In the _Salon___ I found the examining magistrate busily interrogating
the old gardener Auguste. Poirot and the commissary, who were both
present, greeted me respectively with a smile and a polite bow. I
slipped quietly into a seat. M. Hautet was painstaking and meticulous
in the extreme, but did not succeed in eliciting anything of
importance.
The gardening gloves Auguste admitted to be his. He wore them when
handling a certain species of primula plant which was poisonous to some
people. He could not say when he had worn them last. Certainly he had
not missed them. Where were they kept? Sometimes in one place,
sometimes in another. The spade was usually to be found in the small
tool shed. Was it locked? Of course it was locked. Where was the key
kept? _Parbleu___, it was in the door of course! There was nothing of
value to steal. Who would have expected a party of bandits, of
assassins? Such things did not happen in Madame la Vicomtesse’s time.
M. Hautet signifying that he had finished with him, the old man
withdrew, grumbling to the last. Remembering Poirot’s unaccountable
insistence on the footprints in the flower beds, I scrutinized him
narrowly as he gave his evidence. Either he had nothing to do with the
crime or he was a consummate actor. Suddenly, just as he was going out
of the door, an idea struck me. “_Pardon___ M. Hautet,” I cried, “but
will you permit me to ask him one question?”
“But certainly, monsieur.”
Thus encouraged, I turned to Auguste.
“Where do you keep your boots?”
“_Sac à papier!___” growled the old man. “On my feet. Where else?”
“But when you go to bed at night?”
“Under my bed.”
“But who cleans them?”
“Nobody. Why should they be cleaned? Is it that I promenade myself on
the front like a young man? On Sunday I wear the Sunday boots, _bien
entendu___, but otherwise—!” he shrugged his shoulders.