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Ten
It was past eight o’clock when Poirot got back to the Stag. He found a note from Frances Cloade
asking him to come and see her. He went out at once.
She was waiting for him in the drawing room. He had not seen that room before. The open
windows gave on a walled garden with pear trees in bloom. There were bowls of tulips on the
tables. The old furniture shone with beeswax and elbow grease and the brass of the fender and
coal scuttle were brightly gleaming.
It was, Poirot thought, a very beautiful room.
“You said I should want you, M. Poirot. You were quite right. There is something that must be
told—and I think you are the best person to tell it to.”
“It is always easier, Madame, to tell a thing to someone who already has a very good idea of
what it is.”
“You think you know what I am going to say?”
Poirot nodded.
“Since when—”
She left the question unfinished, but he replied promptly:
“Since the moment when I saw the photograph of your father. The features of your family are
very strongly marked. One could not doubt that you and he were of the same family. The
resemblance was equally strong in the man who came here calling himself Enoch Arden.”
She sighed—a deep unhappy sigh.
“Yes—yes, you’re right—although poor Charles had a beard. He was my second cousin, M.
Poirot, somewhat the black sheep of the family. I never knew him very well but we played
together as children—and now I’ve brought him to his death—an ugly sordid death—”
She was silent for a moment or two. Poirot said gently:
“You will tell me—”
She roused herself.
“Yes, the story has got to be told. We were desperate for money—that’s where it begins. My
husband—my husband was in serious trouble—the worst kind of trouble. Disgrace, perhaps
imprisonment lay ahead of him—still lies ahead of him for that matter. Now understand this, M.
Poirot, the plan I made and carried out was my plan; my husband had nothing to do with it. It
wasn’t his sort of plan in any case—it would have been far too risky. But I’ve never minded
taking risks. And I’ve always been, I suppose, rather unscrupulous. First of all, let me say, I
applied to Rosaleen Cloade for a loan. I don’t know whether, left to herself, she would have
given it to me or not. But her brother stepped in. He was in an ugly mood and he was, or so I
thought, unnecessarily insulting. When I thought of this scheme I had no scruples at all about
putting it into operation.
“To explain matters, I must tell you that my husband had repeated to me last year a rather
interesting piece of information which he had heard at his club. You were there, I believe, so I
needn’t repeat it in detail. But it opened up the possibility that Rosaleen’s first husband might
not be dead—and of course in that case she would have no right at all to any of Gordon’s money.
It was, of course, only a vague possibility, but it was there at the back of our minds, a sort of
outside chance that might possibly come true. And it flashed into my mind that something could
be done by using that possibility. Charles, my cousin, was in this country, down on his luck.
He’s been in prison, I’m afraid, and he wasn’t a scrupulous person, but he did well in the war.
I put the proposition before him. It was, of course, blackmail, neither more nor less. But we
thought that we had a good chance of getting away with it. At worst, I thought, David Hunter
would refuse to play. I didn’t think that he would go to the police about it—people like him
aren’t fond of the police.”
Her voice hardened.
“Our scheme went well. David fell for it better than we hoped. Charles, of course, could not
definitely pose as ‘Robert Underhay.’ Rosaleen could give that away in a moment. But
fortunately she went up to London and that left Charles a chance of at least suggesting that he
might be Robert Underhay. Well, as I say, David appeared to be falling for the scheme. He was to
bring the money on Tuesday evening at nine o’clock. Instead—”
Her voice faltered.
“We should have known that David was—a dangerous person. Charles is dead—murdered—
and but for me he would be alive. I sent him to his death.”
After a little she went on in a dry voice:
“You can imagine what I have felt like ever since.”
“Nevertheless,” said Poirot, “you were quick enough to see a further development of the
scheme? It was you who induced Major Porter to identify your cousin as ‘Robert
Underhay?’”
But at once she broke out vehemently:
“No, I swear to you, no. Not that! No one was more astonished… Astonished? We were
dumbfounded! when this Major Porter came down and gave evidence that Charles—Charles!—
was Robert Underhay. I couldn’t understand it—I still can’t understand it!”
“But someone went to Major Porter. Someone persuaded him or bribed him—to identify the
dead man as Underhay?”
Frances said decisively:
“It was not I. And it was not Jeremy. Neither of us would do such a thing. Oh, I dare say that
sounds absurd to you! You think that because I was ready to blackmail, that I would stoop just as
easily to fraud. But in my mind the two things are worlds apart. You must understand that I felt—
indeed I still feel—that we have a right to a portion of Gordon’s money. What I had failed to get
by fair means I was prepared to get by foul. But deliberately to swindle Rosaleen out of
everything, by manufacturing evidence that she was not Gordon’s wife at all—oh, no, indeed, M.
Poirot, I would not do a thing like that. Please, please, believe me.”
“I will at least admit,” said Poirot slowly, “that every one has their own particular sins. Yes,
I will believe that.”
Then he looked at her sharply.
“Do you know, Mrs. Cloade, that Major Porter shot himself this afternoon?”
She shrank back, her eyes wide and horrified.
“Oh, no, M. Poirot—no!”
“Yes, Madame. Major Porter, you see, was au fond an honest man. Financially he was in very
low water, and when temptation came he, like many other men, failed to resist it. It may have
seemed to him, he can have made himself feel, that his lie was almost morally justified. He was
already deeply prejudiced in his mind against the woman his friend Underhay had married. He
considered that she had treated his friend disgracefully. And now this heartless little gold digger
had married a millionaire and had got away with her second husband’s fortune to the detriment
of his own flesh and blood. It must have seemed tempting to him to put a spoke in her wheel—no
more than she deserved. And merely by identifying a dead man he himself would be made secure
for the future. When the Cloades got their rights, he would get his cut…Yes—I can see the
temptation… But like many men of his type he lacked imagination. He was unhappy, very
unhappy, at the inquest. One could see that. In the near future he would have to repeat his lie upon
oath. Not only that; a man was now arrested, charged with murder—and the identity of the dead
man supplied a very potent motive for that charge.
“He went back home and faced things squarely. He took the way out that seemed best to
him.”
“He shot himself?”
“Yes.”
Frances murmured: “He didn’t say who—who—”
Slowly Poirot shook his head.
“He had his code. There was no reference whatever as to who had instigated him to commit
perjury.”
He watched her closely. Was there an instant flash of relief, of relaxed tension? Yes, but that
might be natural enough in any case….
She got up and walked to the window. She said:
“So we are back where we were.”
Poirot wondered what was passing in her mind.
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