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Chapter Twenty
“It was a clever idea of Miss Hobhouse’s,” said Inspector Sharpe. His voice was indulgent, almost
fatherly.
He shuffled the passports from one hand to the other like a man dealing cards.
“Complicated thing, finance,” he said. “We’ve had a busy time haring round from one bank to
the other. She covered her tracks well—her financial tracks, I mean. I’d say that in a couple of
years’ time she could have cleared out, gone abroad and lived happily ever after, as they say, on
ill-gotten gains. It wasn’t a big show—illicit diamonds, sapphires, etc., coming in—stolen stuff
going out—and narcotics on the side, as you might say. Thoroughly well organised. She went
abroad under her own and under different names, but never too often, and the actual smuggling
was always done, unknowingly, by someone else. She had agents abroad who saw to the exchange
of rucksacks at the right moment. Yes, it was a clever idea. And we’ve got M. Poirot here to thank
for putting us on to it. It was smart of her, too, to suggest that psychological stealing stunt to poor
little Miss Austin. You were wise to that almost at once, weren’t you, M. Poirot?”
Poirot smiled in a deprecating manner and Mrs. Hubbard looked admiringly at him. The
conversation was strictly off the record in Mrs. Hubbard’s sitting room.
“Greed was her undoing,” said Poirot. “She was tempted by that fine diamond in Patricia Lane’s
ring. It was foolish of her because it suggested at once that she was used to handling precious
stones—that business of prising the diamond out and replacing it with a zircon. Yes, that certainly
gave me ideas about Valerie Hobhouse. She was clever, though, when I taxed her with inspiring
Celia, she admitted it and explained it in a thoroughly sympathetic way.”
“But murder!” said Mrs. Hubbard. “Cold-blooded murder. I can’t really believe it even now.”
Inspector Sharpe looked gloomy.
“We aren’t in a position to charge her with the murder of Celia Austin yet,” he said. “We’ve got
her cold on the smuggling, of course. No difficulties about that. But the murder charge is more
tricky. The public prosecutor doesn’t see his way. There’s motive, of course, and opportunity. She
probably knew all about the bet and Nigel’s possession of morphia, but there’s no real evidence,
and there are the two other deaths to take into account. She could have poisoned Mrs. Nicoletis all
right—but on the other hand, she definitely did not kill Patricia Lane. Actually she’s about the
only person who’s completely in the clear. Geronimo says positively that she left the house at six
o’clock. He sticks to that. I don’t know whether she bribed him—”
“No,” said Poirot, shaking his head. “She did not bribe him.”
“And we’ve the evidence of the chemist at the corner of the road. He knows her quite well and
he sticks to it that she came in at five minutes past six and bought face powder and aspirin and
used the telephone. She left his shop at quarter past six and took a taxi from the rank outside.”
Poirot sat up in his chair.
“But that,” he said, “is magnificent! It is just what we want!”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“I mean that she actually telephoned from the box at the chemist’s shop.”
Inspector Sharpe looked at him in an exasperated fashion.
“Now, see here, M. Poirot. Let’s take the known facts. At eight minutes past six, Patricia Lane
is alive and telephoning to the police station from this room. You agree to that?”
“I do not think she was telephoning from this room.”
“Well then, from the hall downstairs.”
“Not from the hall either.”
Inspector Sharpe sighed.
“I suppose you don’t deny that a call was put through to the police station? You don’t think that
I and my sergeant and Police Constable Nye and Nigel Chapman were the victims of mass
hallucination?”
“Assuredly not. A call was put through to you. I should say at a guess that it was put through
from the public call box at the chemist’s on the corner.”
Inspector Sharpe’s jaw dropped for a moment.
“You mean that Valerie Hobhouse put through that call? That she pretended to speak as Patricia
Lane, and that Patricia Lane was already dead.”
“That is what I mean, yes.”
The inspector was silent for a moment, then he brought down his fist with a crash on the table.
“I don’t believe it. The voice—I heard it myself—”
“You heard it, yes. A girl’s voice, breathless, agitated. But you didn’t know Patricia Lane’s
voice well enough to say definitely that it was her voice.”
“I didn’t, perhaps. But it was Nigel Chapman who actually took the call. You can’t tell me that
Nigel Chapman could be deceived. It isn’t so easy to disguise a voice over the telephone, or to
counterfeit somebody else’s voice. Nigel Chapman would have known if it wasn’t Pat’s voice
speaking.”
“Yes,” said Poirot. “Nigel Chapman would have known. Nigel Chapman knew quite well that it
wasn’t Patricia. Who should know better than he, since he had killed her with a blow on the back
of the head only a short while before.”
It was a moment or two before the inspector recovered his voice.
“Nigel Chapman? Nigel Chapman? But when we found her dead—he cried—cried like a child.”
“I dare say,” said Poirot. “I think he was as fond of that girl as he could be of anybody—but that
wouldn’t save her—not if she represented a menace to his interests. All along, Nigel Chapman has
stood out as the obvious probability. Who had morphia in his possession? Nigel Chapman. Who
had the shallow brilliant intellect to plan and the audacity to carry out fraud and murder? Nigel
Chapman. Who do we know to be both ruthless and vain? Nigel Chapman. He has all the
hallmarks of the killer; the overweening vanity, the spitefulness, the growing recklessness that led
him to draw attention to himself in every conceivable way—using the green ink in a stupendous
double bluff, and finally overreaching himself by the silly deliberate mistake of putting Len
Bateson’s hairs in Patricia’s fingers, oblivious of the fact that as Patricia was struck down from
behind, she could not possibly have grasped her assailant by the hair. They are like that, these
murderers, carried away by their own egotism, by their admiration of their own cleverness, relying
on their charm—for he has charm, this Nigel—he has all the charm of a spoiled child who has
never grown up, who never will grow up—who sees only one thing, himself, and what he wants!”
“But why, M. Poirot? Why murder? Celia Austin, perhaps, but why Patricia Lane?”
“That,” said Poirot, “we have got to find out.”
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