Miss Brewster said: "Well, I'd better go and get hold of my boat."
She left them. Major Barry turned his boiled gooseberry eyes with mild curiosity on Poirot.
"Well, Poirot," he said. "What are you thinking about?
You've not opened your mouth.
What do you think of the siren?
Pretty hot?"
Poirot said: "C'est possible."
"Now then, you old dog.
I know you Frenchmen!"
Poirot said coldly: "I am not a Frenchman!"
"Well, don't tell me you haven't got an eye for a pretty girl!
What do you think of her, eh?"
Hercule Poirot said: "She is not young."
"What does that matter?
A woman's as old as she looks!
Her looks are all right."
Hercule Poirot nodded. He said: "Yes, she is beautiful.
But it is not beauty that counts in the end.
It is not beauty that makes every head (except one) turn on the beach to look at her."
"It's it, my boy," said the Major.
"That's what it is - it."
Then he said with sudden curiosity:
"What are you looking at so steadily?"
Hercule Poirot replied: "I'm looking at the exception.
At the one man who did not look up when she passed."
Major Barry followed his gaze to where it rested on a man of about forty, fair-haired and sun-tanned.
He had a quiet, pleasant face and was sitting on the beach smoking a pipe and reading the Times.
"Oh, that!" said Major Barry. "That's the husband, my boy.
That's Marshall."
Hercule Poirot said: "Yes, I know."
Major Barry chuckled.
He himself was a bachelor. He was accustomed to think of The Husband in three lights only - as "the Obstacle," "the Inconvenience" or "the Safeguard."
He said: "Seems a nice fellow.
Quiet.
Wonder if my Times has come?"
He got up and went up towards the hotel.
Poirot's glance shifted slowly to the face of Stephen Lane.
Stephen Lane was watching Arlena Marshall and Patrick Redfern. He turned suddenly to Poirot.
There was a stern fanatical light in his eyes.
He said: "That woman is evil through and through.
Do you doubt it?"
Poirot said slowly: "It is difficult to be sure."
Stephen Lane said: "But, man alive, don't you feel it in the air? All round you? The presence of Evil." Slowly, Hercule Poirot nodded his head.
Chapter 2
When Rosamund Darnley came and sat down by him, Hercule Poirot made no attempt to disguise his pleasure.
As he has since admitted, he admired Rosamund Darnley as much as any woman he had ever met.
He liked her distinction, the graceful lines of her figure, the alert proud carriage of her head. He liked the neat sleek waves of her dark hair and the ironic quality of her smile.
She was wearing a dress of some navy blue material with touches of white. It looked very simple owing to the expensive severity of its line.
Rosamund Darnley as Rose Mond Ltd was one of London's best-known dressmakers.
She said: "I don't think I like this place.