‘I was always very fond of the lodge,’ she said, looking at it affectionately. ‘Merdle, our head gardener for thirty years, used to live there. I much prefer it to the top cottage, though that has been enlarged and modernized by Sir George. It had to be; we’ve got quite a young man now as head gardener, with a young wife – and these young women must have electric irons and modern cookers and television, and all that. One must go with the times…’ She sighed. ‘There is hardly a person left now on the estate from the old days – all new faces.’

‘I am glad, Madame,’ said Poirot, ‘that you at least have found a haven.’

‘You know those lines of Spenser’s? “Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, ease after war, death after life, doth greatly please…”’

She paused and said without any change of tone: ‘It’s a very wicked world, M. Poirot. And there are very wicked people in the world. You probably know that as well as I do. I don’t say so before the younger people, it might discourage them, but it’s true…Yes, it’s a very wicked world…’

She gave him a little nod, then turned and went into the lodge. Poirot stood still, staring at the shut door.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I

In a mood of exploration Poirot went through the front gates and down the steeply twisting road that presently emerged on a small quay. A large bell with a chain had a notice upon it: ‘Ring for the Ferry.’ There were various boats moored by the side of the quay. A very old man with rheumy eyes, who had been leaning against a bollard, came shuffling towards Poirot.

‘Du ee want the ferry, sir?’

‘I thank you, no. I have just come down from Nasse House for a little walk.’

‘Ah, ’tis up at Nasse yu are? Worked there as a boy, I did, and my son, he were head gardener there. But I did use to look after the boats. Old Squire Folliat, he was fair mazed about boats. Sail in all weathers, he would. The Major, now, his son, he didn’t care for sailing. Horses, that’s all he cared about. And a pretty packet went on ’em. That and the bottle – had a hard time with him, his wife did. Yu’ve seen her, maybe – lives at the Lodge now, she du.’

‘Yes, I have just left her there now.’

‘Her be a Folliat, tu, second cousin from over Tiverton way. A great one for the garden, she is, all them there flowering shrubs she had put in. Even when it was took over during the war, and the two young gentlemen was gone to the war, she still looked after they shrubs and kept ’em from being over-run.’

‘It was hard on her, both her sons being killed.’