‘Though, I fear, Messieurs, that I have hardly the feeling of a daughter in the matter. I have been to all intents and purposes an orphan all my life.’
In answer to Fournier’s questions she spoke warmly and gratefully of Mère Angélique, the head of the Institut de Marie.
‘She has always been kindness itself to me.’
‘You left the Institut—when, Madame?’
‘When I was eighteen, Monsieur. I started to earn my living. I was, for a time, a manicurist. I have also been in a dressmaker’s establishment. I met my husband in Nice. He was then just returning to the States. He came over again on business to Holland and we were married in Rotterdam a month ago. Unfortunately, he had to return to Canada. I was detained—but I am now about to rejoin him.’
Anne Richards’s French was fluent and easy. She was clearly more French than English.
‘You heard of the tragedy—how?’
‘Naturally I read of it in the papers, but I did not know—that is, I did not realize—that the victim in the case was my mother. Then I received a telegram here in Paris from Mère Angélique giving me the address of Maître Thibault and reminding me of my mother’s maiden name.’
Fournier nodded thoughtfully.
They talked a little further, but it seemed clear that Mrs Richards could be of little assistance to them in their search for the murderer. She knew nothing at all of her mother’s life or business relations.
Having elicited the name of the hotel at which she was staying, Poirot and Fournier took leave of her.
‘You are disappointed, mon vieux,’ said Fournier. ‘You had some idea in your brain about this girl? Did you suspect that she might be an impostor? Or do you, in fact, still suspect that she is an impostor?’
Poirot shook his head in a discouraged manner.
‘No—I do not think she is an impostor. Her proofs of identity sound genuine enough…It is odd, though, I feel that I have either seen her before—or that she reminds me of someone…’
‘A likeness to the dead woman?’ suggested Fournier doubtfully. ‘Surely not.’
‘No—it is not that—I wish I could remember what it was. I am sure her face reminds me of someone…’
Fournier looked at him curiously.
‘You have always, I think, been intrigued by the missing daughter.’
‘Naturally,’ said Poirot, his eyebrows rising a little. ‘Of all the people who may or may not benefit by Giselle’s death, this young woman does benefit—very definitely—in hard cash.’
‘True—but does that get us anywhere?’
Poirot did not answer for a minute or two. He was following the train of his own thoughts. He said at last:
‘My friend—a very large fortune passes to this girl. Do you wonder that from the beginning I speculated as to her being implicated. There were three women on that plane. One of them, Miss Venetia Kerr, was of well-known and authenticated family. But the other two? Ever since Elise Grandier advanced the theory that the father of Madame Giselle’s child was an Englishman I have kept it in my mind that one of the two other women might conceivably be this daughter. They were both of approximately the right age. Lady Horbury was a chorus girl whose antecedents were somewhat obscure and who acted under a stage name. Miss Jane Grey, as she once told me, had been brought up in an orphanage.’
‘Ah ha!’ said the Frenchman. ‘So that is the way your mind has been running? Our friend Japp would say that you were being over-ingenious.’
‘It is true that he always accuses me of preferring to make things difficult.’
‘You see?’
‘But as a matter of fact it is not true—I proceed always in the simplest manner imaginable! And I never refuse to accept facts.’
‘But you are disappointed? You expected more from this Anne Morisot?’
They were just entering Poirot’s hotel. An object lying on the reception desk recalled Fournier’s mind to something Poirot had said earlier in the morning.
‘I have not thanked you,’ he said, ‘for drawing my attention to the error I had committed. I noted the two cigarette holders of Lady Horbury and the Kurdish pipes of the Duponts. It was unpardonable on my part to have forgotten the flute of Dr Bryant, though I do not seriously suspect him—’
‘You do not?’
‘No. He does not strike me as the kind of man to—’
He stopped. The man standing at the reception desk talking to the clerk turned, his hand on the flute case. His glance fell on Poirot and his face lit up in grave recognition.
Poirot went forward—Fournier discreetly withdrew into the background. As well that Bryant should not see him.
‘Dr Bryant,’ said Poirot, bowing.
‘M. Poirot.’
They shook hands. A woman who had been standing near Bryant moved away towards the lift. Poirot sent just a fleeting glance after her.
He said:
‘Well, M. le docteur, are your patients managing to do without you for a little?’
Dr Bryant smiled—that melancholy attractive smile that the other remembered so well. He looked tired, but strangely peaceful.
‘I have no patients now,’ he said.
Then, moving towards a little table, he said:
‘A glass of sherry, M. Poirot, or some other apéritif?’
‘I thank you.’
They sat down, and the doctor gave the order. Then he said slowly:
‘No, I have no patients now. I have retired.’
‘A sudden decision?’
‘Not so very sudden.’
He was silent as the drinks were set before them. Then, raising the glass, he said:
‘It is a necessary decision. I resign of my own free will before I am struck off the register.’ He went on speaking in a gentle, faraway voice. ‘There comes to everyone a turning-point in their lives, M. Poirot. They stand at the cross-roads and have to decide. My profession interests me enormously—it is a sorrow—a very great sorrow to abandon it. But there are other claims…There is, M. Poirot, the happiness of a human being.’
Poirot did not speak. He waited.
‘There is a lady—a patient of mine—I love her very dearly. She has a husband who causes her infinite misery. He takes drugs. If you were a doctor you would know what that meant. She has no money of her own, so she cannot leave him…
‘For some time I have been undecided—but now I have made up my mind. She and I are now on our way to Kenya to begin a new life. I hope that at last she may know a little happiness. She has suffered so long…’
Again he was silent. Then he said in a brisker tone:
‘I tell you this, M. Poirot, because it will soon be public property, and the sooner you know the better.’
‘I understand,’ said Poirot. After a minute he said, ‘You take your flute, I see?’
Dr Bryant smiled.
‘My flute, M. Poirot, is my oldest companion…When everything else fails—music remains.’
His hand ran lovingly over the flute case, then with a bow he rose.
Poirot rose also.
‘My best wishes for your future, M. le docteur—and for that of Madame,’ said Poirot.
When Fournier rejoined his friend, Poirot was at the desk making arrangements for a trunk call to Quebec.
Chapter 24
A Broken Finger-Nail
‘What now?’ cried Fournier. ‘You are still preoccupied with this girl who inherits? Decidedly it is the idée fixe you have there.’
‘Not at all, not at all,’ said Poirot. ‘But there must be in all things order and method. One must finish with one thing before proceeding to the next.’
He looked round.
‘Here is Mademoiselle Jane. Suppose that you commence déjeuner. I will join you as soon as I can.’
Fournier acquiesced and he and Jane went into the dining-room.
‘Well?’ said Jane with curiosity. ‘What is she like?’
‘She is a little over medium height, dark, with a matte c
omplexion, a pointed chin—’
‘You’re talking exactly like a passport,’ said Jane. ‘My passport description is simply insulting, I think. It’s composed of mediums and ordinary. Nose, medium; mouth ordinary (how do they expect you to describe a mouth?); forehead, ordinary; chin, ordinary.’
‘But not ordinary eyes,’ said Fournier.
‘Even they are grey, which is not a very exciting colour.’
‘And who has told you, Mademoiselle, that it is not an exciting colour?’ said the Frenchman, leaning across the table.
Jane laughed.
‘Your command of the English language,’ she said, ‘is highly efficient. Tell me more about Anne Morisot—is she pretty?’
‘Assez bien,’ said Fournier cautiously. ‘And she is not Anne Morisot. She is Anne Richards. She is married.’
‘Was the husband there, too?’
‘No.’
‘Why not, I wonder?’
‘Because he is in Canada or America.’
He explained some of the circumstances of Anne’s life. Just as he was drawing his narrative to a close, Poirot joined them.
He looked a little dejected.
‘Well, mon cher?’ inquired Fournier.
‘I spoke to the principal—to Mère Angélique herself. It is romantic, you know, the transatlantic telephone. To speak so easily to someone nearly halfway across the globe.’
‘The telegraphed photograph—that too is romantic. Science is the greatest romance there is. But you were saying?’
‘I talked with Mère Angélique. She confirmed exactly what Mrs Richards told us of the circumstances of her having been brought up at the Institut de Marie. She spoke quite frankly about the mother who left Quebec with a Frenchman interested in the wine trade. She was relieved at the time that the child would not come under her mother’s influence. From her point of view Giselle was on the downward path. Money was sent regularly—but Giselle never suggested a meeting.’
‘In fact your conversation was a repetition of what we heard this morning.’
‘Practically—except that it was more detailed. Anne Morisot left the Institut de Marie six years ago to become a manicurist, afterwards she had a job as a lady’s maid—and finally left Quebec for Europe in that capacity. Her letters were not frequent, but Mère Angélique usually heard from her about twice a year. When she saw an account of the inquest in the paper she realized that this Marie Morisot was in all probability the Marie Morisot who had lived in Quebec.’
‘What about the husband?’ asked Fournier. ‘Now that we know definitely that Giselle was married, the husband might become a factor?’
‘I thought of that. It was one of the reasons for my telephone call. George Leman, Giselle’s blackguard of a husband, was killed in the early days of the war.’
He paused and then remarked abruptly:
‘What was it that I just said—not my last remark—the one before?—I have an idea that—without knowing it—I said something of significance.’
Fournier repeated as well as he could the substance of Poirot’s remarks, but the little man shook his head in a dissatisfied manner.
‘No—no—it was not that. Well, no matter…’
He turned to Jane and engaged her in conversation.
At the close of the meal he suggested that they have coffee in the lounge.
Jane agreed and stretched out her hand for her bag and gloves, which were on the table. As she picked them up she winced slightly.
‘What is it, Mademoiselle?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ laughed Jane. ‘It’s only a jagged nail. I must file it.’
Poirot sat down again very suddenly.
‘Nom d’un nom d’un nom,’ he said quietly.
The other two stared at him in surprise.
‘M. Poirot?’ cried Jane. ‘What is it?’
‘It is,’ said Poirot, ‘that I remember now why the face of Anne Morisot is familiar to me. I have seen her before…in the aeroplane on the day of the murder. Lady Horbury sent for her to get a nail file. Anne Morisot was Lady Horbury’s maid.’
Chapter 25
‘I Am Afraid’
This sudden revelation had an almost stunning effect on the three people sitting round the luncheon table. It opened up an entirely new aspect of the case.
Instead of being a person wholly remote from the tragedy, Anne Morisot was now shown to have been actually present on the scene of the crime. It took a minute or two for everyone to readjust their ideas.
Poirot made a frantic gesture with his hands—his eyes closed—his face contorted in agony.
‘A little minute—a little minute,’ he implored them. ‘I have got to think, to see, to realize how this affects my ideas of the case. I must go back in my mind. I must remember…A thousand maledictions on my unfortunate stomach. I was preoccupied only with my internal sensations!’
‘She was actually on the plane, then,’ said Fournier. ‘I see. I begin to see.’
‘I remember,’ said Jane. ‘A tall, dark girl.’ Her eyes half closed in an effort of memory. ‘Madeleine, Lady Horbury called her.’
‘That is it, Madeleine,’ said Poirot.
‘Lady Horbury sent her along to the end of the plane to fetch a case—a scarlet dressing-case.’
‘You mean,’ said Fournier, ‘that this girl went right past the seat where her mother was sitting?’
‘That is right.’
‘The motive,’ said Fournier. He gave a great sigh.
‘And the opportunity…Yes, it is all there.’
Then with a sudden vehemence most unlike his usual melancholy manner, he brought down his hand with a bang on the table.
‘But, parbleu!’ he cried. ‘Why did no one mention this before? Why was she not included amongst the suspected persons?’
‘I have told you, my friend. I have told you,’ said Poirot wearily. ‘My unfortunate stomach.’
‘Yes, yes, that is understandable. But there were other stomachs unaffected—the stewards’, the other passengers’.’
‘I think,’ said Jane, ‘that perhaps it was because it was so very early this happened. The plane had only just left Le Bourget; and Giselle was alive and well an hour or so after that. It seemed as though she must have been killed much later.’
‘That is curious,’ said Fournier thoughtfully. ‘Can there have been a delayed action of the poison? Such things happen…’
Poirot groaned and dropped his head into his hands.
‘I must think. I must think…Can it be possible that all along my ideas have been entirely wrong?’
‘Mon vieux,’ said Fournier, ‘such things happen. They happen to me. It is possible that they have happened to you. One has occasionally to pocket one’s pride and readjust one’s ideas.’
‘That is true,’ agreed Poirot. ‘It is possible that all along I have attached too much importance to one particular thing. I expected to find a certain clue. I found it, and I built up my case from it. But if I have been wrong from the beginning—if that particular article was where it was merely as the result of an accident…why, then—yes—I will admit that I have been wrong—completely wrong.’
‘You cannot shut your eyes to the importance of this turn of events,’ said Fournier. ‘Motive and opportunity—what more can you want?’
‘Nothing. It must be as you say. The delayed action of the poison is indeed extraordinary—practically speaking—one would say impossible. But where poisons are concerned the impossible does happen. One has to reckon with idiosyncrasy…’
His voice tailed off.
‘We must discuss a plan of campaign,’ said Fournier. ‘For the moment it would, I think, be unwise to arouse Anne Morisot’s suspicions. She is completely unaware that you have recognized her. Her bona fide have been accepted. We know the hotel at which she is staying and we can keep in touch with her through Thibault. Legal formalities can always be delayed. We have two points established—opportunity and motive. We have still to prove that
Anne Morisot had snake venom in her possession. There is also the question of the American who bought the blowpipe and bribed Jules Perrot. It might certainly be the husband—Richards. We have only her word for it that he is in Canada.’
‘As you say—the husband…Yes, the husband. Ah, wait—wait!’
Poirot pressed his hands upon his temples.
‘It is all wrong,’ he murmured. ‘I do not employ the little grey cells of the brain in an orderly and methodical way. No, I leap to conclusions. I think, perhaps, what I am meant to think. No, that is wrong again. If my original idea were right, I could not be meant to think—’
He broke off.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Jane.
Poirot did not answer for a moment or two; then he took his hands from his temples, sat very upright and straightened two forks and a salt-cellar which offended his sense of symmetry.
‘Let us reason,’ he said. ‘Anne Morisot is either guilty or innocent of the crime. If she is innocent why has she lied? Why has she concealed the fact that she was lady’s maid to Lady Horbury?’
‘Why, indeed?’ said Fournier.
‘So we say Anne Morisot is guilty because she has lied. But wait. Suppose my first supposition was correct. Will that supposition fit in with Anne Morisot’s guilt, or with Anne Morisot’s lie? Yes—yes—it might—given one premise. But in that case—and if that premise is correct—then Anne Morisot should not have been on the plane at all.’
The others looked at him politely, if with, perhaps, a rather perfunctory interest.
Fournier thought:
‘I see now what the Englishman, Japp, meant. He makes difficulties, this old one. He tries to make an affair which is now simple sound complicated. He cannot accept a straightforward solution without pretending that it squares with his preconceived ideas.’
Jane thought:
‘I don’t see in the least what he means…Why couldn’t the girl be on the plane? She had to go wherever Lady Horbury wanted her to go…I think he’s rather a mountebank, really…’
Suddenly Poirot drew in his breath with a hiss.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘It is a possibility; and it ought to be very simple to find out.’