MB Cooltura

In 1922 when the great cult of the Seaside for Holidays was finally established and the coast of Devon and Cornwall was no longer thought too hot in the summer, Arthur Angmering found his vast inconvenient late Georgian house unsaleable, but he got a good price for the odd bit of property acquired by the seafaring Captain Roger.

The sturdy house was added to and embellished. A concrete causeway was laid down from the mainland to the island. “Walks” and “Nooks” were cut and devised all round the island. There were two tennis courts, sun terraces leading down to a little bay embellished with rafts and diving boards. The Jolly Roger Hotel, Smugglers’ Island, Leathercombe Bay, came triumphantly into being. And from June till September (with a short season at Easter) the Jolly Roger Hotel was usually packed to the attics.

There was one very important person (in his own estimation at least) staying at the Jolly Roger. Hercule Poirot, resplendent in a white duck suit, with a panama hat tilted over his eyes, his moustaches magnificently befurled, lay back in an improved type of deck chair and surveyed the bathing beach.

Because, if you’ll believe me, M. Poirot, a sister of Mr. Gardener’s went to stay at a guesthouse once, very exclusive they said it was, and in the heart of the moors, but would you believe me, nothing but an earth closet! So naturally that made Mr. Gardener suspicious of these out-of-the-world places, didn’t it, Odell?”

“Why, yes, darling,” said Gardener.

“But Mr. Kelso reassured us at once. The sanitation, he said, was absolutely the latest word, and the cooking was excellent. And I’m sure that’s so. And what I like about it is, it’s intime, if you know what I mean. Being a small place we all talk to each other and everybody knows everybody. If there is a fault about the British it is that they’re inclined to be a bit standoffish until they’ve known you a couple of years. After that nobody could be nicer. Mr. Kelso said that interesting people came here, and I see he was right. There’s you, M. Poirot and Miss Darnley. Oh! I was just tickled to death when I found out who you were, wasn’t I, Odell?”

“You were, darling.”