There was a heavy step on the stairs, and Halliday entered the room.
‘What in hell are you doing here?’ he demanded, staring.
‘I was looking, monsieur, for this.’ Poirot withdrew from the trunk a coat and skirt of bright blue frieze, and a small toque of white fox fur.
‘What are you doing with my trunk?’ I turned to see that the maid, Jane Mason, had entered the room.
‘If you will just shut the door, Hastings. Thank you. Yes, and stand with your back against it. Now, Mr Halliday, let me introduce you to Gracie Kidd, otherwise Jane Mason, who will shortly rejoin her accomplice, Red Narky, under the kind escort of Inspector Japp.’
Poirot waved a deprecating hand. ‘It was of the most simple!’ He helped himself to more caviar.
‘It was the maid’s insistence on the clothes that her mistress was wearing that first struck me. Why was she so anxious that our attention should be directed to them? I reflected that we had only the maid’s word for the mysterious man in the carriage at Bristol. As far as the doctor’s evidence went, Mrs Carrington might easily have been murdered before reaching Bristol. But if so, then the maid must be an accomplice. And if she were an accomplice, she would not wish this point to rest on her evidence alone. The clothes Mrs Carrington was wearing were of a striking nature. A maid usually has a good deal of choice as to what her mistress shall wear. Now if, after Bristol, anyone saw a lady in a bright blue coat and skirt, and a fur toque, he will be quite ready to swear he had seen Mrs Carrington.
‘I began to reconstruct. The maid would provide herself with duplicate clothes. She and her accomplice chloroform and stab Mrs Carrington between London and Bristol, probably taking advantage of a tunnel. Her body is rolled under the seat; and the maid takes her place. At Weston she must make herself noticed. How? In all probability, a newspaper-boy will be selected. She will insure his remembering her by giving him a large tip. She also drew his attention to the colour of her dress by a remark about one of the magazines. After leaving Weston, she throws the knife out of the window to mark the place where the crime presumably occurred, and changes her clothes, or buttons a long mackintosh over them. At Taunton she leaves the train and returns to Bristol as soon as possible, where her accomplice has duly left the luggage in the cloakroom. He hands over the ticket and himself returns to London. She waits on the platform, carrying out her role, goes to a hotel for the night and returns to town in the morning, exactly as she said.
‘When Japp returned from his expedition, he confirmed all my deductions. He also told me that a well-known crook was passing the jewels. I knew that whoever it was would be the exact opposite of the man Jane Mason described. When I heard that it was Red Narky, who always worked with Gracie Kidd—well, I knew just where to find her.’
‘And the Count?’
‘The more I thought of it, the more I was convinced that he had nothing to do with it. That gentleman is much too careful of his own skin to risk murder. It would be out of keeping with his character.’
‘Well, Monsieur Poirot,’ said Halliday, ‘I owe you a big debt. And the cheque I write after lunch won’t go near to settling it.’
Poirot smiled modestly, and murmured to me: ‘The good Japp, he shall get the official credit, all right, but though he has got his Gracie Kidd, I think that I, as the Americans say, have got his goat!’
Problem at Pollensa Bay
The steamer from Barcelona to Majorca landed Mr Parker Pyne at Palma in the early hours of the morning—and straightaway he met with disillusionment. The hotels were full! The best that could be done for him was an airless cupboard overlooking an inner court in a hotel in the centre of the town—and with that Mr Parker Pyne was not prepared to put up. The proprietor of the hotel was indifferent to his disappointment.
‘What will you?’ he observed with a shrug.
Palma was popular now! The exchange was favourable! Everyone—the English, the Americans—they all came to Majorca in the winter. The whole place was crowded. It was doubtful if the English gentleman would be able to get in anywhere—except perhaps at Formentor where the prices were so ruinous that even foreigners blenched at them.
Mr Parker Pyne partook of some coffee and a roll and went out to view the cathedral, but found himself in no mood for appreciating the beauties of architecture.
He next had a conference with a friendly taxi driver in inadequate French interlarded with native Spanish, and they discussed the merits and possibilities of Soller, Alcudia, Pollensa and Formentor—where there were fine hotels but very expensive.
Mr Parker Pyne was goaded to inquire how expensive.
They asked, said the taxi driver, an amount that it would be absurd and ridiculous to pay—was it not well known that the English came here because prices were cheap and reasonable?
Mr Parker Pyne said that that was quite so, but all the same what sums did they charge at Formentor?
A price incredible!
Perfectly—but WHAT PRICE EXACTLY?
The driver consented at last to reply in terms of figures.
Fresh from the exactions of hotels in Jerusalem and Egypt, the figure did not stagger Mr Parker Pyne unduly.
A bargain was struck, Mr Parker Pyne’s suitcases were loaded on the taxi in a somewhat haphazard manner, and they started off to drive round the island, trying cheaper hostelries en route but with the final objective of Formentor.
But they never reached that final abode of plutocracy, for after they had passed through the narrow streets of
