He said: 'I see.'
Then he got up. He smiled and stretched himself. His voice was quite natural as he said: 'Beautiful morning, what? Think I'll go out in the woods and try to get a rabbit.'
He went out of the room and left them staring after him.
Then the Admiral started forward. Frobisher caught him by the arm.
'No, Charles, no. It's the best way – for him, poor devil, if for nobody else.'
Diana had thrown herself sobbing on the bed.
Admiral Chandler said, his voice coming unevenly: 'You're right, George – you're right, I know. The boy's got guts…'
Frobisher said, and his voice, too, was broken: 'He's a man…'
There was a moment's silence and then Chandler said: 'Damn it, where's that cursed foreigner?'
VII
In the gun-room, Hugh Chandler had lifted his gun from the rack and was in the act of loading it when Hercule Poirot's hand fell on his shoulder.
Hercule Poirot's voice said one word and said it with a strange authority.
He said: 'No!'
Hugh Chandler stared at him.
He said in a thick, angry voice: 'Take your hands off me. Don't interfere. There's going to be an accident, I tell you. It's the only way out.'
Again Hercule Poirot repeated that one word: 'No.'
'Don't you realise that if it hadn't been for the accident of her door being locked, I would have cut Diana's throat – Diana's! – with that knife?'
'I realise nothing of the kind. You would not have killed Miss Maberly.'
'I killed the cat, didn't I?'
'No, you did not kill the cat. You did not kill the parrot. You did not kill the sheep.'
Hugh stared at him. He demanded: 'Are you mad, or am I?'
Hercule Poirot replied: 'Neither of us is mad.'
It was at that moment that Admiral Chandler and Colonel Frobisher came in. Behind them came Diana.
Hugh Chandler said in a weak, dazed voice: 'This chap says I'm not mad…'
Hercule Poirot said: 'I am happy to tell you that you are entirely and completely sane.'
Hugh laughed. It was a laugh such as a lunatic might popularly be supposed to give.
'That's damned funny! It's sane, is it, to cut the throats of sheep and other animals? I was sane, was I, when I killed that parrot? And the cat tonight?'
'I tell you you did not kill the sheep – or the parrot – or the cat.'
'Then who did?'
'Someone who has had at heart the sole object of proving you insane. On each occasion you were given a heavy soporific and a blood-stained knife or razor was planted by you. It was someone else whose bloody hands were washed in your basin.'
'But why?'
'In order that you should do what you were just about to do when I stopped you.'
Hugh stared. Poirot turned to Colonel Frobisher.
'Colonel Frobisher, you lived for many years in India. Did you never come across cases where persons were deliberately driven mad by the administration of drugs?'
Colonel Frobisher's face lit up.
He said: 'Never came across a case myself, but I've heard of them often enough. Datura poisoning. It ends by driving a person insane.'
'Exactly. Well, the active principle of the datura is very closely allied to, if it is not actually, the alkaloid atropine – which is also obtained from belladonna or deadly nightshade. Belladonna preparations are fairly common and atropine sulphate itself is prescribed freely for eye treatments. By duplicating a prescription and getting it made up in different places a large quantity of the poison could be obtained without arousing suspicion. The alkaloid could be extracted from it and then introduced into, say – a soothing shaving cream. Applied externally it would cause a rash, this would soon lead to abrasions in shaving and thus the drug would be continually entering the system. It would produce certain symptoms – dryness of the mouth and throat, difficulty in swallowing, hallucinations, double vision – all the symptoms, in fact, which Mr Chandler has experienced.'
He turned to the young man.
'And to remove the last doubt from your mind, I will tell you that that is not a supposition but a fact. Your shaving cream was heavily impregnated with atropine sulphate. I took a sample and had it tested.'
White, shaking, Hugh asked: 'Who did it?'
Hercule Poirot said: 'That is what I have been studying ever since I arrived here. I have been looking for a motive for murder. Diana Maberly gained financially by your death, but I did not consider her seriously -'
Hugh Chandler flashed out: 'I should hope not!'
'I envisaged another possible motive. The eternal triangle; two men and a woman. Colonel Frobisher had been in love with your mother. Admiral Chandler married her.'
Admiral Chandler cried out: 'George? George! I won't believe it.'
Hugh said in an incredulous voice: 'Do you mean that hatred could go on – to a son?'
Hercule Poirot said: 'Under certain circumstances, yes.'
Frobisher cried out: 'It's a damned lie! Don't believe him, Charles.'
Chandler shrank away from him. He muttered to himself: 'The datura… India – yes, I see… And we'd never suspect poison – not with madness in the family already…'
'Mais oui!' Hercule Poirot's voice rose high and shrill. 'Madness in the family. A madman – bent on revenge – cunning – as madmen are, concealing his madness for years.' He whirled round on Frobisher. 'Mon Dieu, you must have known, you must have suspected, that Hugh was your son? Why did you never tell him so?'
Frobisher stammered, gulped.
'I didn't know. I couldn't be sure… You see, Caroline came to me once – she was frightened of something – in great trouble. I don't know, I never have known, what it was all about. She – I – we lost our heads. Afterwards I went away at once – it was the only thing to be done, we both knew we'd got to play the game. I – well, I wondered, but I couldn't be sure. Caroline never said anything that led me to think Hugh was my son. And then when this – this streak of madness appeared, it settled things definitely, I thought.'
Poirot said: 'Yes, it settled things! You could not see the way the boy has of thrusting out his face and bringing down his brows – a trick he inherited from you. But Charles Chandler saw it. Saw it years ago – and learnt the truth from his wife. I think she was afraid of him – he'd begun to show her the mad streak – that was what drove her into your arms – you whom she had always loved. Charles Chandler planned his revenge. His wife died in a boating accident. He and she were out in the boat alone and he knows how that accident came about. Then he settled down to feed his concentrated hatred against the boy who bore his name but who was not his son. Your Indian stories put the idea of datura poisoning into his head. Hugh should be slowly driven mad. Driven to the stage where he would take his own life in despair. The blood lust was Admiral Chandler's, not Hugh's. It was Charles Chandler who was driven to cut the throats of sheep in lonely fields. But it was Hugh who was to pay the penalty!
'Do you know when I suspected? When Admiral Chandler was so averse to his son seeing a doctor. For Hugh to object was natural enough. But the father! There might be treatment which would save his son – there were a hundred reasons why he should seek to have a doctor's opinion. But no, a doctor must not be allowed to see Hugh Chandler – in case a doctor should discover that Hugh was sane!'
Hugh said very quietly: 'Sane… I am sane?'
He took a step towards Diana.
Frobisher said in a gruff voice: 'You're sane enough. There's no taint in our family.'
