Eight

The guests left after lunch. Mrs.?Vanderlyn and Mrs.?Macatta went by train, the Carringtons hadtheir car. Poirot was standing¹ in the hall as Mrs.?Vanderlyn bade her host a charmingfarewell.

“So terribly sorry for you having this bother and anxiety. I do hope it will turn out all rightfor you. I shan’t breathe a word of anything.”

She pressed his hand and went out to where the Rolls was waiting to take her to the station.

Mrs.?Macatta was already inside. Her adieu had been curt² and unsympathetic.

Suddenly Leonie, who had been getting in front with the chauffeur³, came running back intothe hall.

“The dressing⁴ case of madame, it is not in the car,” she exclaimed.

There was a hurried search. At last Lord Mayfield discovered it where it had been put downin the shadow of an old oak chest. Leonie uttered a glad little cry as she seized the elegant affair ofgreen morocco, and hurried out with it.

Then Mrs.?Vanderlyn leaned out of the car.

“Lord Mayfield, Lord Mayfield.” She handed him a letter. “Would you mind putting this inyour postbag? If I keep it meaning to post it in town, I’m sure to forget. Letters just stay in my bagfor days.”

Sir George Carrington was fidgeting with his watch, opening and shutting it. He was amaniac for punctuality.

“They’re cutting it fine,” he murmured. “Very fine. Unless they’re careful, they’ll miss thetrain—”

His wife said irritably⁵:

“Oh, don’t fuss, George. After all, it’s their train, not ours!”

He looked at her reproachfully.

The Rolls drove off.

Reggie drew up at the front door in the Carringtons’ Morris.

“All ready, Father,” he said.

The servants began bringing out the Carringtons’ luggage. Reggie supervised its disposal inthe dickey.

Poirot moved out of the front door, watching the proceedings⁶.

Suddenly he felt a hand on his arm. Lady Julia’s voice spoke⁷ in an agitated⁸ whisper.

“M. Poirot. I must speak to you—at once.”

He yielded to her insistent⁹ hand. She drew him into a small morning room and closed thedoor. She came close to him.

“Is it true what you said—that the discovery of the papers is what matters most to LordMayfield?”

Poirot looked at her curiously¹⁰.

“It is quite true, madame.”

“If—if those papers were returned to you, would you undertake that they should be givenback to Lord Mayfield, and no question asked?”

“I am not sure that I understand you.”

“You must! I am sure that you do! I am suggesting that the—the thief should remainanonymous if the papers are returned.”

Poirot asked:

“How soon would that be, madame?”

“Definitely within twelve hours.”

“You can promise that?”

“I can promise it.”

As he did not answer, she repeated urgently:

“Will you guarantee that there will be no publicity¹¹?”

He answered then—very gravely:

“Yes, madame, I will guarantee that.”

“Then everything can be arranged.”

She passed abruptly¹² from the room. A moment later Poirot heard the car drive away.

He crossed the hall and went along the passage to the study. Lord Mayfield was there. Helooked up as Poirot entered.

“Well?” he said.

Poirot spread out his hands.

“The case is ended, Lord Mayfield.”

“What?”

Poirot repeated word for word the scene between himself and Lady Julia.

Lord Mayfield looked at him with a stupefied expression.

“But what does it mean? I don’t understand.”

“It is very clear, is it not? Lady Julia knows who stole the plans.”

“You don’t mean she took them herself?”

“Certainly not. Lady Julia may be a gambler. She is not a thief. But if she offers to return theplans, it means that they were taken by her husband or her son. Now Sir George Carrington wasout on the terrace with you. That leaves us the son. I think I can reconstruct the happenings of lastnight fairly accurately¹³. Lady Julia went to her son’s room last night and found it empty. She camedownstairs to look for him, but did not find him. This morning she hears of the theft, and she alsohears that her son declares that he went straight to his room and never left it. That, she knows, isnot true. And she knows something else about her son. She knows that he is weak, that he isdesperately hard up for money. She has observed his infatuation for Mrs.?Vanderlyn. The wholething is clear to her. Mrs.?Vanderlyn has persuaded Reggie to steal the plans. But she determinesto play her part also. She will tackle Reggie, get hold of the papers and return them.”

“But the whole thing is quite impossible,” cried Lord Mayfield.

“Yes, it is impossible, but Lady Julia does not know that. She does not know what I, HerculePoirot, know, that young Reggie Carrington was not stealing papers last night, but instead wasphilandering with Mrs.?Vanderlyn’s French maid.”

“The whole thing is a mare’s nest!”

“Exactly.”

“And the case is not ended at all!”

“Yes, it is ended. I, Hercule Poirot, know the truth. You do not believe me? You did notbelieve me yesterday when I said I knew where the plans were. But I did know. They were veryclose at hand.”

“Where?”

“They were in your pocket, my lord.”

There was a pause, then Lord Mayfield said:

“Do you really know what you are saying, M. Poirot?”

“Yes, I know. I know that I am speaking to a very clever man. From the first it worried methat you, who were admittedly shortsighted, should be so positive about the figure you had seenleaving the window. You wanted that solution—the convenient solution—to be accepted. Why?

Later, one by one, I eliminated everyone else. Mrs.?Vanderlyn was upstairs, Sir George was withyou on the terrace, Reggie Carrington was with the French girl on the stairs, Mrs.?Macatta wasblamelessly in her bedroom. (It is next to the housekeeper’s room, and Mrs.?Macatta snores!) LadyJulia clearly believed her son guilty. So there remained only two possibilities. Either Carlile didnot put the papers on the desk but into his own pocket (and that is not reasonable, because, as youpointed out, he could have taken a tracing of them), or else—or else the plans were there whenyou walked over to the desk, and the only place they could have gone was into your pocket. In thatcase everything was clear. Your insistence¹⁴ on the figure you had seen, your insistence on Carlile’sinnocence, your disinclination to have me summoned.

“One thing did puzzle me—the motive¹⁵. You were, I was convinced, an honest man, a man ofintegrity. That showed in your anxiety that no innocent person should be suspected. It was alsoobvious that the theft of the plans might easily affect your career unfavourably. Why, then, thiswholly unreasonable¹⁶ theft? And at last the answer came to me. The crisis in your career, someyears ago, the assurances given to the world by the Prime Minister that you had had nonegotiations with the power in question. Suppose that that was not strictly¹⁷ true, that there remainedsome record—a letter, perhaps—showing that in actual fact you had done what you had publiclydenied. Such a denial was necessary in the interests of public policy. But it is doubtful if the manin the street would see it that way. It might mean that at the moment when supreme¹⁸ power mightbe given into your hands, some stupid echo from the past would undo¹⁹ everything.

“I suspect that that letter has been preserved in the hands of a certain government, that thatgovernment offered to trade with you—the letter in exchange for the plans of the new bomber²⁰.

Some men would have refused. You—did not! You agreed. Mrs.?Vanderlyn was the agent in thematter. She came here by arrangement to make the exchange. You gave yourself away when youadmitted that you had formed no definite stratagem²¹ for entrapping²² her. That admission made yourreason for inviting²³ her here incredibly weak.

“You arranged the robbery. Pretended to see the thief on the terrace—thereby clearing Carlileof suspicion. Even if he had not left the room, the desk was so near the window that a thief mighthave taken the plans while Carlile was busy at the safe with his back turned. You walked over tothe desk, took the plans and kept them on your own person until the moment when, by prearrangedplan, you slipped them into Mrs.?Vanderlyn’s dressing case. In return she handed you the fatalletter disguised as an unposted letter of her own.”

Poirot stopped.

Lord Mayfield said:

“Your knowledge is very complete, M. Poirot. You must think me an unutterable skunk²⁴.”

Poirot made a quick gesture.

“No, no, Lord Mayfield. I think, as I said, that you are a very clever man. It came to mesuddenly as we talked here last night. You are a first-class engineer. There will be, I think, somesubtle alterations²⁵ in the specifications²⁶ of that bomber, alterations done so skilfully²⁷ that it will bedifficult to grasp why the machine is not the success it ought to be. A certain foreign power willfind the type a failure . . . It will be a disappointment to them, I am sure. . . .”

Again there was a silence—then Lord Mayfield said:

“You are much too clever, M. Poirot. I will only ask you to believe one thing. I have faith inmyself. I believe that I am the man to guide England through the days of crisis that I see coming.

If I did not honestly believe that I am needed by my country to steer²⁸ the ship of state, I would nothave done what I have done—made the best of both worlds—saved myself from disaster by aclever trick.”

“My lord,” said Poirot, “if you could not make the best of both worlds, you could not be apolitician!”

 

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