Problem at Pollensa Bay

‘Take Mrs Lytcham Roche away—and the other two ladies.’

The other nodded comprehendingly. He laid a hand on his hostess’s arm. She shivered.

‘He has shot himself,’ she murmured. ‘Horrible!’ With another shiver she permitted him to lead her away. The two girls followed.

Poirot came forward into the room, the two young men behind him.

He knelt down by the body, motioning them to keep back a little.

He found the bullet hole on the right side of the head. It had passed out the other side and had evidently struck a mirror hanging on the left-hand wall, since this was shivered. On the writing table was a sheet of paper, blank save for the word Sorry scrawled across it in hesitating, shaky writing.

Poirot’s eyes darted back to the door.

‘The key is not in the lock,’ he said. ‘I wonder—’

His hand slid into the dead man’s pocket.

‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘At least I think so. Have the goodness to try it, monsieur?’

Geoffrey Keene took it from him and tried it in the lock.

‘That’s it, all right.’

‘And the window?’

Harry Dalehouse strode across to it.

‘Shut.’

‘You permit?’ Very swiftly, Poirot scrambled to his feet and joined the other at the window. It was a long French window. Poirot opened it, stood a minute scrutinizing the grass just in front of it, then closed it again.

‘My friends,’ he said, ‘we must telephone for the police. Until they have come and satisfied themselves that it is truly suicide nothing must be touched. Death can only have occurred about a quarter of an hour ago.’

‘I know,’ said Harry hoarsely. ‘We heard the shot.’

‘Comment? What is that you say?’

Harry explained with the help of Geoffrey Keene. As he finished speaking, Barling reappeared.

Poirot repeated what he had said before, and while Keene went off to telephone, Poirot requested Barling to give him a few minutes’ interview.

They went into a small morning room, leaving Digby on guard outside the study door, while Harry went off to find the ladies.

‘You were, I understand, an intimate friend of M. Lytcham Roche,’ began Poirot. ‘It is for that reason that I address myself to you primarily. In etiquette, perhaps, I should have spoken first to madame, but at the moment I do not think that is pratique.’

He paused.

‘I am, see you, in a delicate situation. I will lay the facts plainly before you. I am, by profession, a private detective.’

The financier smiled a little.

‘It is not necessary to tell me that, M. Poirot. Your name is, by now, a household word.’

‘Monsieur is too amiable,’ said Poirot, bowing. ‘Let us, then, proceed. I receive, at my London address, a letter from this M. Lytcham Roche. In it he says that he has reason to believe that he is being swindled of large sums of money. For family reasons, so he puts it, he does not wish to call in the police, but he desires that I should come down and look into the matter for him. Well, I agree. I come. Not quite so soon as M. Lytcham Roche wishes—for after all I have other affairs, and M. Lytcham Roche, he is not quite the King of England, though he seems to think he is.’

Barling gave a wry smile.

‘He did think of himself that way.’

‘Exactly. Oh, you comprehend—his letter showed plainly enough that he was what one calls an eccentric. He was not insane, but he was unbalanced, n’est-ce pas?’

‘What he’s just done ought to show that.’

‘Oh, monsieur, but suicide is not always the act of the unbalanced. The coroner’s jury, they say so, but that is to spare the feelings of those left behind.’

‘Hubert was not a normal individual,’ said Barling decisively. ‘He was given to ungovernable rages, was a monomaniac on the subject of family pride, and had a bee in his bonnet in more ways than one. But for all that he was a shrewd man.’

‘Precisely. He was sufficiently shrewd to discover that he was being robbed.’

‘Does a man commit suicide because he’s being robbed?’ Barling asked.

‘As you say, monsieur. Ridiculous. And that brings me to the need for haste in the matter. For family reasons—that was the phrase he used in his letter. Eh bien, monsieur, you are a man of the world, you know that it is for precisely that—family reasons—that a man does commit suicide.’

‘You mean?’

‘That it looks—on the face of it—as if ce pauvre monsieur had found out something further—and was unable to face what he had found out. But you perceive, I have a duty. I am already employed—commissioned—I have accepted the task. This “family reason”, the dead man did not want it to get to the police. So I must act quickly. I must learn the truth.’

‘And when you have learned it?’

‘Then—I must use my discretion. I must do what I can.’

‘I see,’ said Barling. He smoked for a minute or two in silence, then he said, ‘All the same I’m afraid I can’t help you. Hubert never confided anything to me. I know nothing.’

‘But tell me, monsieur, who, should you say, had a chance of robbing this poor gentleman?’

‘Difficult to say. Of course, there’s the agent for the estate. He’s a new man.’

‘The agent?’

‘Yes. Marshall. Captain Marshall. Very nice fellow, lost an arm in the war. He came here a year ago. But Hubert liked him, I know, and trusted him, too.’

‘If it were Captain Marshall who was playing him false, there would be no family reasons for silence.’

‘N-No.’

The hesitation did not escape Poirot.

‘Speak, monsieur. Speak plainly, I beg of you.’