'You are glad, yes. You have no regrets?'
'At leaving England? Or leaving here, do you mean?'
'I meant – leaving here?'
'No – no. It's no good, is it, to cling on to the past? One must leave that behind one.'
'If one can.' Blinking his eyes innocently Poirot smiled apologetically round on the group of polite faces that surrounded him.
'Sometimes, is it not, the Past will not be left, will not suffer itself to pass into oblivion? It stands at one's elbow – it says 'I am not done with yet.''
Susan gave a rather doubtful laugh. Poirot said:
'But I am serious – yes.'
'You mean,' said Michael, 'that your refugees when they come here will not be able to put their past sufferings completely behind them?'
'I did not mean my Refugees.'
'He meant us, darling,' said Rosamund. 'He means Uncle Richard and Aunt Cora and the hatchet, and all that.'
She turned to Poirot.
'Didn't you?'
Poirot looked at her with a blank face. Then he said:
'Why do you think that, Madame?'
'Because you're a detective, aren't you? That's why you're here. NARCO, or whatever you call it, is just nonsense, isn't it?'
Chapter 20
I
There was a moment of extraordinary tenseness. Poirot felt it, though he himself did not remove his eyes from Rosamund's lovely placid face.
He said with a little bow, 'You have great perspicacity, Madame.'
'Not really,' said Rosamund. 'You were pointed out to me once in a restaurant. I remembered.'
'But you have not mentioned it – until now?'
'I thought it would be more fun not to,' said Rosamund
Michael said in an imperfectly controlled voice:
'My – dear girl.'
Poirot shifted his gaze then to look at him.
Michael was angry. Angry and something else – apprehensive?
Poirot's eyes went slowly round all the faces. Susan's, angry and watchful; Gregory's dead and shut in; Miss Gilchrist's, foolish, her mouth wide open; George, wary; Helen, dismayed and nervous…
All those expressions were normal ones under the circumstances. He wished he could have seen their faces a split second earlier, when the words 'a detective' fell from Rosamund's lips. For now, inevitably, it could not be quite the same…
He squared his shoulders and bowed to them. His language and his accent became less foreign.
'Yes,' he said. 'I am a detective.'
George Crossfield said, the white dints showing once more each side of his nose, 'Who sent you here?'
'I was commissioned to inquire into the circumstances of Richard Abernethie's death.'
'By whom?'
'For the moment, that does not concern you. But it would be an advantage, would it not, if you could be assured beyond any possible doubt that Richard Abernethie died a natural death?'
'Of course he died a natural death. Who says anything else?'
'Cora Lansquenet said so. And Cora Lansquenet is dead herself.'
A little wave of uneasiness seemed to sigh through the room like an evil breeze.
'She said it here – in this room,' said Susan. 'But I didn't really think -'
'Didn't you, Susan?' George Crossfield turned his sardonic glance upon her. 'Why pretend any more? You won't take M. Pontarlier in?'
'We all thought so really,' said Rosamund.
'And his name isn't Pontarlier it's Hercules something.'
'Hercule Poirot – at your service.'
Poirot bowed.
There were no gasps of astonishment or of apprehension. His name seemed to mean nothing at all to them.
They were less alarmed by it than they had been by the single word 'detective.'
'May I ask what conclusions you have come to?' asked George.
'He won't tell you, darling,' said Rosamund. 'Or if he does tell you, what he says won't be true.'
Alone of the company she appeared to be amused.
Hercule Poirot looked at her thoughtfully.
II
Hercule Poirot did not sleep well that night. He was perturbed, and he was not quite sure why he was perturbed. Elusive snatches of conversation, various glances, odd movements – all seemed fraught with a tantalising significance in the loneliness of the night. He was on the threshold of sleep, but sleep would not come. Just as he was about to drop off, something flashed into his mind and woke him up again. Paint – Timothy and paint. Oil paint – the smell of oil paint – connected somehow with Mr Entwhistle. Paint and Cora. Cora's paintings – picture postcards… Cora was deceitful about her painting… No, back to Mr Entwhistle – something Mr Entwhistle had said – or was it Lanscombe? A nun who came to the house on the day that Richard Abernethie died. A nun with a moustache. A nun at Stansfield Grange – and at Lytchett St Mary. Altogether too many nuns! Rosamund looking glamorous as a nun on the stage. Rosamund – saying that he was a detective – and everyone staring at her when she said it. That was the way that they must all have stared at Cora that day when she said 'But he was murdered, wasn't he?' What was it Helen Abernethie had felt to be 'wrong' on that occasion? Helen Abernethie – leaving the past behind – going to Cyprus… Helen dropping the wax flowers with a crash when he had said – what was it he had said? He couldn't quite remember…
He slept then, and as he slept he dreamed…
He dreamed of the green malachite table. On it was the glass-covered stand of wax flowers – only the whole thing had been painted over with thick crimson oil paint. Paint the colour of blood. He could smell the paint, and Timothy was groaning, was saying 'I'm dying – dying… this is the end.' And Maude, standing by, tall and stern, with a large knife in her hand was echoing him, saying 'Yes, it's the end…' The end – a deathbed, with candles and a nun praying. If he could just see the nun's face, he would know…
Hercule Poirot woke up – and he did know!
Yes, it was the end…
Though there was still a long way to go.
He sorted out the various bits of the mosaic.
Mr Entwhistle, the smell of paint, Timothy's house and something that must be in it – or might be in it… the wax flowers… Helen… Broken glass…
