“In plain language,” said Race, “your uncle suspected that Pennington was a crook?”
Jim Fanthorp nodded, a faint smile on his face.
“You put it rather more bluntly than I should, but the main idea is correct. Various excuses made by Pennington, certain plausible explanations of the disposal of funds, aroused my uncle’s distrust.
“While these suspicions of his were still nebulous, Miss Ridgeway married unexpectedly and went off on her honeymoon to Egypt. Her marriage relieved my uncle’s mind, as he knew that on her return to England the estate would have to be formally settled and handed over.
“However, in a letter she wrote him from Cairo, she mentioned casually that she had unexpectedly run across Andrew Pennington. My uncle’s suspicions became acute. He felt sure that Pennington, perhaps by now in a desperate position, was going to try and obtain signatures from her which would cover his own defalcations. Since my uncle had no definite evidence to lay before her, he was in a most difficult position. The only thing he could think of was to send me out here, travelling by air, with instruction to discover what was in the wind. I was to keep my eyes open and act summarily if necessary—a most unpleasant mission, I can assure you. As a matter of fact, on the occasion you mention I had to behave more or less as a cad! It was awkward, but on the whole I was satisfied with the result.”
“You mean you put Madame Doyle on her guard?” asked Race.
“Not so much that, but I think I put the wind up Pennington. I felt convinced he wouldn’t try anymore funny business for some time, and by then I hoped to have got intimate enough with Mr. and Mrs. Doyle to convey some kind of a warning. As a matter of fact I hoped to do so through Doyle. Mrs. Doyle was so attached to Mr. Pennington that it would have been a bit awkward to suggest things to her about him. It would have been easier for me to approach the husband.”
Race nodded.
Poirot asked: “Will you give me a candid opinion on one point, Monsieur Fanthorp? If you were engaged in putting a swindle over, would you choose Madame Doyle or Monsieur Doyle as a victim?”
Fanthorp smiled faintly.
“Mr. Doyle, every time. Linnet Doyle was very shrewd in business matters. Her husband, I should fancy, is one of those trustful fellows who know nothing of business and are always ready to ‘sign on the dotted line’ as he himself put it.”
“I agree,” said Poirot. He looked at Race. “And there’s your motive.”
Jim Fanthorp said: “But this is all pure conjecture. It isn’t evidence.”
Poirot replied, easily: “Ah, bah! we will get evidence!”
“How?”
“Possibly from Mr. Pennington himself.”
Fanthorp looked doubtful.
“I wonder. I very much wonder.”
Race glanced at his watch. “He’s about due now.”
Jim Fanthorp was quick to take the hint. He left them.
Two minutes later Andrew Pennington made his appearance. His manner was all smiling urbanity. Only the taut line of his jaw and the wariness of his eyes betrayed the fact that a thoroughly experienced fighter was on his guard.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “here I am.”
He sat down and looked at them inquiringly.
“We asked you to come here, Monsieur Pennington,” began Poirot, “because it is fairly obvious that you have a very special and immediate interest in the case.”
Pennington raised his eyebrows slightly.
“Is that so?”
Poirot said gently: “Surely. You have known Linnet Ridgeway, I understand, since she was quite a child.”
“Oh! that—” His face altered, became less alert. “I beg pardon, I didn’t quite get you. Yes, as I told you this morning, I’ve known Linnet since she was a cute little thing in pinafores.”
“You were on terms of close intimacy with her father?”
“That’s so. Melhuish Ridgeway and I were very close—very close.”
“You were so intimately associated that on his death he appointed you business guardian to his daughter and trustee to the vast fortune she inherited?”
“Why, roughly, that is so.” The wariness was back again. The note was more cautious. “I was not the only trustee, naturally; others were associated with me.”
“Who have since died?”
“Two of them are dead. The other, Mr. Sterndale Rockford, is alive.”
“Your partner?”
“Yes.”
“Mademoiselle Ridgeway, I understand, was not yet of age when she married?”
“She would have been twenty-one next July.”
“And in the normal course of events she would have come into control of her fortune then?”
“Yes.”
“But her marriage precipitated matters?”
Pennington’s jaw hardened. He shot out his chin at them aggressively.
“You’ll pardon me, gentlemen, but what exact business is all this of yours?”
“If you dislike answering the question—”
“There’s no dislike about it. I don’t mind what you ask me. But I don’t see the relevance of all this.”
“Oh, but surely, Monsieur Pennington”—Poirot leaned forward, his eyes green and catlike—“there is the question of motive. In considering that, financial considerations must always be taken into account.”
Pennington said sullenly: “By Ridgeway’s will, Linnet got control of her dough when she was twenty-one or when she married.”
“No conditions of any kind?”
“No conditions.”
“And it is a matter, I am credibly assured, of millions.”
“Millions it is.”
Poirot said softly: “Your responsibility, Mr. Pennington, and that of your partner, has been a very grave one.”
Pennington replied curtly: “We’re used to responsibility. Doesn’t worry us any.”
“I wonder.”
Something in his tone flicked the other man on the raw. He asked angrily: “What the devil do you mean?”
Poirot replied with an air of engaging frankness: “I was wondering, Mr. Pennington, whether Linnet Ridgeway’s sudden marriage caused any—consternation, in your office?”
“Consternation?”
“That was the word I used.”
“What the hell are you driving at?”
“Something quite simple. Are Linnet Doyle’s affairs in the perfect order they should be?”
Pennington rose to his feet.
“That’s enough. I’m through.” He made for the door.
“But you will answer my question first?”
Pennington snapped: “They’re in perfect order.”
“You were not so alarmed when the news of Linnet Ridgeway’s marriage reached you that you rushed over to Europe by the first boat and staged an apparently fortuitous meeting in Egypt?”
Pennington came back towards them. He had himself under control once more.
“What you are saying is absolute balderdash! I didn’t even know that Linnet was married till I met her in Cairo. I was utterly astonished. Her letter must have missed me by a day in New York. It was forwarded and I got it about a week later.”
“You came over by the Carmanic, I think you said.”
“That’s right.”
“And the letter reached New York after the Carmanic sailed?”
“How many times have I got to repeat it?”
“It is strange,” said Poirot.
“What’s strange?”
“That on your luggage there are no labels of the Carmanic. The only recent labels of transatlantic sailing are the Normandie. The Normandie, I remember, sailed two days after the Carmanic.”
For a moment the other was at a loss. His eyes wavered.
Colonel Race weighed in with telling effect.
“Come now, Mr. Pennington,” he said. “We’ve several reasons for believing that you came over on the Normandie and not by the Carmanic, as you said. In that case, you received Mr
s. Doyle’s letter before you left New York. It’s no good denying it, for it’s the easiest thing in the world to check up the steamship companies.”
Andrew Pennington felt absentmindedly for a chair and sat down. His face was impassive—a poker face. Behind that mask his agile brain looked ahead to the next move.
“I’ll have to hand it to you, gentlemen. You’ve been too smart for me. But I had my reasons for acting as I did.”
“No doubt.” Race’s tone was curt.
“If I give them to you, it must be understood I do so in confidence.”
“I think you can trust us to behave fittingly. Naturally I cannot give assurances blindly.”
“Well—” Pennington sighed. “I’ll come clean. There was some monkey business going on in England. It worried me. I couldn’t do much about it by letter. The only thing was to come over and see for myself.”
“What do you mean by monkey business?”
“I’d good reason to believe that Linnet was being swindled.”
“By whom?”
“Her British lawyer. Now that’s not the kind of accusation you can fling around anyhow. I made up my mind to come over right away and see into matters myself.”
“That does great credit to your vigilance, I am sure. But why the little deception about not having received the letter?”
“Well, I ask you—” Pennington spread out his hands. “You can’t butt in on a honeymoon couple without more or less coming down to brass tacks and giving your reasons. I thought it best to make the meeting accidental. Besides, I didn’t know anything about the husband. He might have been mixed up in the racket for all I knew.”
“In fact all your actions were actuated by pure disinterestedness,” said Colonel Race dryly.
“You’ve said it, Colonel.”
There was a pause. Race glanced at Poirot. The little man leant forward.
“Monsieur Pennington, we do not believe a word of your story.”
“The hell you don’t! And what the hell do you believe?”
“We believe that Linnet Ridgeway’s unexpected marriage put you in a financial quandary. That you came over posthaste to try and find some way out of the mess you were in—that is to say, some way of gaining time. That, with that end in view, you endeavoured to obtain Madame Doyle’s signature to certain documents and failed. That on the journey up the Nile, when walking along the cliff top at Abu Simbel, you dislodged a boulder which fell and only very narrowly missed its object—”
“You’re crazy.”
“We believe that the same kind of circumstances occurred on the return journey. That is to say, an opportunity presented itself of putting Madame Doyle out of the way at a moment when her death would be almost certainly ascribed to the action of another person. We not only believe, but know, that it was your revolver which killed a woman who was about to reveal to us the name of the person who she had reason to believe killed both Linnet Doyle and the maid Louise—”
“Hell!” The forcible ejaculation broke forth and interrupted Poirot’s stream of eloquence. “What are you getting at? Are you crazy? What motive had I to kill Linnet? I wouldn’t get her money; that goes to her husband. Why don’t you pick on him? He’s the one to benefit—not me.”
Race said coldly: “Doyle never left the lounge on the night of the tragedy till he was shot at and wounded in the leg. The impossibility of his walking a step after that is attested to by a doctor and a nurse—both independent and reliable witnesses. Simon Doyle could not have killed his wife. He could not have killed Louise Bourget. He most definitely did not kill Mrs. Otterbourne. You know that as well as we do.”
“I know he didn’t kill her.” Pennington sounded a little calmer. “All I say is, why pick on me when I don’t benefit by her death?”
“But, my dear sir,” Poirot’s voice came soft as a purring cat, “that is rather a matter of opinion. Madame Doyle was a keen woman of business, fully conversant with her own affairs and very quick to spot any irregularity. As soon as she took up the control of her property, which she would have done on her return to England, her suspicions were bound to be aroused. But now that she is dead and that her husband, as you have just pointed out, inherits, the whole thing is different. Simon Doyle knows nothing whatever of his wife’s affairs except that she was a rich woman. He is of a simple, trusting disposition. You will find it easy to place complicated statements before him, to involve the real issue in a net of figures, and to delay settlement with pleas of legal formalities and the recent depression. I think that it makes a very considerable difference to you whether you deal with the husband or the wife.”
Pennington shrugged his shoulders.
“Your ideas are—fantastic.”
“Time will show.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘Time will show!’ This is a matter of three deaths—three murders. The law will demand the most searching investigation into the condition of Madame Doyle’s estate.”
He saw the sudden sag in the other’s shoulders and knew that he had won. Jim Fanthorp’s suspicions were well founded.
Poirot went on: “You’ve played—and lost. Useless to go on bluffing.”
“You don’t understand,” Pennington muttered. “It’s all square enough really. It’s been this damned slump—Wall Street’s been crazy. But I’d staged a comeback. With luck everything will be O.K. by the middle of June.”
With shaking hands he took a cigarette, tried to light it, failed.
“I suppose,” mused Poirot, “that the boulder was a sudden temptation. You thought nobody saw you.”
“That was an accident. I swear it was an accident!” The man leant forward, his face working, his eyes terrified. “I stumbled and fell against it. I swear it was an accident….”
The two men said nothing.
Pennington suddenly pulled himself together. He was still a wreck of a man, but his fighting spirit had returned in a certain measure. He moved towards the door.
“You can’t pin that on me, gentlemen. It was an accident. And it wasn’t I who shot her. D’you hear? You can’t pin that on me either—and you never will.”
He went out.
Twenty-Seven
As the door closed behind him, Race gave a deep sigh.
“We got more than I thought we should. Admission of fraud. Admission of attempted murder. Further than that it’s impossible to go. A man will confess, more or less, to attempted murder, but you won’t get him to confess to the real thing.”
“Sometimes it can be done,” said Poirot. His eyes were dreamy—catlike.
Race looked at him curiously.
“Got a plan?”
Poirot nodded. Then he said, ticking off the items on his fingers: “The garden at Assuan. Mr. Allerton’s statement. The two bottles of nail polish. My bottle of wine. The velvet stole. The stained handkerchief. The pistol that was left on the scene of the crime. The death of Louise. The death of Madame Otterbourne. Yes, it’s all there. Pennington didn’t do it, Race!”
“What?” Race was startled.
“Pennington didn’t do it. He had the motive, yes. He had the will to do it, yes. He got as far as attempting to do it. Mais c’est tout. For this crime, something was wanted that Pennington hadn’t got! This is a crime that needed audacity, swift and faultless execution, courage, indifference to danger, and a resourceful, calculating brain. Pennington hasn’t got those attributes. He couldn’t do a crime unless he knew it to be safe. This crime wasn’t safe! It hung on a razor edge. It needed boldness. Pennington isn’t bold. He’s only astute.”
Race looked at him with the respect one able man gives to another.
“You’ve got it all well taped,” he said.
“I think so, yes. There are one or two things—that telegram for instance, that Linnet Doyle read. I should like to get that cleared up.”
“By Jove, we forgot to ask Doyle. He was telling us when poor old Ma Otterbourne came along. We’ll ask him again.”
“Presently. First, I have someone else to whom I wish to speak.”
“Who’s that?”
“Tim Allerton.”
Race raised his eyebrows.
“Allerton? Well, we’ll get him here.”
He pressed a bell and sent the steward with a message.
Tim Allerton entered with a questioning look.
“Steward said you wanted to see me?”
“That is right, Monsieur Allerton. Sit down.”
Tim sat. His face was attentive but very slightly bored.
“Anything I can do?” His tone was polite but not enthusiastic.
Poirot said: “In a sense, perhaps. What I really require is for you to listen.”
Tim’s eyebrows rose in polite surprise.
“Certainly. I’m the world’s best listener. Can be relied on to say ‘Ooer!’ at the right moments.”
“That is very satisfactory. ‘Oo-er!’ will be very expressive. Eh bien, let us commence. When I met you and your mother at Assuan, Monsieur Allerton, I was attracted to your company very strongly. To begin with, I thought your mother was one of the most charming people I had ever met—”
The weary face flickered for a moment; a shade of expression came into it.
“She is—unique,” he said.
“But the second thing that interested me was your mention of a certain lady.”
“Really?”
“Yes, a Mademoiselle Joanna Southwood. You see, I had recently been hearing that name.”
He paused and went on: “For the last three years there have been certain jewel robberies that have been worrying Scotland Yard a good deal. They are what may be described as Society robberies. The method is usually the same—the substitution of an imitation piece of jewellery for an original. My friend, Chief Inspector Japp, came to the conclusion that the robberies were not the work of one person, but of two people working in with each other very cleverly. He was convinced, from the considerable inside knowledge displayed, that the robberies were the work of people in a good social position. And finally his attention became riveted on Mademoiselle Joanna Southwood.