Ten

Of the two of them, Captain Lake looked far the more embarrassed.

“This is a great surprise, Miss?Chevenix-Gore—Mrs.?Lake, I should say,” said Major Riddle¹.

“Did no one know of this marriage of yours?”

“No, we kept it quite dark. John didn’t like that part of it much.”

Lake said, stammering² a little:

“I—I know that it seems rather a rotten way to set about things. I ought to have gone straightto Sir Gervase—”

Ruth interrupted:

“And told him you wanted to marry his daughter, and have been kicked out on your head andhe’d probably have disinherited me, raised hell generally in the house, and we could have toldeach other how beautifully we’d behaved! Believe me, my way was better! If a thing’s done, it’sdone. There would still have been a row—but he’d have come round.”

Lake still looked unhappy. Poirot asked:

“When did you intend to break the news to Sir Gervase?”

Ruth answered:

“I was preparing the ground. He’d been rather suspicious about me and John, so I pretendedto turn my attentions to Godfrey. Naturally, he was ready to go quite off the deep end about that. Ifigured it out that the news I was married to John would come almost as a relief!”

“Did anybody at all know of this marriage?”

“Yes, I told Vanda in the end. I wanted to get her on my side.”

“And you succeeded in doing so?”

“Yes. You see, she wasn’t very keen about my marrying Hugo—because he was a cousin, Ithink. She seemed to think the family was so batty already that we’d probably have completelybatty children. That was probably rather absurd, because I’m only adopted, you know. I believeI’m some quite distant cousin’s child.”

“You are sure Sir Gervase had no suspicion of the truth?”

“Oh, no.”

Poirot said:

“Is that true, Captain Lake? In your interview with SirGervase this afternoon, are you quite sure the matter was not mentioned?”

“No, sir. It was not.”

“Because, you see, Captain Lake, there is certain evidence to show that Sir Gervase was in ahighly-excitable condition after the time he spent with you, and that he spoke³ once or twice offamily dishonour⁴.”

“The matter was not mentioned,” Lake repeated. His face had gone very white.

“Was that the last time you saw Sir Gervase?”

“Yes, I have already told you so.”

“Where were you at eight minutes past eight this evening?”

“Where was I? In my house. At the end of the village, about half a mile away.”

“You did not come up to Hamborough Close round about that time?”

“No.”

Poirot turned to the girl.

“Where were you, mademoiselle, when your father shot himself?”

“In the garden.”

“In the garden? You heard the shot?”

“Oh, yes. But I didn’t think about it particularly. I thought it was someone out shootingrabbits, although now I remember I did think it sounded quite close at hand.”

“You returned to the house—which way?”

“I came in through this window.”

Ruth indicated with a turn of her head the window behind her.

“Was anyone in here?”

“No. But Hugo and Susan and Miss?Lingard came in from the hall almost immediately. Theywere talking about shooting and murders and things.”

“I see,” said Poirot. “Yes, I think I see now. . . .”

Major Riddle said rather doubtfully:

“Well—er—thank you. I think that’s all for the moment.”

Ruth and her husband turned and left the room.

“What the devil——” began Major Riddle, and ended rather hopelessly: “It gets more andmore difficult to keep track of this business.”

Poirot nodded. He had picked up the little piece of earth that had fallen from Ruth’s shoe andwas holding it thoughtfully in his hand.

“It is like the mirror smashed on the wall,” he said. “The dead man’s mirror. Every new factwe come across shows us some different angle of the dead man. He is reflected from everyconceivable point of view. We shall have soon a complete picture. . . .”

He rose and put the little piece of earth tidily in the waste-paper basket.

“I will tell you one thing, my friend. The clue to the whole mystery is the mirror. Go into thestudy and look for yourself, if you do not believe me.”

Major Riddle, said decisively:

“If it’s murder, it’s up to you to prove it. If you ask me, I say it’s definitely suicide. Did younotice what the girl said about a former agent having swindled old Gervase? I bet Lake told thattale for his own purposes. He was probably helping⁵ himself a bit, Sir Gervase suspected it, andsent for you because he didn’t know how far things had gone between Lake and Ruth. Then thisafternoon Lake told him they were married. That broke Gervase up. It was ‘too late’ now foranything to be done. He determined⁶ to get out of it all. In fact his brain, never very well-balancedat the best of times, gave way. In my opinion that’s what happened. What have you got to sayagainst it?”

Poirot stood still in the middle of the room.

“What have I to say? This: I have nothing to say against your theory—but it does not go farenough. There are certain things it does not take into account.”

“Such as?”

“The discrepancies⁷ in Sir Gervase’s moods today, the finding of Colonel Bury’s pencil, theevidence of Miss?Cardwell (which is very important), the evidence of Miss?Lingard as to the orderin which people came down to dinner, the position of Sir Gervase’s chair when he was found, thepaper bag which had held oranges and, finally, the all-important clue of the broken mirror.”

Major Riddle stared.

“Are you going to tell me that that rigmarole makes sense?” he asked.

Hercule Poirot replied softly:

“I hope to make it do so—by tomorrow.”

 

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