‘What questions do you want me to ask?’ I asked apprehensively.
‘I want you to introduce the name of Mrs Ferrars.’
‘Yes?’
‘Speak of her in a natural fashion. Ask him if he was down here when her husband died. you understand the kind of thing I mean. And while he replies, watch his face without seeming to watch it. C’est compris?’
There was no time for more, for at that minute, as Poirot had prophesied, Blunt left the others in his abrupt fashion and came over to us. I suggested strolling on the terrace, and he acquiesced. Poirot stayed behind.
I stopped to examine a late rose.
‘How things change in the course of a day or two,’ I observed. ‘I was up here last Wednesday, I remember, walking up and down this same terrace. Ackroyd was with me – full of spirits. And now – three days later – Ackroyd’s dead, poor fellow. Mrs Ferrars dead – you knew her, didn’t you? But of course you did.’
Blunt nodded his head.
‘Had you seen her since you’d been down this time?’
‘Went with Ackroyd to call. Last Tuesday, think it was. fascinating woman – but something queer about her. Deep – one would never know what she was up to.’
I looked into his steady grey eyes. Nothing there surely. I went on:
‘I suppose you’d met her before?’
‘Last time I was here – she and her husband had just come here to live.’ He paused a minute and then added: ‘Rum thing, she had changed a lot between then and now.’
‘How – changed?’ I asked.
‘Looked ten years older.’
‘Were you down here when her husband died?’ I asked, trying to make the question sound as casual as possible.
‘No. from all I heard it would be good riddance. Uncharitable, perhaps, but the truth.’
I agreed.
‘Ashley Ferrars was by no means a pattern husband,’ I said cautiously.
‘Blackguard, I thought,’ said Blunt.
‘No,’ I said, ‘only a man with more money than was good for him.’
‘Oh! Money! All the troubles in the world can be put down to money – or the lack of it.’
‘Which has been your particular trouble?’ I asked.
‘Enough for what I want. I’m one of the lucky ones.’
‘Indeed.’
‘I’m not too flush just now, as a matter of fact. Came into a legacy a year ago, and like a fool let myself be persuaded into putting it into some wild-cat scheme.’
I sympathized, and narrated my own similar trouble.
Then the gong pealed out, and we all went in to lunch.