akorn - Mighty Old Tales Retold

The Murder on the Links - Chapter 19

I Use My Grey Cells
I was dumbfounded. Up to the last, I had not been able bring myself to believe Jack Renauld guilty. I had expected a ringing proclamation of his innocence when Poirot challenged him. But now, watching him as he stood, white and limp against the wall, and hearing the damning admission fall from his lips, I doubted no longer.
But Poirot had turned to Giraud.
“What are your grounds for arresting him?”
“Do you expect me to give them to you?”
“As a matter of courtesy, yes.”

The Murder on the Links - Chapter 18

Giraud Acts
“By the way, Poirot,” I said, as we walked along the hot white road, “I’ve got a bone to pick with you. I dare say you meant well, but really it was no business of yours to go mouching round to the Hôtel du Phare without letting me know.”
Poirot shot a quick sidelong glance at me.
“And how did you know I had been there?” he inquired.
Much to my annoyance I felt the colour rising in my cheeks.
“I happened to look in in passing,” I explained with as much dignity as I could muster.
I rather feared Poirot’s banter, but to my relief, and somewhat to my surprise, he only shook his head with a rather unusual gravity.
“If I have offended your susceptibilities in any way, I demand pardon of you. You will understand better soon. But, believe me, I have striven to concentrate all my energies on the case.”

The Murder on the Links - Chapter 17

We Make Further Investigations
I have set down the Beroldy case in full. Of course all the details did not present themselves to my memory as I have recounted them here. Nevertheless, I recalled the case fairly accurately. It had attracted a great deal of interest at the time, and had been fully reported by the English papers, so that it did not need much effort of memory on my part to recollect the salient details.
Just for the moment, in my excitement, it seemed to clear up the whole matter. I admit that I am impulsive, and Poirot deplores my custom of jumping to conclusions, but I think I had some excuse in this instance. The remarkable way in which this discovery justified Poirot’s point of view struck me at once.
“Poirot,” I said, “I congratulate you. I see everything now.”

The Murder on the Links - Chapter 16

The Beroldy Case
Some twenty years or so before the opening of the present story, Monsieur Arnold Beroldy, a native of Lyons, arrived in Paris accompanied by his pretty wife and their little daughter, a mere babe. Monsieur Beroldy was a junior partner in a firm of wine merchants, a stout middle-aged man, fond of the good things of life, devoted to his charming wife, and altogether unremarkable in every way. The firm in which Monsieur Beroldy was a partner was a small one, and although doing well, it did not yield a large income to the junior partner. The Beroldys had a small apartment and lived in a very modest fashion to begin with.

The Murder on the Links - Chapter 15

A Photograph
The doctor’s words were so surprising that we were all momentarily taken aback. Here was a man stabbed with a dagger which we knew to have been stolen only twenty-four hours previously, and yet Dr. Durand asserted positively that he had been dead at least forty-eight hours! The whole thing was fantastic to the last extreme.
We were still recovering from the surprise of the doctor’s announcement, when a telegram was brought to me. It had been sent up from the hotel to the Villa. I tore it open. It was from Poirot, and announced his return by the train arriving at Merlinville at 12:28.

The Murder on the Links - Chapter 14

The Second Body
Waiting for no more, I turned and ran up the path to the shed. The two men on guard there stood aside to let me pass and, filled with excitement, I entered.
The light was dim, the place was a mere rough wooden erection to keep old pots and tools in. I had entered impetuously, but on the threshold I checked myself, fascinated by the spectacle before me.
Giraud was on his hands and knees, a pocket torch in his hand with which he was examining every inch of the ground. He looked up with a frown at my entrance, then his face relaxed a little in a sort of good-humoured contempt.
“Ah, c’est l’Anglais! Enter then. Let us see what you can make of this affair.”

The Murder on the Links - Chapter 13

The Girl with the Anxious Eyes
We lunched with an excellent appetite. I understood well enough that Poirot did not wish to discuss the tragedy where we could so easily be overheard. But, as is usual when one topic fills the mind to the exclusion of everything else, no other subject of interest seemed to present itself. For a while we ate in silence, and then Poirot observed maliciously:
“Eh bien! And your indiscretions! You recount them not?”
I felt myself blushing.
“Oh, you mean this morning?” I endeavoured to adopt a tone of absolute nonchalance.
But I was no match for Poirot. In a very few minutes he had extracted the whole story from me, his eyes twinkling as he did so.
“Tiens! A story of the most romantic. What is her name, this charming young lady?”
I had to confess that I did not know.

The Murder on the Links - Chapter 12

Poirot Elucidates Certain Points
“Why did you measure that overcoat?” I asked, with some curiosity, as we walked down the hot white road at a leisurely pace.
“Parbleu! to see how long it was,” replied my friend imperturbably.
I was vexed. Poirot’s incurable habit of making a mystery out of nothing never failed to irritate me. I relapsed into silence, and followed a train of thought of my own. Although I had not noticed them specially at the time, certain words Mrs. Renauld had addressed to her son now recurred to me, fraught with a new significance. “So you did not sail?” she had said, and then had added: “After all, it does not matter—now.”
What had she meant by that? 

The Murder on the Links - Chapter 11

Jack Renauld
What the next development of the conversation would have been, I cannot say, for at that moment the door was thrown violently open, and a tall young man strode into the room.
Just for a moment I had the uncanny sensation that the dead man had come to life again. Then I realized that this dark head was untouched with grey, and that, in point of fact, it was a mere boy who now burst in among us with so little ceremony. He went straight to Mrs. Renauld with an impetuosity that took no heed of the presence of others.
“Mother!”
“Jack!” With a cry she folded him in her arms. 

The Murder on the Links - Chapter 10

Gabriel Stonor
The man who entered the room was a striking figure. Very tall, with a well knit athletic frame, and a deeply bronzed face and neck, he dominated the assembly. Even Giraud seemed anaemic beside him. When I knew him better I realized that Gabriel Stonor was quite an unusual personality. English by birth, he had knocked about all over the world. He had shot big game in Africa, travelled in Korea, ranched in California, and traded in the South Sea Islands. He had been secretary to a New York railway magnate, and had spent a year encamped in the desert with a friendly tribe of Arabs.