“Mr. Entwhistle did not benefit by either of the deaths—but he had had considerable control over Mr. Abernethie’s affairs, and the trust funds, and there might well be some reason why Richard Abernethie should not live too long. But—you will say—if it is Mr. Entwhistle who was concerned, why should he come to me?
“And to that I will answer—it is not the first time that a murderer has been too sure of himself.
“We now come to what I may call the two outsiders. Mr. Guthrie and a nun. If Mr. Guthrie is really Mr. Guthrie, the art critic, then that clears him. The same applies to the nun, if she is really a nun. The question is, are these people themselves, or are they somebody else?
“And I may say that there seems to be a curious—motif—one might call it—of a nun running through this business. A nun comes to the door of Mr. Timothy Abernethie’s house and Miss Gilchrist believes it is the same nun she has seen at Lytchett St. Mary. Also a nun, or nuns, called here the day before Mr. Abernethie died….”
George Crossfield murmured, “Three to one, the nun.”
Poirot went on:
“So here we have certain pieces of our pattern—the death of Mr. Abernethie, the murder of Cora Lansquenet, the poisoned wedding cake, the ‘motif’ of the ‘nun.’
“I will add some other features of the case that engaged my attention:
“The visit of an art critic, a smell of oil paint, a picture postcard of Polflexan harbour, and finally a bouquet of wax flowers standing on that malachite table where a Chinese vase stands now.
“It was reflecting on these things that led me to the truth—and I am now about to tell you the truth.
“The first part of it I told you this morning. Richard Abernethie died suddenly—but there would have been no reason at all to suspect foul play had it not been for the words uttered by his sister Cora at his funeral. The whole case for the murder of Richard Abernethie rests upon those words. As a result of them, you all believed that murder had taken place, and you believed it, not really because of the words themselves but because of the character of Cora Lansquenet herself. For Cora Lansquenet had always been famous for speaking the truth at awkward moments. So the case for Richard’s murder rested not only upon what Cora had said but upon Cora herself.
“And now I come to the question that I suddenly asked myself:
“How well did you all know Cora Lansquenet?”
He was silent for a moment, and Susan asked sharply, “What do you mean?”
Poirot went on:
“Not well at all—that is the answer! The younger generation had never seen her at all, or if so, only when they were very young children. There were actually only three people present that day who actually knew Cora. Lanscombe, the butler, who is old and very blind; Mrs. Timothy Abernethie who had only seen her a few times round about the date of her own wedding, and Mrs. Leo Abernethie who had known her quite well, but who had not seen her for over twenty years.
“So I said to myself: ‘Supposing it was not Cora Lansquenet who came to the funeral that day?’”
“Do you mean that Aunt Cora—wasn’t Aunt Cora?” Susan demanded incredulously. “Do you mean that it wasn’t Aunt Cora who was murdered, but someone else?”
“No, no, it was Cora Lansquenet who was murdered. But it was not Cora Lansquenet who came the day before to her brother’s funeral. The woman who came that day came for one purpose only—to exploit, one may say, the fact that Richard died suddenly. And to create in the minds of his relations that he had been murdered. Which she managed to do most successfully!”
“Nonsense! Why? What was the point of it?” Maude spoke bluffly.
“Why? To draw attention away from the other murder. From the murder of Cora Lansquenet herself. For if Cora says that Richard has been murdered and the next day she herself is killed, the two deaths are bound to be at least considered as possible cause and effect. But if Cora is murdered and her cottage is broken into, and if the apparent robbery does not convince the police, then they will look—where? Close at home, will they not? Suspicion will tend to fall on the woman who shares the house with her.”
Miss Gilchrist protested in a tone that was almost bright:
“Oh come—really—Mr. Pontarlier—you don’t suggest I’d commit a murder for an amethyst brooch and a few worthless sketches?”
“No,” said Poirot. “For a little more than that. There was one of those sketches, Miss Gilchrist, that represented Polflexan harbour and which, as Mrs. Banks was clever enough to realize, had been copied from a picture postcard which showed the old pier still in position. But Mrs. Lansquenet painted always from life. I remembered then that Mr. Entwhistle had mentioned there being a smell of oil paint in the cottage when he first got there. You can paint, can’t you, Miss Gilchrist? Your father was an artist and you know a good deal about pictures. Supposing that one of the pictures that Cora picked up cheaply at a sale was a valuable picture. Supposing that she herself did not recognize it for what it was, but that you did. You knew she was expecting, very shortly, a visit from an old friend of hers who was a well-known art critic. Then her brother died suddenly—and a plan leaps into your head. Easy to administer a sedative to her in her early cup of tea that will keep her unconscious for the whole of the day of the funeral whilst you yourself are playing her part at Enderby. You know Enderby well from listening to her talk about it. She has talked, as people do when they get on in life, a great deal about her childhood days. Easy for you to start off by a remark to old Lanscombe about meringues and huts which will make him quite sure of your identity in case he was inclined to doubt. Yes, you used your knowledge of Enderby well that day, with allusions to this and that, and recalling memories, None of them suspected you were not Cora. You were wearing her clothes, slightly padded, and since she wore a false front of hair, it was easy for you to assume that. Nobody had seen Cora for twenty years—and in twenty years people change so much that one often hears the remark: ‘I would never have known her!’ But mannerisms are remembered, and Cora had certain very definite mannerisms, all of which you had practised carefully before the glass.
“And it was there, strangely enough, that you made your first mistake. You forgot that a mirror image is reversed. When you saw in the glass the perfect reproduction of Cora’s birdlike sidewise tilt of the head, you didn’t realize that it was actually the wrong way round. You saw, let us say, Cora inclining her head to the right—but you forgot that actually your own head was inclined to the left to produce that effect in the glass.
“That was what puzzled and worried Helen Abernethie at the moment when you made your famous insinuation. Something seemed to her ‘wrong.’ I realized myself the other night when Rosamund Shane made an unexpected remark what happens on such an occasion. Everybody inevitably looks at the speaker. Therefore, when Mrs. Leo felt something was ‘wrong,’ it must be that something was wrong with Cora Lansquenet. The other evening, after talk about mirror images and ‘seeing oneself ’ I think Mrs. Leo experimented before a looking glass. Her own face is not particularly asymmetrical. She probably thought of Cora, remembered how Cora used to incline her head to the right, did so, and looked in the glass—when, of course, the image seemed to her ‘wrong’ and she realized, in a flash, just what had been wrong on the day of the funeral. She puzzled it out—either Cora had taken to inclining her head in the opposite direction—most unlikely—or else Cora had not been Cora. Neither way seemed to her to make sense. But she was determined to tell Mr. Entwhistle of her discovery at once. Someone who was used to getting up early was already about, and followed her down, and fearful of what revelations she might be about to make struck her down with a heavy doorstop.”
Poirot paused and added:
“I may as well tell you now, Miss Gilchrist, that Mrs. Abernethie’s concussion is not serious. She will soon be able to tell us her own story.”
“I never did anything of the sort,” said Miss Gilchrist. “The whole thing is a wicked lie.”
“It wa
s you that day,” said Michael Shane suddenly. He had been studying Miss Gilchrist’s face. “I ought to have seen it sooner— I felt in a vague kind of way I had seen you before somewhere—but of course one never looks much at—” he stopped.
“No, one doesn’t bother to look at a mere companion-help,” said Miss Gilchrist. Her voice shook a little. “A drudge, a domestic drudge! Almost a servant! But go on, M. Poirot. Go on with this fantastic piece of nonsense!”
“The suggestion of murder thrown out at the funeral was only the first step, of course,” said Poirot. “You had more in reserve. At any moment you were prepared to admit to having listened to a conversation between Richard and his sister. What he actually told her, no doubt, was the fact that he had not long to live, and that explains a cryptic phrase in the letter he wrote to her after getting home. The ‘nun’ was another of your suggestions. The nun—or rather nuns—who called at the cottage on the day of the inquest suggested to you a mention of a nun who was ‘following you round,’ and you used that when you were anxious to hear what Mrs. Timothy was saying to her sister-in-law at Enderby. And also because you wished to accompany her there and find out for yourself just how suspicions were going. Actually to poison yourself, badly but not fatally, with arsenic, is a very old device—and I may say that it served to awaken Inspector Morton’s suspicions of you.”
“But the picture?” said Rosamund. “What kind of a picture was it?”
Poirot slowly unfolded a telegram.
“This morning I rang up Mr. Entwhistle, a responsible person, to go to Stansfield Grange and, acting on authority from Mr. Abernethie himself” (here Poirot gave a hard stare at Timothy) “to look amongst the pictures in Miss Gilchrist’s room and select the one of Polflexan Harbour on pretext of having it reframed as a surprise for Miss Gilchrist. He was to take it back to London and call upon Mr. Guthrie whom I had warned by telegram. The hastily painted sketch of Polflexan Harbour was removed and the original picture exposed.”
He held up the telegram and read:
“Definitely a Vermeer. Guthrie.”
Suddenly, with electrifying effect, Miss Gilchrist burst into speech.
“I knew it was a Vermeer. I knew it! She didn’t know! Talking about Rembrandts and Italian Primitives and unable to recognize a Vermeer when it was under her nose! Always prating about Art—and really knowing nothing about it! She was a thoroughly stupid woman. Always maundering on about this place—about Enderby, and what they did there as children, and about Richard and Timothy and Laura and all the rest of them. Rolling in money always! Always the best of everything those children had. You don’t know how boring it is listening to somebody going on about the same things, hour after hour and day after day. And saying, ‘Oh, yes, Mrs. Lansquenet’ and ‘Really, Mrs. Lansquenet?’ Pretending to be interested. And really bored—bored—bored… And nothing to look forward to… And then—a Vermeer! I saw in the papers that a Vermeer sold the other day for over five thousand pounds!”
“You killed her—in that brutal way—for five thousand pounds?” Susan’s voice was incredulous.
“Five thousand pounds,” said Poirot, “would have rented and equipped a tea shop….”
Miss Gilchrist turned to him.
“At least,” she said. “You do understand. It was the only chance I’d ever get. I had to have a capital sum.” Her voice vibrated with the force and obsession of her dream. “I was going to call it the Palm Tree. And have little camels as menu holders. One can occasionally get quite nice china—export rejects—not that awful white utility stuff. I meant to start it in some nice neighbourhood where nice people would come in. I had thought of Rye… Or perhaps Chichester… I’m sure I could have made a success of it.” She paused a minute, then added musingly, “Oak tables—and little basket chairs with striped red and white cushions….”
For a few moments, the tea shop that would never be, seemed more real than the Victorian solidity of the drawing room at Enderby….
It was Inspector Morton who broke the spell.
Miss Gilchrist turned to him quite politely.
“Oh, certainly,” she said. “At once. I don’t want to give any trouble, I’m sure. After all, if I can’t have the Palm Tree, nothing really seems to matter very much….”
She went out of the room with him and Susan said, her voice still shaken:
“I’ve never imagined a ladylike murderer. It’s horrible….”
Twenty-five
“But I don’t understand about the wax flowers,” said Rosamund.
She fixed Poirot with large reproachful blue eyes.
They were at Helen’s flat in London. Helen herself was resting on the sofa and Rosamund and Poirot were having tea with her.
“I don’t see that wax flowers had anything to do with it,” said Rosamund. “Or the malachite table.”
“The malachite table, no. But the wax flowers were Miss Gilchrist’s second mistake. She said how nice they looked on the malachite table. And you see, Madame, she could not have seen them there. Because they had been broken and put away before she arrived with the Timothy Abernethies. So she could only have seen them when she was there as Cora Lansquenet.”
“That was stupid of her, wasn’t it?” said Rosamund.
Poirot shook a forefinger at her.
“It shows you, Madame, the dangers of conversations. It is a profound belief of mine that if you can induce a person to talk to you for long enough, on any subject whatever! sooner or later they will give themselves away. Miss Gilchrist did.”
“I shall have to be careful,” said Rosamund thoughtfully.
Then she brightened up.
“Did you know? I’m going to have a baby.”
“Aha! So that is the meaning of Harley Street and Regent’s Park?”
“Yes. I was so upset, you know, and so surprised—that I just had to go somewhere and think.”
“You said, I remember, that that does not very often happen.”
“Well, it’s much easier not to. But this time I had to decide about the future. And I’ve decided to leave the stage and just be a mother.”
“A role that will suit you admirably. Already I foresee delightful pictures in the Sketch and the Tatler.”
Rosamund smiled happily.
“Yes, it’s wonderful. Do you know, Michael is delighted. I didn’t really think he would be.”
She paused and added:
“Susan’s got the malachite table. I thought, as I was having a baby—”
She left the sentence unfinished.
“Susan’s cosmetic business promises well,” said Helen. “I think she is all set for a big success.”
“Yes, she was born to succeed,” said Poirot. “She is like her uncle.”
“You mean Richard, I suppose,” said Rosamund. “Not Timothy?”
“Assuredly not like Timothy,” said Poirot.
They laughed.
“Greg’s away somewhere,” said Rosamund. “Having a rest cure Susan says?”
She looked inquiringly at Poirot who said nothing.
“I can’t think why he kept on saying he’d killed Uncle Richard,” said Rosamund. “Do you think it was a form of Exhibitionism?”
Poirot reverted to the previous topic.
“I received a very amiable letter from Mr. Timothy Abernethie,” he said. “He expressed himself as highly satisfied with the services I had rendered the family.”
“I do think Uncle Timothy is quite awful,” said Rosamund.
“I am going to stay with them next week,” said Helen. “They seem to be getting the gardens into order, but domestic help is still difficult.”
“They miss the awful Gilchrist, I suppose,” said Rosamund. “But I dare say in the end, she’d have killed Uncle Timothy too. What fun if she had!”
“Murder has always seemed fun to you, Madame.”
“Oh! not really,” said Rosamund vaguely. “But I did think it was George.” She brightened up. “Perhaps he will do one some day.
”
“And that will be fun,” said Poirot sarcastically.
“Yes, won’t it?” Rosamund agreed.
She ate another éclair from the plate in front of her.
Poirot turned to Helen.
“And you, Madame, are off to Cyprus?”
“Yes, in a fortnight’s time.”
“Then let me wish you a happy journey.”
He bowed over her hand. She came with him to the door, leaving Rosamund dreamily stuffing herself with cream pastries.
Helen said abruptly:
“I should like you to know, M. Poirot, that the legacy Richard left me meant more to me than theirs did to any of the others.”
“As much as that, Madame?”
“Yes. You see—there is a child in Cyprus… My husband and I were very devoted—it was a great sorrow to us to have no children. After he died my loneliness was unbelievable. When I was nursing in London at the end of the war, I met someone… He was younger than I was and married, though not very happily. We came together for a little while. That was all. He went back to Canada—to his wife and his children. He never knew about—our child. He would not have wanted it. I did. It seemed like a miracle to me—a middle-aged woman with everything behind her. With Richard’s money I can educate my so-called nephew, and give him a start in life.” She paused, then added, “I never told Richard. He was fond of me and I of him—but he would not have understood. You know so much about us all that I thought I would like you to know this about me.”
Once again Poirot bowed over her hand.
He got home to find the armchair on the left of the fireplace occupied.