Scarlet Runner Roadhouse

Scarlet Runner Roadhouse matters to the investigation as a place linked to Franklin Clarke’s movements on the evening Betty Barnard was killed. A witness’s identification there helps turn the road-house visit into evidence against him.

Role in the Investigation

During Hercule Poirot’s final account of the evidence, he says that Franklin Clarke was identified at Bexhill by Milly Higley and a girl from Scarlet Runner Roadhouse. The girl’s connection to the location makes the visit more than an incidental detail: she could identify Clarke in relation to the evening’s events.

Connection to Betty Barnard’s Murder

Poirot specifies that Clarke took Betty Barnard to dine at the road-house on the fatal evening. The meal places the two together before her murder and helps establish a link between Clarke and the Bexhill crime. In the confrontation, this identification is one element in a cumulative case that also includes the weighted stick, witnesses who placed Clarke away from the Doncaster race-course, and his fingerprint on Alexander Bonaparte Cust’s typewriter.