'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 realise, 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 recognise 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 dies 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 bird-like sidewise tilt of the head, you didn't realise 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 realised 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 realised, 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 ben Cora. Neither way seemed to her to make sense. But she 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 was 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 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 recognise 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 lady-like murderer. It's horrible…'
Chapter 25
'But I don't understand about the wax flowers,' said Rosamund.
She fixed Poirot with large reproachful blue eyes.
