Dead Man's Folly by Agatha Christie Read Free Book Online Page A

necessary connections—in fact, the late Governor had been a close friend of ours.”
    â€œNaturally, Madame, I understand all that.”
    â€œIt suited me very well—I was going through a difficult time. My husband had died just before the outbreak of war. My elder son who was in the navy went down with his ship, my younger son, who had been out in Kenya, came back, joined the commandos and was killed in Italy. That meant three lots of death duties and this house had to be put up for sale. I myself was very badly off and I was glad of the distraction of having someone young to look after and travel about with. I became very fond of Hattie, all the more so, perhaps, because I soon realized that she was—shall we say—not fully capable of fending for herself? Understand me, M. Poirot, Hattie is not mentally deficient, but she is what country folk describe as ‘simple.’ She is easily imposed upon, overdocile, completely open to suggestion. I think myself that it was a blessing that there was practically no money. If she had been an heiress her position might have been one of much greater difficulty. She was attractive to men and being of an affectionate nature was easily attracted and influenced—shehad definitely to be looked after. When, after the final winding up of her parents’ estate, it was discovered that the plantation was destroyed and there were more debts than assets, I could only be thankful that a man such as Sir George Stubbs had fallen in love with her and wanted to marry her.”
    â€œPossibly—yes—it was a solution.”
    â€œSir George,” said Mrs. Folliat, “though he is a self-made man and—let us face it—a complete vulgarian, is kindly and fundamentally decent, besides being extremely wealthy. I don’t think he would ever ask for mental companionship from a wife, which is just as well. Hattie is everything he wants. She displays clothes and jewels to perfection, is affectionate and willing, and is completely happy with him. I confess that I am very thankful that that is so, for I admit that I deliberately influenced her to accept him. If it had turned out badly”—her voice faltered a little—“it would have been my fault for urging her to marry a man so many years older than herself. You see, as I told you, Hattie is completely suggestible. Anyone she is with at the time can dominate her.”
    â€œIt seems to me,” said Poirot approvingly, “that you made there a most prudent arrangement for her. I am not, like the English, romantic. To arrange a good marriage, one must take more than romance into consideration.”
    He added:
    â€œAnd as for this place here, Nasse House, it is a most beautiful spot. Quite, as the saying goes, out of this world.”
    â€œSince Nasse had to be sold,” said Mrs. Folliat, with a faint tremor in her voice, “I am glad that Sir George bought it. It was requisitioned during the war by the Army and afterwards it might have been bought and made into a guest house or a school, therooms cut up and partitioned, distorted out of their natural beauty. Our neighbours, the Fletchers, at Hoodown, had to sell their place and it is now a Youth Hostel. One is glad that young people should enjoy themselves—and fortunately Hoodown is late-Victorian, and of no great architectural merit, so that the alterations do not matter. I’m afraid some of the young people trespass on our grounds. It makes Sir George very angry. It’s true that they have occasionally damaged the rare shrubs by hacking them about—they come through here trying to get a shortcut to the ferry across the river.”
    They were standing now by the front gate. The lodge, a small white one-storied building, lay a little back from the drive with a small railed garden round it.
    Mrs. Folliat took back her basket from Poirot with a word of thanks.
    â€œI was always very fond of the