I
At eleven o’clock, Hercule Poirot called an informal meeting in the library. Everyone was there and Poirot looked thoughtfully round the semicircle of faces.
“Last night,” he said, “Mrs. Shane announced to you that I was a private detective. For myself, I hoped to retain my—camouflage, shall we say?—a little longer. But no matter! Today—or at most the day after—I would have told you the truth. Please listen carefully now to what I have to say.
“I am in my own line a celebrated person—I may say a most celebrated person. My gifts, in fact, are unequalled!”
George Crossfield grinned and said:
“That’s the stuff, M. Pont—no, it’s M. Poirot, isn’t it? Funny, isn’t it, that I’ve never even heard of you?”
“It is not funny,” said Poirot severely. “It is lamentable! Alas, there is no proper education nowadays. Apparently one learns nothing but economics—and how to sit Intelligence Tests! But to continue. I have been a friend for many years of Mr. Entwhistle’s—”
“So he’s the fly in the ointment!”
“If you like to put it that way, Mr. Crossfield! Mr. Entwhistle was greatly upset by the death of his old friend, Mr. Richard Abernethie. He was particularly perturbed by some words spoken on the day of the funeral by Mr. Abernethie’s sister, Mrs. Lansquenet. Words spoken in this very room.”
“Very silly—and just like Cora,” said Maude. “Mr. Entwhistle should have had more sense than to pay attention to them!”
Poirot went on:
“Mr. Entwhistle was even more perturbed after the—the coincidence, shall I say?—of Mrs. Lansquenet’s death. He wanted one thing only—to be assured that that death was a coincidence. In other words he wanted to feel assured that Richard Abernethie had died a natural death. To that end he commissioned me to make the necessary investigations.”
There was a pause.
“I have made them….”
Again there was a pause. No one spoke.
Poirot threw back his head.
“Eh bien, you will all be delighted to hear that as a result of my investigations—there is absolutely no reason to believe that Mr. Abernethie died anything but a natural death. There is no reason at all to believe that he was murdered!” He smiled. He threw out his hands in a triumphant gesture.
“That is good news, is it not?”
It hardly seemed to be, by the way they took it. They stared at him and in all but the eyes of one person there still seemed to be doubt and suspicion.
The exception was Timothy Abernethie, who was nodding his head in violent agreement.
“Of course Richard wasn’t murdered,” he said angrily. “Never could understand why anybody ever even thought of such a thing for a moment! Just Cora up to her tricks, that was all. Wanting to give you all a scare. Her idea of being funny. Truth is that although she was my own sister, she was always a bit mental, poor girl. Well, Mr. whatever your name is, I’m glad you’ve had the sense to come to the right conclusion, though if you ask me, I call it damned cheek of Entwhistle to go commissioning you to come prying and poking about. And if he thinks he’s going to charge the estate with your fee, I can tell you he won’t get away with it! Damned cheek, and most uncalled for! Who’s Entwhistle to set himself up? If the family’s satisfied—”
“But the family wasn’t, Uncle Timothy,” said Rosamund.
“Hey—what’s that?”
Timothy peered at her under beetling brows of displeasure.
“We weren’t satisfied. And what about Aunt Helen this morning?”
Maude said sharply:
“Helen’s just the age when you’re liable to get a stroke. That’s all there is to that.”
“I see,” said Rosamund. “Another coincidence, you think?”
She looked at Poirot.
“Aren’t there rather too many coincidences?”
“Coincidences,” said Hercule Poirot, “do happen.”
“Nonsense,” said Maude. “Helen felt ill, came down and rang up the doctor, and then—”
“But she didn’t ring up the doctor,” said Rosamund. “I asked him—”
Susan said sharply:
“Who did she ring up?”
“I don’t know,” said Rosamund, a shade of vexation passing over her face. “But I dare say I can find out,” she added hopefully.
II
Hercule Poirot was sitting in the Victorian summerhouse. He drew his large watch from his pocket and laid it on the table in front of him.
He had announced that he was leaving by the twelve o’clock train. There was still half an hour to go. Half an hour for someone to make up their mind and come to him. Perhaps more than one person….
The summerhouse was clearly visible from most of the windows of the house. Surely, soon, someone would come?
If not, his knowledge of human nature was deficient, and his main premises incorrect.
He waited—and above his head a spider in its web waited for a fly.
It was Miss Gilchrist who came first. She was flustered and upset and rather incoherent.
“Oh, Mr. Pontarlier—I can’t remember your other name,” she said. “I had to come and speak to you although I don’t like doing it—but really I feel I ought to. I mean, after what happened to poor Mrs. Leo this morning—and I think myself Mrs. Shane was quite right—and not coincidence, and certainly not a stroke—as Mrs. Timothy suggested, because my own father had a stroke and it was quite a different appearance, and anyway the doctor said concussion quite clearly!”
She paused, took breath and looked at Poirot with appealing eyes.
“Yes,” said Poirot gently and encouragingly. “You want to tell me something?”
“As I say, I don’t like doing it—because she’s been so kind. She found me the position with Mrs. Timothy and everything. She’s been really very kind. That’s why I feel so ungrateful. And even gave me Mrs. Lansquenet’s musquash jacket which is really most handsome and fits beautifully because it never matters if fur is a little on the large side. And when I wanted to return her amethyst brooch she wouldn’t hear of it—”
“You are referring,” said Poirot gently, “to Mrs. Banks?”
“Yes, you see—” Miss Gilchrist looked down, twisting her fingers unhappily. She looked up and said with a sudden gulp:
“You see, I listened!”
“You mean you happened to overhear a conversation—”
“No.” Miss Gilchrist shook her head with an air of heroic determination. “I’d rather speak the truth. And it’s not so bad telling you because you’re not English.”
Hercule Poirot understood her without taking offence.
“You mean that to a foreigner it is natural that people should listen at doors and open letters, or read letters that are left about?”
“Oh, I’d never open anybody else’s letters,” said Miss Gilchrist in a shocked tone. “Not that. But I did listen that day—the day that Mr. Richard Abernethie came down to see his sister. I was curious, you know, about his turning up suddenly after all those years. And I did wonder why—and—and—you see when you haven’t much life of your own or very many friends, you do tend to get interested—when you’re living with anybody, I mean.”
“Most natural,” said Poirot.
“Yes, I do think it was natural… Though not, of course, at all right. But I did it! And I heard what he said!”
“You heard what Mr. Abernethie said to Mrs. Lansquenet?”
“Yes. He said something like—‘It’s no good talking to Timothy. He pooh-poohs everything. Simply won’t listen. But I thought I’d like to get it off my chest to you, Cora. We three are the only ones left. And though you’ve always liked to play the simpleton you’ve got a lot of common sense. So what would you do about it, if you were me?’
“I couldn’t quite hear what Mrs. Lansquenet said, but I caught the word police—and then Mr. Abernethie burst out quite loud, and said, ‘I can’t do that. Not when it’s a question of my own niece.’ And then I had to run in the kitchen for something boiling over and when I got back Mr. Abernethie was saying, ‘Even if I die an unnatural death I don’t want the police called in, if it can possibly be avoided. You understand that, don’t you, my dear girl? But don’t worry. Now that I know, I shall take all possible precautions.’ And he went on, saying he’d made a new will, and that she, Cora, would be quite all right. And then he said about her having been happy with her husband and how perhaps he’d made a mistake over that in the past.”
Miss Gilchrist stopped.
“Poirot said: “I see—I see….”
“But I never wanted to say—to tell. I didn’t think Mrs. Lansquenet would have wanted me to… But now—after Mrs. Leo being attacked this morning—and then you saying so calmly it was coincidence. But, oh, M. Pontarlier, it wasn’t coincidence!”
Poirot smiled. He said:
“No, it wasn’t coincidence… Thank you, Miss Gilchrist, for coming to me. It was very necessary that you should.”
III
He had a little difficulty in getting rid of Miss Gilchrist, and it was urgent that he should, for he hoped for further confidences.
His instinct was right. Miss Gilchrist had hardly gone before Gregory Banks, striding across the lawn, came impetuously into the summerhouse. His face was pale and there were beads of perspiration on his forehead. His eyes were curiously excited.
“At last!” he said. “I thought that stupid woman would never go. You’re all wrong in what you said this morning. You’re wrong about everything. Richard Abernethie was killed. I killed him.”
Hercule Poirot let his eyes move up and down over the excited young man. He showed no surprise.
“So you killed him, did you? How?”
Gregory Banks smiled.
“It wasn’t difficult for me. You can surely realize that. There were fifteen or twenty different drugs I could lay my hands on that would do it. The method of administration took rather more thinking out, but I hit on a very ingenious idea in the end. The beauty of it was that I didn’t need to be anywhere near at the time.”
“Clever,” said Poirot.
“Yes.” Gregory Banks cast his eyes down modestly. He seemed pleased. “Yes— I do think it was ingenious.”
Poirot asked with interest:
“Why did you kill him? For the money that would come to your wife?”
“No. No, of course not.” Greg was suddenly excitedly indignant. “I’m not a money grubber. I didn’t marry Susan for her money!”
“Didn’t you, Mr. Banks?”
“That’s what he thought,” Greg said with sudden venom. “Richard Abernethie! He liked Susan, he admired her, he was proud of her as an example of Abernethie blood! But he thought she’d married beneath her—he thought I was no good—he despised me! I dare say I hadn’t the right accent—I didn’t wear my clothes the right way. He was a snob—a filthy snob!”
“I don’t think so,” said Poirot mildly. “From all I have heard, Richard Abernethie was no snob.”
“He was. He was.” The young man spoke with something approaching hysteria. “He thought nothing of me. He sneered at me—always very polite but underneath I could see that he didn’t like me!”
“Possibly.”
“People can’t treat me like that and get away with it! They’ve tried it before! A woman who used to come and have her medicines made up. She was rude to me. Do you know what I did?”
“Yes,” said Poirot.
Gregory looked startled.
“So you know that?”
“Yes.”
“She nearly died.” He spoked in a satisfied manner. “That shows you I’m not the sort of person to be trifled with! Richard Abernethie despised me—and what happened to him? He died.”
“A most successful murder,” said Poirot with grave congratulation.
He added: “But why come and give yourself away—to me?”
“Because you said you were through with it all! You said he hadn’t been murdered. I had to show you that you’re not as clever as you think you are—and besides—besides—”
“Yes,” said Poirot. “And besides?”
Greg collapsed suddenly on the bench. His face changed. It took on a sudden ecstatic quality.
“It was wrong—wicked… I must be punished… I must go back there—to the place of punishment…to atone… Yes, to atone! Repentance! Retribution!”
His face was alight now with a kind of glowing ecstasy. Poirot studied him for a moment or two curiously.
Then he asked:
“How badly do you want to get away from your wife?”
Gregory’s face changed.
“Susan? Susan is wonderful—wonderful!”
“Yes. Susan is wonderful. That is a grave burden. Susan loves you devotedly. That is a burden, too?”
Gregory sat looking in front of him. Then he said, rather in the manner of a sulky child:
“Why couldn’t she let me alone?”
He sprang up.
“She’s coming now—across the lawn. I’ll go now. But you’ll tell her what I told you? Tell her I’ve gone to the police station. To confess.”
IV
Susan came in breathlessly.
“Where’s Greg? He was here! I saw him.”
“Yes.” Poirot paused a moment—before saying: “He came to tell me that it was he who poisoned Richard Abernethie….”
“What absolute nonsense! You didn’t believe him, I hope?”
“Why should I not believe him?”
“He wasn’t even near this place when Uncle Richard died!”
“Perhaps not. Where was he when Cora Lansquenet died?”
“In London. We both were.”
Hercule Poirot shook his head.
“No, no, that will not do. You, for instance, took out your car that day and were away all the afternoon. I think I know where you went. You went to Lytchett St. Mary.”
“I did no such thing!”
Poirot smiled.
“When I met you here, Madame, it was not, as I told you, the first time I had seen you. After the inquest on Mrs. Lansquenet you were in the garage of the King’s Arms. You talk there to a mechanic and close by you is a car containing an elderly foreign gentleman. You did not notice him, but he noticed you.”
“I don’t see what you mean. That was the day of the inquest.”
“Ah, but remember what that mechanic said to you! He asked you if you were a relative of the victim, and you said you were her niece.”
“He was just being a ghoul. They’re all ghouls.”
“And his next words were, ‘Ah, wondered where I’d seen you before.’ Where did he see you before, Madame? It must have been in Lytchett St. Mary, since in his mind his seeing you before was accounted for by your being Mrs. Lansquenet’s niece. Had he seen you near her cottage? And when? It was a matter, was it not, that demands inquiry. And the result of the inquiry is, that you were there—in Lytchett St. Mary—on the afternoon Cora Lansquenet died. You parked your car in the same quarry where you left it the morning of the inquest. The car was seen and the number was noted. By this time Inspector Morton knows whose car it was.”
Susan stared at him. Her breath came rather fast, but she showed no signs of discomposure.
“You’re talking nonsense, M. Poirot. And you’re making me forget what I came here to say—I wanted to try and find you alone—”
“To confess to me it was you and not your husband who committed the murder?”
“No, of course not. What kind of a fool do you think I am? And I’ve already told you that Gregory never left London that day.”
“A fact which you cannot possibly know since you were away yourself. Why did you go down to Lytchett St. Mary, Mrs. Banks?”
Susan drew a deep breath.
“All right, if you must have it! What Cora said at the funeral worried me. I kept on thinking about it. Finally I decided to run down in the car and see her, and ask her what had put the idea into her head. Greg thought it a silly idea, so I didn’t even tell him where I was going. I got there about three o’clock, knocked and rang, but there was no answer, so I thought she must be out or gone away. That’s all there is to it. I didn’t go round to the back of the cottage. If I had, I might have seen the broken window. I just went back to London without the faintest idea there was anything wrong.”
Poirot’s face was noncommittal. He said:
“Why does your husband accuse himself of the crime?”
“Because he’s—” a word trembled on Susan’s tongue and was rejected. Poirot seized on it.
“You were going to say ‘because he is batty’ speaking in jest—but the jest was too near the truth, was it not?”
“Greg’s all right. He is. He is.”
“I know something of his history,” said Poirot. “He was for some months in Forsdyke House Mental Home before you met him.”
“He was never certified. He was a voluntary patient.”
“That is true. He is not, I agree, to be classed as insane. But he is, very definitely, unbalanced. He has a punishment complex—has had it, I suspect, since infancy.”
Susan spoke quickly and eagerly:
“You don’t understand, M. Poirot. Greg has never had a chance. That’s why I wanted Uncle Richard’s money so badly. Uncle Richard was so matter-of-fact. He couldn’t understand. I knew Greg had got to set up for himself. He had got to feel he was someone—not just a chemist’s assistant, being pushed around. Everything will be different now. He will have his own laboratory. He can work out his own formulas.”
“Yes, yes—you will give him the earth—because you love him. Love him too much for safety or for happiness. But you cannot give to people what they are incapable of receiving. At the end of it all, he will still be something that he does not want to be….”
“What’s that?”
“Susan’s husband.”
“How cruel you are! And what nonsense you talk!”
“Where Gregory Banks is concerned you are unscrupulous. You wanted your uncle’s money—not for yourself—but for your husband. How badly did you want it?”
Angrily, Susan turned and dashed away.
V
“I thought,” said Michael Shane lightly, “that I’d just come along and say good-bye.”
He smiled, and his smile had a singularly intoxicating quality.
Poirot was aware of the man’s vital charm.
He studied Michael Shane for some moments in silence. He felt as though he knew this man least well of all the house party, for Michael Shane only showed the side of himself that he wanted to show.
“Your wife,” said Poirot conversationally, “is a very unusual woman.”
Michael raised his eyebrows.
“Do you think so? She’s a lovely, I agree. But not, or so I’ve found, conspicuous for brains.”
“She will never try to be too clever,” Poirot agreed. “But she knows what she wants.” He sighed. “So few people do.”
“Ah!” Michael’s smile broke out again. “Thinking of the malachite table?”
“Perhaps.” Poirot paused and added: “And of what was on it.”
“The wax flowers, you mean?”
“The wax flowers.”
Michael frowned.
“I don’t always quite understand you, M. Poirot. However,” the smile was switched on again, “I’m more thankful than I can say that we’re all out of the wood. It’s unpleasant, to say the least of it, to go around with the suspicion that somehow or other one of us murdered poor old Uncle Richard.”
“That is how he seemed to you when you met him?” Poirot inquired. “Poor old Uncle Richard?”
“Of course he was very well-preserved and all that—”
“And in full possession of his faculties—”
“Oh yes.”
“And, in fact, quite shrewd?”
“I dare say.”
“A shrewd judge of character.”
The smile remained unaltered.
“You can’t expect me to agree with that, M. Poirot. He didn’t approve of me.”
“He thought you, perhaps, the unfaithful type?” Poirot suggested.
Michael laughed.
“What an old-fashioned idea!”
“But it is true, isn’t it?”
“Now I wonder what you mean by that?”
Poirot placed the tips of his fingers together.
“There have been inquiries made, you know,” he murmured.
“By you?”
“Not only by me.”
Michael Shane gave him a quick searching glance. His reactions, Poirot noted, were quick. Michael Shane was no fool.
“You mean—the police are interested?”
“They have never been quite satisfied, you know, to regard the murder of Cora Lansquenet as a casual crime.”
“And they’ve been making inquiries about me?”
Poirot said primly:
“They are interested in the movements of Mrs. Lansquenet’s relations on the day that she was killed.”
“That’s extremely awkward.” Michael spoke with a charming confidential rueful air.
“Is it, Mr. Shane?”
“More so than you can imagine! I told Rosamund, you see, that I was lunching with a certain Oscar Lewis on that day.”
“When, in actual fact, you were not?”
“No. Actually I motored down to see a woman called Sorrel Dainton—quite a well-known actress. I was with her in her last show. Rather awkward, you see—for though it’s quite satisfactory as far as the police are concerned, it won’t go down very well with Rosamund.”
“Ah!” Poirot looked discreet. “There has been a little trouble over this friendship of yours?”
“Yes… In fact—Rosamund made me promise I wouldn’t see her anymore.”
“Yes, I can see that may be awkward… Entre nous, you had an affair with the lady?”
“Oh, just one of those things! It’s not as though I cared for the woman at all.”
“But she cares for you?”
“Well, she’s been rather tiresome… Women do cling so. However, as you say, the police at any rate will be satisfied.”
“You think so?”
“Well, I could hardly be taking a hatchet to Cora if I was dallying with Sorrel miles and miles away. She’s got a cottage in Kent.”
“I see—I see—and this Miss Dainton, she will testify for you?”
“She won’t like it—but as it’s murder, I suppose she’ll have to do it.”
“She will do it, perhaps, even if you were not dallying with her.”
“What do you mean?” Michael looked suddenly black as thunder.
“The lady is fond of you. When they are fond, women will swear to what is true—and also to what is untrue.”
“Do you mean to say that you don’t believe me?”
“It does not matter if I believe you or not. It is not I you have to satisfy.”
“Who then?”
Poirot smiled.
“Inspector Morton—who has just come out on the terrace through the side door.”
Michael Shane wheeled round sharply.
Chapter Twenty-two