Ten

IPoirot stepped back, his head a little on one side as he surveyed the arrangement of the room. Achair here—another chair there. Yes, that was very nice. And now a ring at the bell—that wouldbe Japp.

The Scotland Yard man came in alertly.

“Quite right, old cock! Straight from the horse’s mouth. A young woman was seen to throwsomething into the lake at Wentworth yesterday. Description of her answers to Jane Plenderleith.

We managed to fish it up without much difficulty. A lot of reeds just there.”

“And it was?”

“It was the attaché case all right! But why, in heaven’s name? Well, it beats me! Nothinginside it—not even the magazines.

Why a presumably sane¹ young woman should want to fling an expensively-fitted dressing² caseinto a lake—d’you know, I worried all night because I couldn’t get the hang of it.”

“Mon pauvre Japp! But you need worry no longer. Here is the answer coming. The bell hasjust rung.”

George, Poirot’s immaculate manservant, opened the door and announced:

“Miss?Plenderleith.”

The girl came into the room with her usual air of complete self-assurance. She greeted thetwo men.

“I asked you to come here—” explained Poirot. “Sit here, will you not, and you here, Japp—because I have certain news to give?you.”

The girl sat down. She looked from one to the other, pushing aside her hat. She took it off andlaid it aside impatiently.

“Well,” she said. “Major Eustace has been arrested.”

“You saw that, I expect, in the morning paper?”

“Yes.”

“He is at the moment charged with a minor³ offence,” went on Poirot. “In the meantime weare gathering⁴ evidence in connection with the murder.”

“It was murder, then?”

The girl asked it eagerly.

Poirot nodded his head.

“Yes,” he said. “It was murder. The wilful⁵ destruction of one human being by another humanbeing.”

She shivered a little.

“Don’t,” she murmured. “It sounds horrible when you say it like that.”

“Yes—but it is horrible!”

He paused—then he said:

“Now, Miss?Plenderleith, I am going to tell you just how I arrived at the truth in this matter.”

She looked from Poirot to Japp. The latter was smiling.

“He has his methods, Miss?Plenderleith,” he said. “I humour him, you know. I think we’lllisten to what he has to say.”

Poirot began:

“As you know, mademoiselle, I arrived with my friend at the scene of the crime on themorning of November the sixth. We went into the room where the body of Mrs.?Allen had beenfound and I was struck at once by several significant details. There were things, you see, in thatroom that were decidedly odd.”

“Go on,” said the girl.

“To begin with,” said Poirot, “there was the smell of cigarette smoke.”

“I think you’re exaggerating there, Poirot,” said Japp. “I didn’t smell anything.”

Poirot turned on him in a flash.

“Precisely. You did not smell any stale smoke. No more did I. And that was very, very strange—for the door and the window were both closed and on an ashtray⁶ there were the stubs of nofewer than ten cigarettes. It was odd, very odd, that the room should smell—as it did, perfectlyfresh.”

“So that’s what you were getting at!” Japp sighed. “Always have to get at things in such atortuous way.”

“Your Sherlock Holmes did the same. He drew attention, remember, to the curious incidentof the dog in the night-time—and the answer to that was there was no curious incident. The dogdid nothing in the nighttime. To proceed:

“The next thing that attracted my attention was a wristwatch worn by the dead woman.”

“What about it?”

“Nothing particular about it, but it was worn on the right wrist. Now in my experience it ismore usual for a watch to be worn on the left wrist.”

Japp shrugged⁷ his shoulders. Before he could speak, Poirot hurried on:

“But as you say, there is nothing very definite about that. Some people prefer to wear one onthe right hand. And now I come to something really interesting—I come, my friends, to thewriting bureau.”

“Yes, I guessed that,” said Japp.

“That was really very odd—very remarkable⁸! For two reasons. The first reason was thatsomething was missing from that writing table.”

Jane Plenderleith spoke⁹.

“What was missing?”

Poirot turned to her.

“A sheet of blotting¹⁰ paper, mademoiselle. The blotting book had on top a clean, untouchedpiece of blotting paper.”

Jane shrugged her shoulders.

“Really, M. Poirot. People do occasionally tear off a very much used sheet!”

“Yes, but what do they do with it? Throw it into the waste-paper basket, do they not? But itwas not in the wastepaper basket. I looked.”

Jane Plenderleith seemed impatient.

“Because it had probably been already thrown away the day before. The sheet was cleanbecause Barbara hadn’t written any letters that day.”

“That could hardly be the case, mademoiselle. For Mrs.?Allen was seen going to the postboxthat evening. Therefore she must have been writing letters. She could not write downstairs—therewere no writing materials. She would be hardly likely to go to your room to write. So, then, whathad happened to the sheet of paper on which she had blotted¹¹ her letters? It is true that peoplesometimes throw things in the fire instead of the wastepaper basket, but there was only a gas fire inthe room. And the fire downstairs had not been alight the previous day, since you told me it wasall laid ready when you put a match to it.”

He paused.

“A curious little problem. I looked everywhere, in the wastepaper baskets, in the dustbin, butI could not find a sheet of used blotting paper—and that seemed to me very important. It looked asthough someone had deliberately¹² taken that sheet of blotting paper away. Why? Because there waswriting on it that could easily have been read by holding it up to a mirror.

“But there was a second curious point about the writing table. Perhaps, Japp, you rememberroughly the arrangement of it? Blotter and inkstand in the centre, pen tray to the left, calendar andquill pen to the right. Eh bien? You do not see? The quill¹³ pen, remember, I examined, it was forshow only—it had not been used. Ah! still you do not see? I will say it again. Blotter in the centre,pen tray to the left—to the left, Japp. But is it not usual to find a pen tray on the right, convenientto the right hand?

“Ah, now it comes to you, does it not? The pen tray on the left—the wristwatch on the rightwrist—the blotting paper removed—and something else brought into the room—the ashtray withthe cigarette ends!

“That room was fresh and pure smelling, Japp, a room in which the window had been open,not closed all night . . . And I made myself a picture.”

He spun¹⁴ round and faced Jane.

“A picture of you, mademoiselle, driving up in your taxi, paying it off, running up the stairs,calling perhaps, ‘Barbara’—and you open the door and you find your friend there lying dead withthe pistol clasped in her hand—the left hand, naturally, since she is left-handed and therefore, too,the bullet has entered on the left side of the head. There is a note there addressed to you. It tellsyou what it is that has driven her to take her own life. It was, I fancy, a very moving letter . . . Ayoung, gentle, unhappy woman driven by blackmail¹⁵ to take her life. . . .

“I think that, almost at once, the idea flashed into your head. This was a certain man’s doing.

Let him be punished—fully and adequately punished! You take the pistol, wipe it and place it inthe right hand. You take the note and you tear off the top sheet of the blotting paper on which thenote has been blotted. You go down, light the fire and put them both on the flames. Then you carryup the ashtray—to further the illusion that two people sat there talking—and you also take up afragment of enamel¹⁶ cuff¹⁷ link that is on the floor. That is a lucky find and you expect it to clinchmatters. Then you close the window and lock the door. There must be no suspicion that you havetampered with the room. The police must see it exactly as it is—so you do not seek help in themews but ring up the police straightaway.

“And so it goes on. You play your chosen r?le with judgment¹⁸ and coolness. You refuse atfirst to say anything but cleverly you suggest doubts of suicide. Later you are quite ready to set uson the trail of Major Eustace. . . .

“Yes, mademoiselle, it was clever—a very clever murder—for that is what it is. Theattempted murder of Major Eustace.”

Jane Plenderleith sprang to her feet.

“It wasn’t murder—it was justice. That man hounded poor Barbara to her death! She was sosweet and helpless. You see, poor kid, she got involved with a man in India when she first wentout. She was only seventeen and he was a married man years older than her. Then she had a baby.

She could have put it in a home but she wouldn’t hear of that. She went off to some out of the wayspot and came back calling herself Mrs.?Allen. Later the child died. She came back here and shefell in love with Charles—that pompous¹⁹, stuffed owl²⁰; she adored him—and he took her adorationvery complacently²¹. If he had been a different kind of man I’d have advised her to tell himeverything. But as it was, I urged her to hold her tongue. After all, nobody knew anything aboutthat business except me.

“And then that devil Eustace turned up! You know the rest. He began to bleed hersystematically, but it wasn’t till that last evening that she realised that she was exposing Charlestoo, to the risk of scandal. Once married to Charles, Eustace had got her where he wanted her—married to a rich man with a horror of any scandal! When Eustace had gone with the money shehad got for him she sat thinking it over. Then she came up and wrote a letter to me. She said sheloved Charles and couldn’t live without him, but that for his own sake she mustn’t marry him. Shewas taking the best way out, she said.”

Jane flung her head back.

“Do you wonder I did what I did? And you stand there calling it murder!”

“Because it is murder,” Poirot’s voice was stern. “Murder can sometimes seem justified²², butit is murder all the same. You are truthful²³ and clear-minded—face the truth, mademoiselle! Yourfriend died, in the last resort, because she had not the courage to live. We may sympathize withher. We may pity her. But the fact remains—the act was hers—not another.”

He paused.

“And you? That man is now in prison, he will serve a long sentence for other matters. Do youreally wish, of your own volition²⁴, to destroy the life—the life, mind—of any human being?”

She stared at him. Her eyes darkened. Suddenly she muttered:

“No. You’re right. I don’t.”

Then, turning on her heel, she went swiftly from the room. The outer door banged. . . .

 

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