“So it’s you, you ruddy little foreigner? What do you want?”
“I want to see you and talk to you.”
“Well, you see me all right. But I won’t talk. Not without my lawyer. That’s right, isn’t it? You can’t go against that. I’ve got the right to have my solicitor present before I say a word.”
“Certainly you have. You can send for him if you like—but I should prefer that you did not.”
“I daresay. Think you’re going to trap me into making some damaging admissions, eh?”
“We are quite alone, remember.”
“That’s a bit unusual, isn’t it? Got your police pals listening in, no doubt.”
“You are wrong. This is a private interview between you and me.”
Frank Carter laughed. He looked cunning and unpleasant. He said:
“Come off it! You don’t take me in with that old gag.”
“Do you remember a girl called Agnes Fletcher?”
“Never heard of her.”
“I think you will remember her, though you may never have taken much notice of her. She was house-parlourmaid at 58, Queen Charlotte Street.”
“Well, what of it?”
Hercule Poirot said slowly:
“On the morning of the day that Mr. Morley was shot, this girl Agnes happened to look over the banisters from the top floor. She saw you on the stairs—waiting and listening. Presently she saw you go along to Mr. Morley’s room. The time was then twenty-six minutes or thereabouts past twelve.”
Frank Carter trembled violently. Sweat came out on his brow. His eyes, more furtive than ever, went wildly from side to side. He shouted angrily:
“It’s a lie! It’s a damned lie! You’ve paid her—the police have paid her—to say she saw me.”
“At that time,” said Hercule Poirot, “by your own account, you had left the house and were walking in the Marylebone Road.”
“So I was. That girl’s lying. She couldn’t have seen me. It’s a dirty plot. If it’s true, why didn’t she say so before?”
Hercule Poirot said quietly:
“She did mention it at the time to her friend and colleague the cook. They were worried and puzzled and didn’t know what to do. When a verdict of suicide was brought in they were much relieved and decided that it wasn’t necessary for them to say anything.”
“I don’t believe a word of it! They’re in it together, that’s all. A couple of dirty, lying little …”
He tailed off into furious profanity.
Hercule Poirot waited.
When Carter’s voice at last ceased, Poirot spoke again, still in the same calm, measured voice.
“Anger and foolish abuse will not help you. These girls are going to tell their story and it is going to be believed. Because, you see, they are telling the truth. The girl, Agnes Fletcher, did see you. You were there, on the stairs, at that time. You had not left the house. And you did go into Mr. Morley’s room.”
He paused and then asked quietly:
“What happened then?”
“It’s a lie, I tell you!”
Hercule Poirot felt very tired—very old. He did not like Frank Carter. He disliked him very much. In his opinion Frank Carter was a bully, a liar, a swindler—altogether the type of young man the world could well do without. He, Hercule Poirot, had only to stand back and let this young man persist in his lies and the world would be rid of one of its more unpleasant inhabitants….
Hercule Poirot said:
“I suggest you tell me the truth….”
He realized the issue very clearly. Frank Carter was stupid—but he wasn’t so stupid as not to see that to persist in his denial was his best and safest course. Let him once admit that he had gone into that room at twenty-six minutes past twelve and he was taking a step into grave danger. For after that, any story he told would have a good chance of being considered a lie.
Let him persist in his denial, then. If so, Hercule Poirot’s duty would be over. Frank Carter would in all probability be hanged for the murder of Henry Morley—and it might be, justly hanged.
Hercule Poirot had only to get up and go.
Frank Carter said again:
“It’s a lie!”
There was a pause. Hercule Poirot did not get up and go. He would have liked to do so—very much. Nevertheless, he remained.
He leaned forward. He said—and his voice held all the compelling power of his powerful personality—
“I am not lying to you. I ask you to believe me. If you did not kill Morley your only hope is to tell me the exact truth of what happened that morning.”
The mean, treacherous face looking at him wavered, became uncertain. Frank Carter pulled at his lip. His eyes went from side to side, terrified, frankly animal eyes.
It was touch and go now….
Then suddenly, overborne by the strength of the personality confronting him, Frank Carter surrendered.
He said hoarsely:
“All right then—I’ll tell you. God curse you if you let me down now! I did go in … I went up the stairs and waited till I could be sure of getting him alone. Waited there, up above Morley’s landing. Then a gent came out and went down—fat gent. I was just making up my mind to go—when another gent came out of Morley’s room and went down too. I knew I’d got to be quick. I went along and nipped into his room without knocking. I was all set to have it out with him. Mucking about, putting my girl against me—damn him—”
He stopped.
“Yes?” said Hercule Poirot: and his voice was still urgent—compelling—
Carter’s voice croaked uncertainly.
“And he was lying there—dead. It’s true! I swear it’s true! Lying just as they said at the inquest. I couldn’t believe it at first. I stooped over him. But he was dead all right. His hand was stone cold and I saw the bullet hole in his head with a hard black crust of blood round it….”
At the memory of it, sweat broke out on his forehead again.
“I saw then I was in a jam. They’d go and say I’d done it. I hadn’t touched anything except his hand and the door handle. I wiped that with my handkerchief, both sides, as I went out, and I stole downstairs as quickly as I could. There was nobody in the hall and I let myself out and legged it away as fast as I could. No wonder I felt queer.”
He paused. His scared eyes went to Poirot.
“That’s the truth. I swear that’s the truth … He was dead already. You’ve got to believe me!”
Poirot got up. He said—and his voice was tired and sad—“I believe you.”
He moved towards the door.
Frank Carter cried out:
“They’ll hang me—they’ll hang me for a cert if they know I was in there.”
Poirot said:
“By telling the truth you have saved yourself from being hanged.”
“I don’t see it. They’ll say—”
Poirot interrupted him.
“Your story has confirmed what I knew to be the truth. You can leave it now to me.”
He went out.
He was not at all happy.
IV
He reached Mr. Barnes’ House at Ealing at 6:45. He remembered that Mr. Barnes had called that a good time of day.
Mr. Barnes was at work in his garden.
He said by way of greeting:
“We need rain, M. Poirot—need it badly.”
He looked thoughtfully at his guest. He said:
“You don’t look very well, M. Poirot?”
“Sometimes,” said Hercule Poirot, “I do not like the things I have to do.”
Mr. Barnes nodded his head sympathetically.
He said:
“I know.”
Hercule Poirot looked vaguely round at the neat arrangement of the small beds. He murmured:
“It is well-planned, this garden. Everything is to scale. It is small but exact.”
Mr. Barnes said:
“When you have only a small place you’ve got to make the most of it. Yo
u can’t afford to make mistakes in the planning.”
Hercule Poirot nodded.
Barnes went on:
“I see you’ve got your man?”
“Frank Carter?”
“Yes. I’m rather surprised, really.”
“You did not think that it was, so to speak, a private murder?”
“No. Frankly I didn’t. What with Amberiotis and Alistair Blunt—I made sure that it was one of these Espionage or Counter-Espionage mix-ups.”
“That is the view you expounded to me at our first meeting.”
“I know. I was quite sure of it at the time.”
Poirot said slowly:
“But you were wrong.”
“Yes. Don’t rub it in. The trouble is, one goes by one’s own experience. I’ve been mixed-up in that sort of thing so much I suppose I’m inclined to see it everywhere.”
Poirot said:
“You have observed in your time a conjurer offer a card, have you not? What is called—forcing a card?”
“Yes, of course.”
“That is what was done here. Every time that one thinks of a private reason for Morley’s death, hey presto—the card is forced on one. Amberiotis, Alistair Blunt, the unsettled state of politics—of the country—” He shrugged his shoulders. “As for you, Mr. Barnes, you did more to mislead me than anybody.”
“Oh, I say, Poirot, I’m sorry. I suppose that’s true.”
“You were in a position to know, you see. So your words carried weight.”
“Well—I believed what I said. That’s the only apology I can make.”
He paused and sighed.
“And all the time, it was a purely private motive?”
“Exactly. It has taken me a long time to see the reason for the murder—although I had one very definite piece of luck.”
“What was that?”
“A fragment of conversation. Really a very illuminating fragment if only I had had the sense to realize its significance at the time.”
Mr. Barnes scratched his nose thoughtfully with the trowel. A small piece of earth adhered to the side of his nose.
“Being rather cryptic, aren’t you?” he asked genially.
Hercule Poirot shrugged his shoulders. He said:
“I am, perhaps, aggrieved that you were not more frank with me.”
“I?”
“Yes.”
“My dear fellow—I never had the least idea of Carter’s guilt. As far as I knew, he’d left the house long before Morley was killed. I suppose now they’ve found he didn’t leave when he said he did?”
Poirot said:
“Carter was in the house at twenty-six minutes past twelve. He actually saw the murderer.”
“Then Carter didn’t—”
“Carter saw the murderer, I tell you!”
Mr. Barnes said:
“Did he recognize him?”
Slowly Hercule Poirot shook his head.
SEVENTEEN, EIGHTEEN, MAIDS IN WAITING
I
On the following day Hercule Poirot spent some hours with a theatrical agent of his acquaintance. In the afternoon he went to Oxford. On the day after that he drove down to the country—it was late when he returned.
He had telephoned before he left to make an appointment with Mr. Alistair Blunt for that same evening.
It was half past nine when he reached the Gothic House.
Alistair Blunt was alone in his library when Poirot was shown in.
He looked an eager question at his visitor as he shook hands.
He said:
“Well?”
Slowly, Hercule Poirot nodded his head.
Blunt looked at him in almost incredulous appreciation.
“Have you found her?”
“Yes. Yes, I have found her.”
He sat down. And he sighed.
Alistair Blunt said:
“You are tired?”
“Yes. I am tired. And it is not pretty—what I have to tell you.”
Blunt said:
“Is she dead?”
“That depends,” said Hercule Poirot slowly, “on how you like to look at it.”
Blunt frowned.
He said:
“My dear man, a person must be dead or alive. Miss Sainsbury Seale must be one or the other!”
“Ah, but who is Miss Sainsbury Seale?”
Alistair Blunt said:
“You don’t mean that—that there isn’t any such person?”
“Oh no, no. There was such a person. She lived in Calcutta. She taught elocution. She busied herself with good works. She came to England in the Maharanah—the same boat in which Mr. Amberiotis travelled. Although they were not in the same class, he helped her over something—some fuss about her luggage. He was, it would seem, a kindly man in little ways. And sometimes, M. Blunt, kindness is repaid in an unexpected fashion. It was so, you know, with M. Amberiotis. He chanced to meet the lady again in the streets of London. He was feeling expansive, he good-naturedly invited her to lunch with him at the Savoy. An unexpected treat for her. And an unexpected windfall for M. Amberiotis! For his kindness was not premeditated—he had no idea that this faded, middle-aged lady was going to present him with the equivalent of a gold mine. But nevertheless, that is what she did, though she never suspected the fact herself.
“She was never, you see, of the first order of intelligence. A good, well-meaning soul, but the brain, I should say, of a hen.”
Blunt said:
“Then it wasn’t she who killed the Chapman woman?”
Poirot said slowly:
“It is difficult to know just how to present the matter. I shall begin, I think, where the matter began for me. With a shoe!”
Blunt said blankly:
“With a shoe?”
Hercule Poirot nodded.
“Yes, a buckled shoe. I came out from my séance at the dentist’s and as I stood on the steps of 58, Queen Charlotte Street, a taxi stopped outside, the door opened and a woman’s foot prepared to descend. I am a man who notices a woman’s foot and ankle. It was a well-shaped foot, with a good ankle and an expensive stocking, but I did not like the shoe. It was a new, shining patent leather shoe with a large ornate buckle. Not chic—not at all chic!
“And whilst I was observing this, the rest of the lady came into sight—and frankly it was a disappointment—a middle-aged lady without charm and badly dressed.”
“Miss Sainsbury Seale?”
“Precisely. As she descended a contretemps occurred—she caught the buckle of her shoe in the door and it was wrenched off. I picked it up and returned it to her. That was all. The incident was closed.
“Later, on that same day, I went with Chief Inspector Japp to interview the lady. (She had not as yet sewn on the buckle, by the way.)
“On that same evening, Miss Sainsbury Seale walked out of her hotel and vanished. That, shall we say, is the end of Part One.
“Part Two began when Chief Inspector Japp summoned me to King Leopold Mansions. There was a fur chest in a flat there, and in that fur chest there had been found a body. I went into the room, I walked up to the chest—and the first thing I saw was a shabby buckled shoe!”
“Well?”
“You have not appreciated the point. It was a shabby shoe—a well-worn shoe. But you see, Miss Sainsbury Seale had come to King Leopold Mansions on the evening of that same day—the day of Mr. Morley’s murder. In the morning the shoes were new shoes—in the evening they were old shoes. One does not wear out a pair of shoes in a day, you comprehend.”
Alistair Blunt said without much interest:
“She could have two pairs of shoes, I suppose?”
“Ah, but that was not so. For Japp and I had gone up to her room at the Glengowrie Court and had looked at all her possessions—and there was no pair of buckled shoes there. She might have had an old pair of shoes, yes. She might have changed into them after a tiring day to go out in the evening, yes? But if so, the other pair would have been at the ho
tel. It was curious, you will admit?”
“I can’t see that it is important.”
“No, not important. Not at all important. But one does not like things that one cannot explain. I stood by the fur chest and I looked at the shoe—the buckle had recently been sewn on by hand. I will confess that I then had a moment of doubt—of myself. Yes, I said to myself, Hercule Poirot, you were a little light-headed perhaps this morning. You saw the world through rosy spectacles. Even the old shoes looked like new ones to you?”
“Perhaps that was the explanation?”
“But no, it was not. My eyes do not deceive me! To continue, I studied the dead body of this woman and I did not like what I saw. Why had the face been wantonly, deliberately smashed and rendered unrecognizable?”
Alistair Blunt moved restlessly. He said:
“Must we go over that again? We know—”
Hercule Poirot said firmly:
“It is necessary. I have to take you over the steps that led me at last to the truth. I said to myself: ‘Something is wrong here. Here is a dead woman in the clothes of Miss Sainsbury Seale (except, perhaps, the shoes?) and with the handbag of Miss Sainsbury Seale—but why is her face unrecognizable? Is it, perhaps, because the face is not the face of Miss Sainsbury Seale?’ And immediately I begin to put together what I have heard of the appearance of the other woman—the woman to whom the flat belongs, and I ask myself—Might it not perhaps be this other woman who lies dead here? I go then and look at the other woman’s bedroom. I try to picture to myself what sort of woman she is. In superficial appearance, very different to the other. Smart, showily dressed, very much made up. But in essentials, not unlike. Hair, build, age … But there is one difference. Mrs. Albert Chapman took a five in shoes. Miss Sainsbury Seale, I knew, took a 10-inch stocking—that is to say she would take at least a 6 in shoes. Mrs. Chapman, then, had smaller feet than Miss Sainsbury Seale. I went back to the body. If my half-formed idea was right, and the body was that of Mrs. Chapman wearing Miss Sainsbury Seale’s clothes, then the shoes should be too big. I took hold of one. But it was not loose. It fitted tightly. That looked as though it were the body of Miss Sainsbury Seale after all! But in that case, why was the face disfigured? Her identity was already proved by the handbag, which could easily have been removed, but which had not been removed.