III

Jane Olivera came running along the path. Her hair streamlined back behind her. Her eyes werewide with fear. She gasped¹: “Howard?”

Howard Raikes said lightly:

“Hallo, Jane. I’ve just been saving your uncle’s life.”

“Oh!” She stopped. “You have?”

“Your arrival certainly seems to have been very opportune², Mr.—er—” Blunt hesitated.

“This is Howard Raikes, Uncle Alistair. He’s a friend of mine.”

Blunt looked at Raikes—he smiled.

“Oh!” he said. “So you are Jane’s young man! I must thank you.”

With a puffing³ noise as of a steam engine at high pressure Julia Olivera appeared on the scene.

She panted out:

“I heard a shot. Is Alistair—Why—” She stared blankly at Howard Raikes. “You? Why, why,how dare you?”

Jane said in an icy voice:

“Howard has just saved Uncle Alistair’s life, mother.”

“What? I—I—”

“This man tried to shoot Uncle Alistair and Howard grabbed him and took the pistol away fromhim.”

Frank Carter said violently:

“You’re bloody⁴ liars⁵, all of you.”

Mrs. Olivera, her jaw⁶ dropping, said blankly:

“Oh!” It took her a minute or two to readjust her poise⁷. She turned first to Blunt.

“My dear Alistair! How awful! Thank God you’re safe. But it must have been a frightful⁸ shock.

I—I feel quite faint myself. I wonder—do you think I could have just a little brandy?”

Blunt said quickly:

“Of course. Come back to the house.”

She took his arm, leaning on it heavily.

Blunt looked over his shoulder at Poirot and Howard Raikes.

“Can you bring that fellow along?” he asked. “We’ll ring up the police and hand him over.”

Frank Carter opened his mouth, but no words came. He was dead white, and his knees werewilting. Howard Raikes hauled him along with an unsympathetic hand.

“Come on, you,” he said.

Frank Carter murmured hoarsely⁹ and unconvincingly:

“It’s all a lie….”

Howard Raikes looked at Poirot.

“You’ve got precious little to say for yourself for a high-toned sleuth! Why don’t you throwyour weight about a bit?”

“I am reflecting, Mr. Raikes.”

“I guess you’ll need to reflect! I should say you’ll lose your job over this! It isn’t thanks to youthat Alistair Blunt is still alive at this minute.”

“This is your second good deed of the kind, is it not, Mr. Raikes?”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“It was only yesterday, was it not, that you caught and held the man whom you believed to haveshot at Mr. Blunt and the Prime Minister?”

Howard Raikes said:

“Er—yes. I seem to be making a kind of habit of it.”

“But there is a difference,” Hercule Poirot pointed¹⁰ out. “Yesterday, the man you caught and heldwas not the man who fired the shot in question. You made a mistake.”

Frank Carter said sullenly¹¹:

“He’s made a mistake now.”

“Quiet, you,” said Raikes.

Hercule Poirot murmured to himself:

“I wonder….”

 

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