“She did,” replied Lord Edgware dryly. “English lawyers, American lawyers, every kind of lawyer, down to the lowest kind of scallywag. Finally, as I say, she wrote to me herself.”
“You have previously refused?”
“That is so.”
“But on receiving her letter, you changed your mind. Why did you change your mind, Lord Edgware?”
“Not on account of anything in that letter,” he said sharply. “My views happened to have changed, that is all.”
“The change was somewhat sudden.”
Lord Edgware did not reply.
“What special circumstances brought about your change of mind, Lord Edgware?”
“That, really, is my own business M. Poirot. I cannot enter into the subject. Shall we say that gradually I had perceived the advantages of severing what—you will forgive my plain speaking—I considered a degrading association. My second marriage was a mistake.”
“Your wife says the same,” said Poirot softly.
“Does she?”
There was a queer flicker for a moment in his eyes, but it was gone almost at once.
He rose with an air of finality and as we said good-bye his manner became less unbending.
“You must forgive my altering the appointment. I have to go over to Paris tomorrow.”
“Perfectly—perfectly.”
“A sale of works of art as a matter of fact. I have my eye on a little statuette—a perfect thing in its way—a macabre way, perhaps. But I enjoy the macabre. I always have. My taste is peculiar.”
Again that queer smile. I had been looking at the books in the shelves near. There were the memoirs of Casanova, also a volume on the Comte de Sade, another on mediaeval tortures.
I remembered Jane Wilkinson’s little shudder as she spoke of her husband. That had not been acting. That had been real enough. I wondered exactly what kind of a man George Alfred St. Vincent Marsh, fourth Baron Edgware, was.
Very suavely he bid us farewell, touching the bell as he did so. We went out of the door. The Greek god of a butler was waiting in the hall. As I closed the library door behind me, I glanced back into the room. I almost uttered an exclamation as I did so.
That suave smiling face was transformed. The lips were drawn back from the teeth in a snarl, the eyes were alive with fury and an almost insane rage.
I wondered no longer that two wives had left Lord Edgware. What I did marvel at was the iron self-control of the man. To have gone through that interview with such frozen self-control, such aloof politeness!
Just as we reached the front door, a door on the right opened. A girl stood at the doorway of the room, shrinking back a little as she saw us.
She was a tall slender girl, with dark hair and a white face. Her eyes, dark and startled, looked for a moment into mine. Then, like a shadow, she shrank back into the room again, closing the door.
A moment later we were out in the street. Poirot hailed a taxi. We got in and he told the man to drive to the Savoy.
“Well, Hastings,” he said with a twinkle, “that interview did not go at all as I figured to myself it would.”
“No, indeed. What an extraordinary man Lord Edgware is.”
I related to him how I had looked back before closing the door of the study and what I had seen. He nodded his head slowly and thoughtfully.
“I fancy that he is very near the borderline of madness, Hastings. I should imagine he practises many curious vices, and that beneath his frigid exterior he hides a deep-rooted instinct of cruelty.”
“It is no wonder both his wives left him.”
“As you say.”
“Poirot, did you notice a girl as we were coming out? A dark girl with a white face.”
“Yes, I noticed her, mon ami. A young lady who was frightened and not happy.”
His voice was grave.
“Who do you think she was?”
“Probably his daughter. He has one.”
“She did look frightened,” I said slowly. “That house must be a gloomy place for a young girl.”
“Yes, indeed. Ah! here we are, mon ami. Now to acquaint her ladyship with the good news.”
Jane was in, and after telephoning, the clerk informed us that we were to go up. A page boy took us to the door.
It was opened by a neat middle-aged woman with glasses and primly arranged grey hair. From the bedroom Jane’s voice, with its husky note, called to her.
“Is that M. Poirot, Ellis? Make him sit right down. I’ll find a rag to put on and be there in a moment.”
Jane Wilkinson’s idea of a rag was a gossamer negligee which revealed more than it hid. She came in eagerly, saying: “Well?”
Poirot rose and bowed over her hand.
“Exactly the word, Madame, it is well.”
“Why—how do you mean?”
“Lord Edgware is perfectly willing to agree to a divorce.”
“What?”
Either the stupefaction on her face was genuine, or else she was indeed a most marvellous actress.
“M. Poirot! You’ve managed it! At once! Like that! Why, you’re a genius. How in mercy’s name did you set about it?”
“Madame, I cannot take compliments where they are not earned. Six months ago your husband wrote to you withdrawing his opposition.”
“What’s that you say? Wrote to me? Where?”
“It was when you were at Hollywood, I understand.”
“I never got it. Must have gone astray, I suppose. And to think I’ve been thinking and planning and fretting and going nearly crazy all these months.”
“Lord Edgware seemed to be under the impression that you wished to marry an actor.”
“Naturally. That’s what I told him.” She gave a pleased child’s smile. Suddenly it changed to a look of alarm. “Why, M. Poirot, you did not go and tell him about me and the duke?”
“No, no, reassure yourself. I am discreet. That would not have done, eh?”
“Well, you see, he’s got a queer mean nature. Marrying Merton, he’d feel, was perhaps a kind of leg up for me—so then naturally he’d queer the pitch. But a film actor’s different. Though, all the same, I’m surprised. Yes, I am. Aren’t you surprised, Ellis?”
I had noticed that the maid had come to and fro from the bedroom tidying away various outdoor garments which were lying flung over the backs of chairs. It had been my opinion that she had been listening to the conversation. Now it seemed that she was completely in Jane’s confidence.
“Yes, indeed, m’lady. His lordship must have changed a good deal since we knew him,” said the maid spitefully.
“Yes, he must.”
“You cannot understand his attitude. It puzzles you?” suggested Poirot.
“Oh, it does. But anyway, we needn’t worry about that. What does it matter what made him change his mind so long as he has changed it?”
“It may not interest you, but it interests me, Madame.”
Jane paid no attention to him.
“The thing is that I’m free—at last.”
“Not yet, Madame.”
She looked at him impatiently.
“Well, going to be free. It’s the same thing.”
Poirot looked as though he did not think it was.
“The duke is in Paris,” said Jane. “I must cable him right away. My—won’t his old mother be wild!”
Poirot rose.
“I am glad, Madame, that all is turning out as you wish.”
“Good-bye, M. Poirot, and thanks awfully.”
“I did nothing.”
“You brought me the good news, anyway, M. Poirot, and I’m ever so grateful. I really am.”
“And that is that,” said Poirot to me, as we left the suite. “The single idea—herself! She has no speculation, no curiosity as to why that letter never reached her. You observe, Hastings, she is shrewd beyond belief in the business sense, but she has absolutely no intellect. Well, well, the good God cannot give everything.”
“Except
to Hercule Poirot,” I said dryly.
“You mock yourself at me, my friend,” he replied serenely. “But come, let me walk along the Embankment. I wish to arrange my ideas with order and method.”
I maintained a discreet silence until such time as the oracle should speak.
“That letter,” he resumed when we were pacing along by the river. “It intrigues me. There are four solutions of that problem, my friend.”
“Four?”
“Yes. First, it was lost in the post. That does happen, you know. But not very often. No, not very often. Incorrectly addressed, it would have been returned to Lord Edgware long before this. No, I am inclined to rule out that solution—though, of course, it may be the true one.
“Solution two, our beautiful lady is lying when she says she never received it. That, of course, is quite possible. That charming lady is capable of telling any lie to her advantage with the most childlike candour. But I cannot see, Hastings, how it could be to her advantage. If she knows that he will divorce her, why send me to ask him to do so? It does not make sense.
“Solution three. Lord Edgware is lying. And if anyone is lying it seems more likely that it is he than his wife. But I do not see much point in such a lie. Why invent a fictitious letter sent six months ago? Why not simply agree to my proposition? No, I am inclined to think that he did send that letter—though what the motive was for his sudden change of attitude I cannot guess.
“So we come to the fourth solution—that someone suppressed that letter. And there, Hastings, we enter on a very interesting field of speculation, because that letter could have been suppressed at either end—in America or England.
“Whoever suppressed it was someone who did not want that marriage dissolved. Hastings, I would give a great deal to know what is behind this affair. There is something—I swear there is something.”
He paused and then added slowly.
“Something of which as yet I have only been able to get a glimpse.”
Five
MURDER
The following day was the 30th June.
It was just half past nine when we were told that Inspector Japp was below and anxious to see us.
It was some years since we had seen anything of the Scotland Yard inspector.
“Ah! ce bon Japp,” said Poirot. “What does he want, I wonder?”
“Help,” I snapped. “He’s out of his depth over some case and he’s come to you.”
I had not the indulgence for Japp that Poirot had. It was not so much that I minded his picking Poirot’s brains—after all, Poirot enjoyed the process, it was a delicate flattery. What did annoy me was Japp’s hypocritical pretence that he was doing nothing of the kind. I liked people to be straightforward. I said so, and Poirot laughed.
“You are the dog of the bulldog breed, eh, Hastings? But you must remember that the poor Japp he has to save his face. So he makes his little pretence. It is very natural.”
I thought it merely foolish and said so. Poirot did not agree.
“The outward form—it is a bagatelle—but it matters to people. It enables them to keep the amour propre.”
Personally I thought a dash of inferiority complex would do Japp no harm, but there was no point in arguing the matter. Besides, I was anxious to learn what Japp had come about.
He greeted us both heartily.
“Just going to have breakfast, I see. Not got the hens to lay square eggs for you yet, M. Poirot?”
This was an allusion to a complaint from Poirot as to the varying sizes of eggs which had offended his sense of symmetry.
“As yet, no,” said Poirot smiling. “And what brings you to see us so early, my good Japp?”
“It’s not early—not for me. I’ve been up and at work for a good two hours. As to what brings me to see you—well, it’s murder.”
“Murder?”
Japp nodded.
“Lord Edgware was killed at his house in Regent Gate last night. Stabbed in the neck by his wife.”
“By his wife?” I cried.
In a flash I remembered Bryan Martin’s words on the previous morning. Had he had a prophetic knowledge of what was going to happen? I remembered, too, Jane’s easy reference to “bumping him off.” Amoral, Bryan Martin had called her. She was the type, yes. Callous, egotistical and stupid. How right he had been in his judgment.
All this passed through my mind while Japp went on:
“Yes. Actress, you know. Well-known. Jane Wilkinson. Married him three years ago. They didn’t get on. She left him.”
Poirot was looking puzzled and serious.
“What makes you believe that it was she who killed him?”
“No belief about it. She was recognized. Not much concealment about it, either. She drove up in a taxi—”
“A taxi—” I echoed involuntarily, her words at the Savoy that night coming back to me.
“—rang the bell, asked for Lord Edgware. It was ten o’clock. Butler said he’d see. ‘Oh!’ she says cool as a cucumber. ‘You needn’t. I am Lady Edgware. I suppose he’s in the library.’ And with that she walks along and opens the door and goes in and shuts it behind her.
“Well the butler thought it was queer, but all right. He went downstairs again. About ten minutes later he heard the front door shut. So, anyway, she hadn’t stayed long. He locked up for the night about eleven. He opened the library door, but it was dark, so he thought his master had gone to bed. This morning the body was discovered by a housemaid. Stabbed in the back of the neck just at the roots of the hair.”
“Was there no cry? Nothing heard?”
“They say not. That library’s got pretty well soundproof doors, you know. And there’s traffic passing, too. Stabbed in that way, death results amazing quick. Straight through the cistern into the medulla, that’s what the doctor said—or something very like it. If you hit on exactly the right spot it kills a man instantaneously.”
“That implies a knowledge of exactly where to strike. It almost implies medical knowledge.”
“Yes—that’s true. A point in her favour as far as it goes. But ten to one it was a chance. She just struck lucky. Some people do have amazing luck, you know.”
“Not so lucky if it results in her being hanged, mon ami,” observed Poirot.
“No. Of course she was a fool—sailing in like that and giving her name and all.”
“Indeed, very curious.”
“Possibly she didn’t intend mischief. They quarrelled and she whipped out a penknife and jabbed him one.”
“Was it a penknife?”
“Something of that kind, the doctor says. Whatever it was, she took it away with her. It wasn’t left in the wound.”
Poirot shook his head in a dissatisfied manner.
“No, no, my friend, it was not like that. I know the lady. She would be quite incapable of such a hot-blooded impulsive action. Besides, she would be most unlikely to have a penknife with her. Few women have—and assuredly not Jane Wilkinson.”
“You know her, you say, M. Poirot?”
“Yes. I know her.”
He said no more for the moment. Japp was looking at him inquisitively.
“Got something up your sleeve, M. Poirot?” he ventured at last. “Ah!” said Poirot. “That reminds me. What has brought you to me? Eh? It is not merely to pass the time of day with an old comrade? Assuredly not. You have here a nice straightforward murder. You have the criminal. You have the motive—what exactly is the motive, by the way?”
“Wanted to marry another man. She was heard to say so not a week ago. Also heard to make threats. Said she meant to call round in a taxi and bump him off.”
“Ah!” said Poirot. “You are very well-informed—very well-informed. Someone has been very obliging.”
I thought his eyes looked a question, but if so, Japp did not respond.
“We get to hear things, M. Poirot,” he said stolidly.
Poirot nodded. He had reached out for the daily paper. It had been opened by Japp,
doubtless while he was waiting, and had been cast impatiently aside on our entry. In a mechanical manner, Poirot folded it back at the middle page, smoothed and arranged it. Though his eyes were on the paper, his mind was deep in some kind of puzzle.
“You have not answered,” he said presently. “Since all goes in the swimming fashion, why come to me?”
“Because I heard you were at Regent Gate yesterday morning.”
“I see.”
“Now, as soon as I heard that, I said to myself, ‘Something here.’ His lordship sent for M. Poirot. Why? What did he suspect? What did he fear? Before doing anything definite, I’d better go round and have a word with him.”
“What do you mean by ‘anything definite?’ Arresting the lady, I suppose?”
“Exactly.”
“You have not seen her yet?”
“Oh! yes, I have. Went round to the Savoy first thing. Wasn’t going to risk her giving us the slip.”
“Ah!” said Poirot. “So you—”
He stopped. His eyes, which had been fixed thoughtfully and up to now unseeingly on the paper in front of him, now took on a different expression. He lifted his head and spoke in a changed tone of voice.
“And what did she say? Eh! my friend. What did she say?”
“I gave her the usual stuff, of course, about wanting a statement and cautioning her—you can’t say the English police aren’t fair.”
“In my opinion foolishly so. But proceed. What did mi-lady say?”
“Took hysterics—that’s what she did. Rolled herself about, threw up her arms and finally flopped down on the ground. Oh! she did it well—I’ll say that for her. A pretty bit of acting.”
“Ah!” said Poirot blandly. “You formed, then, the impression that the hysterics were not genuine?”
Japp winked vulgarly.
“What do you think? I’m not to be taken in with those tricks. She hadn’t fainted—not she! Just trying it on, she was. I’ll swear she was enjoying it.”
“Yes,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “I should say that was perfectly possible. What next?”
“Oh! well, she came to—pretended to, I mean. And moaned—and groaned and carried on and that sour-faced maid of hers doped her with smelling salts and at last she recovered enough to ask for her solicitor. Wasn’t going to say anything without her solicitor. Hysterics one moment, solicitors the next, now I ask you, is that natural behaviour, sir?”