Dead Man's Folly by Agatha Christie Page B

repeated, once more resorting to capital letters.
    â€œI’m sure, madam, it must have been most distressing,” said the inspector.
    â€œThe awful thing is,” said Mrs. Oliver, “that she wanted to be a sex maniac’s victim, and now I suppose she was—is—which should I mean?”
    â€œThere’s no question of a sex maniac,” said the inspector.
    â€œIsn’t there?” said Mrs. Oliver. “Well, thank God for that. Or, at least, I don’t know. Perhaps she would rather have had it that way. But if he wasn’t a sex maniac, why did anybody murder her, Inspector?”
    â€œI was hoping,” said the inspector, “that you could help me there.”
    Undoubtedly, he thought, Mrs. Oliver had put her finger on the crucial point. Why should anyone murder Marlene?
    â€œI can’t help you,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I can’t imagine who could have done it. At least, of course, I can imagine —I can imagine anything! That’s the trouble with me. I can imagine things now—this minute. I could even make them sound all right, but of course none of them would be true. I mean, she could have been murdered by someone who just likes murdering girls but that’s too easy—and, anyway, too much of a coincidence that somebody should be at this fête who wanted to murder a girl. And how would he know that Marlene was in the boathouse? Or she might have known some secret about somebody’s love affairs, or she may have seen someone bury a body at night, or she may have recognized somebody who was concealing his identity—or she may have known a secret about where some treasure was buried during the war. Or the man in the launch may have thrown somebody into the river and she sawit from the window of the boathouse—or she may even have got hold of some very important message in secret code and not known what it was herself.”
    â€œPlease!” The inspector held up his hand. His head was whirling.
    Mrs. Oliver stopped obediently. It was clear that she could have gone on in this vein for some time, although it seemed to the inspector that she had already envisaged every possibility, likely or otherwise. Out of the richness of the material presented to him, he seized upon one phrase.
    â€œWhat did you mean, Mrs. Oliver, by the ‘man in the launch?’ Are you just imagining a man in a launch?”
    â€œSomebody told me he’d come in a launch,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I can’t remember who. The one we were talking about at breakfast, I mean,” she added.
    â€œPlease.” The inspector’s tone was now pleading. He had had no idea before what the writers of detective stories were like. He knew that Mrs. Oliver had written forty-odd books. It seemed to him astonishing at the moment that she had not written a hundred and forty. He rapped out a peremptory inquiry. “What is all this about a man at breakfast who came in a launch?”
    â€œHe didn’t come in the launch at breakfast time,” said Mrs. Oliver, “it was a yacht. At least, I don’t mean that exactly. It was a letter.”
    â€œWell, what was it?” demanded Bland. “A yacht or a letter?”
    â€œIt was a letter,” said Mrs. Oliver, “to Lady Stubbs. From a cousin in a yacht. And she was frightened,” she ended.
    â€œFrightened? What of?”
    â€œOf him, I suppose,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Anybody could see it. She was terrified of him and she didn’t want him to come, and I think that’s why she’s hiding now.”
    â€œHiding?” said the inspector.
    â€œWell, she isn’t about anywhere,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Everyone’s been looking for her. And I think she’s hiding because she’s afraid of him and doesn’t want to meet him.”
    â€œWho is this man?” demanded the inspector.
    â€œYou’d better ask M. Poirot,” said Mrs.