showed nothing but kindness now. His manner was tender in the extreme. It struck me that Poirot was no more indifferent to beauty in distress than I was.
He patted her shoulder kindly. "Now then, petite, not the hysteria. We cannot have that. If you should see this man you would recognize him."
"How do you know?"
"Oh, a great many reasons—for one, because the red succeeds the black."
"What do you mean, Poirot?" I cried.
"I speak the language of the tables. At roulette there may be a long run on the black—but in the end red must turn up. It is the mathematical laws of chance."
"You mean that luck turns?"
"Exactly, Hastings. And that is where the gambler (and the murderer, who is, after all, only a supreme kind of gambler since what he risks is not his money but his life) often lacks intelligent anticipation. Because he has won he thinks he will continue to win! He does not leave the tables in good time with his pockets full. So in crime the murderer who is successful cannot conceive the possibility of not being successful! He takes to himself all the credit for a successful performance—but I tell you, my friends, however carefully planned no crime can be successful without luck!"
"Isn't that going rather far?" demurred Franklin Clarke.
Poirot waved his hands excitedly. "No, no. It is an even chance, if you like, but it must be in your favour. Consider! It might have happened that someone enters Mrs. Ascher's shop just as the murderer is leaving. That person might have thought of looking behind the counter, have seen the dead woman—and either laid hands on the murderer straight away or else been able to give such an accurate description of him to the police that he would have been arrested forthwith."