"But surely it is possible?"
"Everything's possible, isn't it?
The world soon teaches one that.
But I wondered what any one could blackmail Arlena about?"
"There are certain things, I suppose, that Mrs Marshall might be anxious should not come to her husband's ears?"
"We-ll, yes." She explained the doubt in her voice by saying with a half smile: "I sound skeptical, but then, you see, Arlena was rather notorious in her conduct.
She never made much of a pose of respectability."
"You think, then, that her husband was aware of her - intimacies with other people?"
There was a pause.
Rosamund was frowning.
She spoke at last in a slow reluctant voice. She said:
"You know, I don't really know what to think.
I've always assumed that Kenneth Marshall accepted his wife, quite frankly, for what she was. That he had no illusions about her.
But it may not be so."
"He may have believed in her absolutely?"
Rosamund said with semi-exasperation:
"Men are such fools.
And Kenneth Marshall is unworldly under his sophisticated manner.
He may have believed in her blindly.
He may have thought she was just - admired."
"And you know of no one - that is you have heard of no one who was likely to have had a grudge against Mrs Marshall?"
Rosamund Darnley smiled.
She said: "Only resentful wives.
And I presume since she was strangled, that it was a man who killed her."
"Yes."
Rosamund said thoughtfully:
"No, I can't think of any one. But then I probably shouldn't know.
You'll have to ask some one in her own intimate set."
"Thank you, Miss Darnley."
Rosamund turned a little in her chair.
She said: "Hasn't M. Poirot any questions to ask?" Her faintly ironic smile flashed out at him.
Hercule Poirot smiled and shook his head. He said: "I can think of nothing."
Rosamund Darnley got up and went out.
Chapter 8
They were standing in the bedroom that had been Arlena Marshall's.
Two big bay windows gave onto a balcony that overlooked the bathing beach and the sea beyond.
Sunshine poured into the room flashing over the bewildering array of bottles and jars on Arlena's dressing-table. Here there was every kind of cosmetic and unguent known to beauty parlours.
Amongst this panoply of women's affairs three men moved purposefully.
Inspector Colgate went about shutting and opening drawers. Presently he gave a grunt.
He had come upon a packet of folded letters. He and Weston ran through them together.
Hercule Poirot had moved to the wardrobe.
He opened the door of the hanging cupboard and looked at the multiplicity of gowns and sports suits that hung there.
He opened the other side. Foamy lingerie lay in piles. On a wide shelf were hats.
Two more beach cardboard hats in lacquer red and pale yellow - a big Hawaiian straw hat - another of drooping dark blue linen and three or four little absurdities for which, no doubt, several guineas had been paid apiece - a kind of beret in dark blue - a tuft, no more, of black velvet - a pale grey turban.
Hercule Poirot stood scanning them - a faintly indulgent smile came to his lips.
He murmured: "Les femmes!"
Colonel Weston was refolding the letters.
"Three from young Redfern," he said.
"Damned young ass. He'll learn not to write to women in a few more years.
Women always keep letters and then swear they've burnt them.