Twenty-six

“I really don’t see, M. Poirot, how ever you came to suspect Robin Upward.”

Poirot looked complacently at the faces turned towards him.

He always enjoyed explanations.

“I ought to have suspected him much sooner. The clue, such a simple clue, was the sentenceuttered by Mrs. Summerhayes at the cocktail party that day. She said to Robin Upward: ‘I don’tlike being adopted, do you?’ Those were the revealing two words. Do you? They meant—theycould only mean—that Mrs. Upward was not Robin’s own mother.

“Mrs. Upward was morbidly anxious herself that no one should know that Robin was not herown son. She had probably heard too many ribald comments on brilliant young men who live withand upon elderly women. And very few people did know—only the small theatrical coterie whereshe had first come across Robin. She had few intimate friends in this country, having lived abroadso long, and she chose in any case to come and settle down here far away from her own Yorkshire.

Even when she met friends of the old days, she did not enlighten them when they assumed thatthis Robin was the same Robin they had known as a little boy.

“But from the very first something had struck me as not quite natural in the household atLaburnums. Robin’s attitude to Mrs. Upward was not that of either a spoiled child, or of a devotedson. It was the attitude of a protégé to a patron. The rather fanciful title of Madre had a theatricaltouch. And Mrs. Upward, though she was clearly very fond of Robin, nevertheless unconsciouslytreated him as a prized possession that she had bought and paid for.

“So there is Robin Upward, comfortably established, with ‘Madre’s’ purse to back hisventures, and then into his assured world comes Mrs. McGinty who has recognized thephotograph that he keeps in a drawer—the photograph with ‘my mother’ written on the back of it.

His mother, who he has told Mrs. Upward was a talented young ballet dancer who died oftuberculosis! Mrs. McGinty, of course, thinks that the photograph is of Mrs. Upward when young,since she assumes as a matter of course that Mrs. Upward is Robin’s own mother. I do not thinkthat actual blackmail ever entered Mrs. McGinty’s mind, but she did hope, perhaps, for a ‘nicelittle present,’ as a reward for holding her tongue about a piece of bygone gossip which would nothave been pleasant for a ‘proud’ woman like Mrs. Upward.

“But Robin Upward was taking no chances. He purloins the sugar hammer, laughinglyreferred to as a perfect weapon for murder by Mrs. Summerhayes, and on the following evening,he stops at Mrs. McGinty’s cottage on his way to broadcast. She takes him into the parlour, quiteunsuspicious, and he kills her. He knows where she keeps her savings—everyone in Broadhinnyseems to know — and he fakes a burglary, hiding the money outside the house. Bentley issuspected and arrested. Everything is now safe for clever Robin Upward.

“But then, suddenly, I produce four photographs, and Mrs. Upward recognizes the one of EvaKane as being identical with a photograph of Robin’s ballerina mother! She needs a little time tothink things out. Murder is involved. Can it be possible that Robin—? No, she refuses to believe it.

“What action she would have taken in the end we do not know. But Robin was taking nochances. He plans the whole mise en scène. The visit to the Rep on Janet’s night out, the telephonecalls, the coffee cup carefully smeared with lipstick taken from Eve Carpenter’s bag, he even buysa bottle of her distinctive perfume. The whole thing was a theatrical scene setting with preparedprops. Whilst Mrs. Oliver waited in the car, Robin ran back twice into the house. The murder wasa matter of seconds. After that there was only the swift distribution of the ‘props.’ And with Mrs.

Upward dead, he inherited a large fortune by the terms of her will, and no suspicion could attachto him since it would seem quite certain that a woman had committed the crime. With threewomen visiting the cottage that night, one of them was almost sure to be suspected. And that,indeed, was so.

“But Robin, like all criminals, was careless and overconfident. Not only was there a book inthe cottage with his original name scribbled in it, but he also kept, for purposes of his own, thefatal photograph. It would have been much safer for him if he had destroyed it, but he clung to thebelief that he could use it to incriminate someone else at the right moment.

“He probably thought then of Mrs. Summerhayes. That may be the reason he moved out ofthe cottage and into Long Meadows. After all, the sugar hammer was hers, and Mrs. Summerhayeswas, he knew, an adopted child and might find it hard to prove she was not Eva Kane’s daughter.

“However, when Deirdre Henderson admitted having been on the scene of the crime, heconceived the idea of planting the photograph amongst her possessions. He tried to do so, using aladder that the gardener had left against the window. But Mrs. Wetherby was nervous and hadinsisted on all the windows being kept locked, so Robin did not succeed in his purpose. He camestraight back here and put the photograph in a drawer which, unfortunately for him, I had searchedonly a short time before.

“I knew, therefore, that the photograph had been planted, and I knew by whom—by the onlyperson in the house—that person who was typing industriously over my head.

“Since the name Evelyn Hope had been written on the flyleaf of the book from the cottage,Evelyn Hope must be either Mrs. Upward—or Robin Upward. .?.?.

“The name Evelyn had led me astray—I had connected it with Mrs. Carpenter since her namewas Eve. But Evelyn was a man’s name as well as a woman’s.

“I remembered the conversation Mrs. Oliver had told me about at the Little Rep inCullenquay. The young actor who had been talking to her was the person I wanted to confirm mytheory—the theory that Robin was not Mrs. Upward’s own son. For by the way he had talked, itseemed clear that he knew the real facts. And his story of Mrs. Upward’s swift retribution on ayoung man who had deceived her as to his origins was suggestive.

“The truth is that I ought to have seen the whole thing very much sooner. I was handicappedby a serious error. I believed that I had been deliberately pushed with the intention of sending meon to a railway line—and that the person who had done so was the murderer of Mrs. McGinty.

Now Robin Upward was practically the only person in Broadhinny who could not have been atKilchester station at that time.”

There was a sudden chuckle from Johnnie Summerhayes.

“Probably some old woman with a basket. They do shove.”

Poirot said:

“Actually, Robin Upward was far too conceited to fear me at all. It is a characteristic ofmurderers. Fortunately, perhaps. For in this case there was very little evidence.”

Mrs. Oliver stirred.

“Do you mean to say,” she demanded incredulously, “that Robin murdered his mother whilstI sat outside in the car, and that I hadn’t the least idea of it? There wouldn’t have been time!”

“Oh yes, there would. People’s ideas of time are usually ludicrously wrong. Just noticesometime how swiftly a stage can be reset. In this case it was mostly a matter of props.”

“Good theatre,” murmured Mrs. Oliver mechanically.

“Yes, it was preeminently a theatrical murder. All very much contrived.”

“And I sat there in the car—and hadn’t the least idea!”

“I am afraid,” murmured Poirot, “that your woman’s intuition was taking a day off. .?.?.”