‘That was my idea,’ said Adam. ‘It seemed a good line to take.’

‘Admirable. So now we pass from kidnapping to something more serious. Murder. Two murders at Meadowbank.’

Chapter 19

Consultation Continued

‘Two murders at Meadowbank,’ repeated Poirot thoughtfully.

‘We’ve given you the facts,’ said Kelsey. ‘If you’ve any ideas—’

‘Why the Sports Pavilion?’ said Poirot. ‘That was your question, wasn’t it?’ he said to Adam. ‘Well, now we have the answer. Because in the Sports Pavilion there was a tennis racquet containing a fortune in jewels. Someone knew about that racquet. Who was it? It could have been Miss Springer herself. She was, so you all say, rather peculiar about that Sports Pavilion. Disliked people coming there—unauthorized people, that is to say. She seemed to be suspicious of their motives. Particularly was that so in the case of Mademoiselle Blanche.’

‘Mademoiselle Blanche,’ said Kelsey thoughtfully.

Hercule Poirot again spoke to Adam.

‘You yourself considered Mademoiselle Blanche’s manner odd where it concerned the Sports Pavilion?’

‘She explained,’ said Adam. ‘She explained too much. I should never have questioned her right to be there if she had not taken so much trouble to explain it away.’

Poirot nodded.

‘Exactly. That certainly gives one to think. But all we know is that Miss Springer was killed in the Sports Pavilion at one o’clock in the morning when she had no business to be there.’

He turned to Kelsey.

‘Where was Miss Springer before she came to Meadowbank?’

‘We don’t know,’ said the Inspector. ‘She left her last place of employment,’ he mentioned a famous school, ‘last summer. Where she has been since we do not know.’ He added dryly: ‘There was no occasion to ask the question until she was dead. She has no near relatives, nor, apparently, any close friends.’

‘She could have been in Ramat, then,’ said Poirot thoughtfully.

‘I believe there was a party of school teachers out there at the time of the trouble,’ said Adam.

‘Let us say, then, that she was there, that in some way she learned about the tennis racquet. Let us assume that after waiting a short time to familiarize herself with the routine at Meadowbank she went out one night to the Sports Pavilion. She got hold of the racquet and was about to remove the jewels from their hiding place when—’ he paused—‘when someone interrupted her. Someone who had been watching her? Following her that evening? Whoever it was had a pistol—and shot her—but had no time to prise out the jewels, or to take the racquet away, because people were approaching the Sports Pavilion who had heard the shot.’

He stopped.

‘You think that’s what happened?’ asked the Chief Constable.

‘I do not know,’ said Poirot. ‘It is one possibility. The other is that that person with the pistol was there first, and was surprised by Miss Springer. Someone whom Miss Springer was already suspicious of. She was, you have told me, that kind of woman. A noser out of secrets.’