‘Yes, one sees only a white glimmering figure.’
Poirot murmured:
‘All cats are grey in the dark!’
They found Superintendent Sugden in the room. He was kneeling by the safe and examining it with a magnifying glass. He looked up as they entered.
‘This was opened with the key all right,’ he said. ‘By someone who knew the combination. No sign of anything else.’
Poirot went up to him, drew him aside, and whispered something. The superintendent nodded and left the room.
Poirot turned to Stephen Farr, who was standing staring at the armchair in which Simeon Lee always sat. His brows were drawn together and the veins showed in his forehead. Poirot looked at him for a minute or two in silence, then he said:
‘You have the memories – yes?’
Stephen said slowly:
‘Two days ago he sat there alive – and now…’
Then, shaking off his absorption, he said: ‘Yes, M. Poirot, you brought me here to ask me something?’
‘Ah, yes. You were, I think, the first person to arrive on the scene that night?’
‘Was I? I don’t remember. No, I think one of the ladies was here before me.’
‘Which lady?’
‘One of the wives – George’s wife or David’s – I know they were both here pretty soon.’
‘You did not hear the scream, I think you said?’
‘I don’t think I did. I can’t quite remember. Somebody did cry out but that may have been someone downstairs.’
Poirot said:
‘You did not hear a noise like this?’
He threw his head back and suddenly gave vent to a piercing yell.
It was so unexpected that Stephen started backwards and nearly fell over. He said angrily:
‘For the Lord’s sake, do you want to scare the whole house? No, I didn’t hear anything in the least like that! You’ll have the whole place by the ears again! They’ll think another murder has happened!’
Poirot looked crestfallen. He murmured:
‘True… it was foolish… We must go at once.’
He hurried out of the room. Lydia and Alfred were at the foot of the stairs peering up – George came out of the library to join them, and Pilar came running, a passport held in her hand.
Poirot cried:
‘It is nothing – nothing. Do not be alarmed. A little experiment that I make. That was all.’
Alfred looked annoyed and George indignant. Poirot left Stephen to explain and he hurriedly slipped away along the passage to the other end of the house.
At the end of the passage Superintendent Sugden came quietly out of Pilar’s door and met Poirot.
‘Eh bien?’ asked Poirot.
The superintendent shook his head.
‘Not a sound.’
His eyes met Poirot’s appreciatively and he nodded.
Alfred Lee said: ‘Then you accept, M. Poirot?’
His hand, as it went to his mouth, shook slightly. His mild brown eyes were alight with a new and feverish expression. He stammered slightly in his speech. Lydia, standing silently by, looked at him with some anxiety.
Alfred said:
‘You don’t know – you c-c-can’t imagine – what it m-m-means to me… My father’s murderer must be f-f- found.’
Poirot said:
‘Since you have assured me that you have reflected long and carefully – yes, I accept. But you comprehend, Mr Lee, there can be no drawing back. I am not the dog one sets on to hunt and then recalls because you do not like the game he puts up!’
‘Of course… of course… Everything is ready. Your bedroom is prepared. Stay as long as you like–’
Poirot said gravely: ‘It will not be long.’
‘Eh? What’s that?’
‘I said it will not be long. There is in this crime such a restricted circle that it cannot possibly take long to arrive at the truth. Already, I think, the end draws near.’
Alfred stared at him, ‘Impossible!’ he said.
‘Not at all. The facts all point more or less clearly in one direction. There is just some irrelevant matter to be cleared out of the way. When this is done the truth will appear.’
Alfred said incredulously:
‘You mean you know?’
Poirot smiled. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘I know.’
Alfred said:
‘My father – my father–’ He turned away.
Poirot said briskly:
‘There are, M. Lee, two requests that I have to make.’
Alfred said in a muffled voice:
‘Anything – anything.’
‘Then, in the first place, I would like the portrait of M. Lee as a young man placed in the bedroom you are good enough to allot to me.’
Alfred and Lydia stared at him.
The former said: ‘My father’s portrait – but why?’
Poirot said with a wave of the hand:
‘It will – how shall I say – inspire me.’
Lydia said sharply:
‘Do you propose, M. Poirot, to solve a crime by clairvoyance?’
‘Let us say, madame, that I intend to use not only the eyes of the body, but the eyes of the mind.’
She shrugged her shoulders.
Poirot continued:
‘Next, M. Lee, I should like to know of the true circumstances attending the death of your sister’s husband, Juan Estravados.’
Lydia said: ‘Is that necessary?’
‘I want all the facts, madame.’
Alfred said:
‘Juan Estravados, as the result of a quarrel about a woman, killed another man in a cafe.’
‘How did he kill him?’
Alfred looked appealingly at Lydia. She said evenly:
‘He stabbed him. Juan Estravados was not condemned to death, as there had been provocation. He was sentenced to a term of imprisonment and died in prison.’
‘Does his daughter know about her father?’
‘I think not.’
Alfred said:
‘No, Jennifer never told her.’
‘Thank you.’
Lydia said:
