空幻之屋38

II

That afternoon, Poirot received his third visitor.

He had been visited by Henrietta Savernake and Veronica Cray. This time it was Lady

Angkatell. She came floating up the path with her usual appearance of insubstantiality.

He opened the door and she stood smiling at him.

“I have come to see you,” she announced.

So might a fairy confer a favour on a mere¹ mortal.

“I am enchanted², Madame.”

He led the way into the sitting room. She sat down on the sofa and once more she smiled.

Hercule Poirot thought: “She is old—her hair is grey—there are lines in her face. Yet she has

magic—she will always have magic….”

Lady Angkatell said softly:

“I want you to do something for me.”

“Yes, Lady Angkatell?”

“To begin with, I must talk to you—about John Christow.”

“About Dr. Christow?”

“Yes. It seems to me that the only thing to do is to put a full stop to the whole thing. You

understand what I mean, don’t you?”

“I am not sure that I do know what you mean, Lady Angkatell.”

She gave him her lovely dazzling smile again and she put one long white hand on his sleeve.

“Dear M. Poirot, you know perfectly³. The police will have to hunt about for the owner of those

fingerprints⁴ and they won’t find him, and they’ll have, in the end, to let the whole thing drop. But

I’m afraid, you know, that you won’t let it drop.”

“No, I shall not let it drop,” said Hercule Poirot.

“That is just what I thought. And that is why I came. It’s the truth you want, isn’t it?”

“Certainly I want the truth.”

“I see I haven’t explained myself very well. I’m trying to find out just why you won’t let things

drop. It isn’t because of your prestige — or because you want to hang a murderer (such an

unpleasant kind of death, I’ve always thought—so mediæval). It’s just, I think, that you want to

know. You do see what I mean, don’t you? If you were to know the truth—if you were to be told

the truth, I think—I think perhaps that might satisfy you? Would it satisfy you, M. Poirot?”

“You are offering to tell me the truth, Lady Angkatell?”

She nodded.

“You yourself know the truth, then?”

Her eyes opened very wide.

“Oh, yes, I’ve known for a long time. I’d like to tell you. And then we could agree that—well,

that it was all over and done with.”

She smiled at him.

“Is it a bargain, M. Poirot?”

It was quite an effort for Hercule Poirot to say:

“No, Madame, it is not a bargain.”

He wanted—he wanted, very badly, to let the whole thing drop, simply because Lady Angkatell

asked him to do so.

Lady Angkatell sat very still for a moment. Then she raised her eyebrows⁵.

“I wonder,” she said. “I wonder if you really know what you are doing.”

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