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Murder on the links - Agatha Christie

Captain Hastings has breakfast in the flat that he shares with Poirot in London. Poirot receives an extraordinary letter: "For God's sake, come!" writes Monsieur Paul Renauld. Directly, Poirot and Hastings go to Renauld's home, the Villa Genevieve in Merlinville-sur-Mer on the north coast of France. Near the villa, they are watched by a beautiful girl with "anxious eyes". At the gates, the police tell them that Renauld has been murdered this morning.

The couple were attacked in their rooms at 2:00 am by two men. Madame Renauld was tied up and her husband taken away. Entry to the house was through the open front door. Renauld's body was found, stabbed in the back, in a newly-dug open grave on the edge of an adjacent golf course, undergoing construction. Renauld had sent his son Jack away on business to South America; given the chauffeur a holiday; his secretary, Gabriel Stoner, remains in England, leaving three female servants in the house.

One servant reports that neighbour Madame Daubreuil visited M. Renauld after Madame Renauld had retired for the night. She is the mother of Marthe, the girl with the "anxious eyes". Another servant says it was an unknown woman who came the day before, whom Renauld urged to "leave now". There is a smashed watch at the scene, a long piece of lead pipe, a love letter signed by "Bella", the fragment of a check with the name "Duveen", and the murder weapon, a letter opener used as a dagger. One upper storey window could be accessed by a tree; Poirot considers the matter of footprints in the flower beds near the tree the most important of the clues. After telling her story, the widow inspects the body to identify it. She collapses with grief at the sight of her dead husband.

Poirot investigates in Renauld's name, while the French magistrate and police do their work. Monsieur Giraud of the Sûreté is overtly hostile to Poirot. The Examining Magistrate, Monsieur Hautet, is not, and shares key information. Renauld changed his will two weeks before, leaving almost everything to his wife and nothing to his son. Mme Daubreuil has paid two hundred thousand francs into her bank account in recent weeks. She rejects the suggestion they were lovers. Marthe pursues Poirot to learn if anyone is named as a suspect. Poirot recognizes the mother's face from news photos of an old case. Unexpectedly, Hastings encounters the young lady "Cinderella" at the golf course, a woman he met once on a train to Calais. She asks to be shown the exciting crime scenes, then disappears as unexpectedly as she had arrived, taking the murder weapon with her.

Stoner returns, suggesting blackmail is more likely than an affair, as Renauld's past before his career in South America is a mystery. Jack Renauld returns home, his ship having been delayed. Jack admits to arguing with his father over who he wants to marry, but shows he is unaware of the change in the will. Marthe is the girl in question, considered unsuitable to both his parents.

Poirot conducts research in Paris. While he is away, another body is found with the dagger in his heart. No one recognises the well–dressed man who, by his hands, could be a tramp. The man died before Renauld's murder. Back from Paris, Poirot examines the new corpse with the doctor. The man died of an epileptic fit, and was stabbed after death. Renauld's murder is similar to a famous case 22 years earlier. Young Mme Beroldy was on trial for the death of her husband. Two masked men who broke into their house at night to murder him. Mme Beroldy's young lover, Georges Conneau, wrote a letter to the police admitting to the crime; there were no masked men and he stabbed the husband, and fled. He confessed because he learned that Mme Beroldy planned to marry yet another man once widowed. Her tearful performance in the witness box convinced the jury of her innocence. She and her young daughter left Paris. Giraud concludes that Jack Renauld murdered his father and arrests him. Poirot sees two flaws in Giraud's theory: there was no advantage to Jack in murdering his father unless his father's body was discovered promptly; and the presence of the piece of lead pipe near the corpse remains unexplained.

Poirot deduces that Paul Renauld was Georges Conneau. He fled France to Canada, gaining a wife and a son, then making his fortune in South America. When the family settle in France, by great misfortune their immediate neighbour is the former Mme Beroldy, who blackmails him. Worse, his son falls in love with her daughter. When a tramp dies on his grounds, Renauld repeats the ruse of years earlier, but with one change. He will fake his own death to escape his blackmailer. He sends away those who could recognise him, then stages his kidnapping. The tramp's body, disfigured by the lead pipe, will be buried, and Renauld will leave on the last train. The plan was foiled when Renauld was stabbed by someone else after he finished digging the grave but before he could fetch the tramp's body. Thus his wife, when shown the first dead body, was truly shocked to discover it was her husband's after all.

Poirot learns that Jack has fallen out of love with Marthe and in love with English stage performer Bella Duveen. Jack is released from prison when Bella Duveen confesses to the murder, falsely. Jack tells Poirot how the two arrived by chance simultaneously at the site of his father's death. Poirot realises that leaves only one person with a motive: Marthe Daubreuil. She overheard the Renaulds discussing the ruse, and she stabbed Renauld on the golf course after he had dug the grave. Poirot asks Mme Renauld to openly disinherit Jack so he will leave his mother alone in the house to give Marthe a chance to show her motives. Marthe dies trying to kill Mme Renauld, who is saved by Cinderella. Marthe's mother disappears again. Jack and his mother plan to go to South America, joined by Hastings and Dulcie Duveen—who is his Cinderella and Bella's twin sister.