Free Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie Page A

through the open window.
    He leapt lightly into the room and advanced to the table.
    'Here I am, at your service. Accept my excuses for not presenting myself sooner.'
    'Not at all - not at all!' said the magistrate, rather confused.
    'Of course I am only a detective,' continued the other. 'I know nothing of interrogatories. Were I conducting one, I should be inclined to do so without an open window. Anyone standing outside can so easily hear all that passes. But no matter.'
    M. Hautet flushed angrily. There was evidently going to be no love lost between the examining magistrate and the detective in charge of the case. They had taken foul of each other at the start. Perhaps in any event it would have been much the same. To Giraud, all examining magistrates were fools, and to M. Hautet, who took himself seriously, the casual manner of the Paris detective could not fail to give offence.
    'Eh bien, Monsieur Giraud,' said the magistrate rather sharply. 'Without doubt you have been employing your time to a marvel! You have the names of the assassins for us, have you not? And also the precise spot where they find themselves now?'
    Unmoved by this irony, M. Giraud replied:
    'I know at least where they have come from.'
    Giraud took two small objects from his pocket and laid them down on the table. We crowded round. The objects were very simple ones: the stub of a cigarette and an unlighted match. The detective wheeled round on Poirot.
    'What do you see there?' he asked.
    There was something almost brutal in his tone. It made my cheeks flush. But Poirot remained unmoved. He shrugged his shoulders.
    'A cigarette end and a match.'
    'And what does that tell you?'
    Poirot spread out his hands.
    'It tells me - nothing.'
    'Ah!' said Giraud, in a satisfied voice. 'You haven't made a study of these things. That's not an ordinary match - not in this country at least. It's common enough in South America. Luckily it's unlighted. I mightn't have recognized it otherwise. Evidently one of the men threw away his cigarette and lit another, spilling one match out of the box as he did so.'
    'And the other match?' asked Poirot.
    'Which match?'
    'The one he did light his cigarette with. You have found that also?'
    'No.'
    'Perhaps you didn't search very thoroughly.'
    'Not search thoroughly -' For a moment it seemed as though the detective was going to break out angrily, but with an effort he controlled himself. 'I see you love a joke, Monsieur Poirot. But in any case, match or no match, the cigarette end would be sufficient. It is a South American cigarette with liquorice pectoral paper.'
    Poirot bowed. The commissary spoke:
    'The cigarette end and match might have belonged to Monsieur Renauld. Remember, it is only two years since he returned from South America.'
    'No,' replied the other confidently. 'I have already searched among the effects of Monsieur Renauld. The cigarettes he smoked and the matches he used are quite different.'
    'You do not think it odd,' asked Poirot, 'that these strangers should come unprovided with a weapon, with gloves, with a spade, and that they should so conveniently find all these things?'
    Giraud smiled in a rather superior manner.
    'Undoubtedly it is strange. Indeed, without the theory that I hold, it would be inexplicable.'
    'Aha!' said M. Hautet. 'An accomplice within the house!'
    'Or outside it,' said Giraud, with a peculiar smile. 'But someone must have admitted them. We cannot allow that, by an unparalleled piece of good fortune, they found the door ajar for them to walk in?'
    'The door was opened for them; but it could just as easily be opened from outside - by someone who possessed a key.'
    'But who does possess a key?'
    Giraud shrugged his shoulders.
    'As for that, no one who possesses one is going to admit the fact if he can help it. But several people might have had one. Monsieur Jack Renauld, the son, for instance. It is true that he is on his way to South America, but he might have lost the key or had it stolen