Stephen moved. His chair creaked. Poirot said:
‘Remember that outburst of Simeon Lee, his tirade against his family. He said, you remember it, that he would swear he had better sons born the wrong side of the blanket. We are back again at the character of Simeon Lee. Simeon Lee, who was successful with women and who broke his wife’s heart! Simeon Lee, who boasted to Pilar that he might have a bodyguard of sons almost the same age! So I came to this conclusion: Simeon Lee had not only his legitimate family in the house, but an unacknowledged and unrecognized son of his own blood.’
Stephen got to his feet. Poirot said:
‘That was your real reason, wasn’t it? Not that pretty romance of the girl you met in the train! You were coming here before you met her. Coming to see what kind of a man your father was…’
Stephen had gone dead white. He said, and his voice was broken and husky:
‘Yes, I’ve always wondered… Mother spoke about him sometimes. It grew into a kind of obsession with me – to see what he was like! I made a bit of money and I came to England. I wasn’t going to let him know who I was. I pretended to be old Eb’s son. I came here for one reason only – to see the man who was my father…’
Superintendent Sugden said in almost a whisper:
‘Lord, I’ve been blind… I can see it now. Twice I’ve taken you for Mr Harry Lee and then seen my mistake, and yet I never guessed!’
He turned on Pilar.
‘That was it, wasn’t it? It was Stephen Farr you saw standing outside that door? You hesitated, I remember, and looked at him before you said it was a woman. It was Farr you saw, and you weren’t going to give him away.’
There was a gentle rustle. Hilda Lee’s deep voice spoke:
‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re wrong. It was I whom Pilar saw…’
Poirot said:
‘You, madame? Yes, I thought so…’
Hilda said quietly:
‘Self-preservation is a curious thing. I wouldn’t believe I could be such a coward. To keep silence just because I was afraid!’
Poirot said:
‘You will tell us now?’
She nodded.
‘I was with David in the music-room. He was playing. He was in a very queer mood. I was a little frightened and I felt my responsibility very keenly because it was I who had insisted on coming here. David began to play the “Dead March”, and suddenly I made up my mind. However odd it might seem, I determined that we would both leave at once – that night. I went quietly out of the music-room and upstairs. I meant to go to old Mr Lee and tell him quite plainly why we were going. I went along the corridor to his room and knocked on the door. There was no answer. I knocked again a little louder. There was still no answer. Then I tried the door handle. The door was locked. And then, as I stood hesitating, I heard a sound inside the room –’
She stopped.
‘You won’t believe me, but it’s true! Someone was in there – assaulting Mr Lee. I heard tables and chairs overturned and the crash of glass and china, and then I heard that one last horrible cry that died away to nothing – and then silence.
‘I stood there paralysed! I couldn’t move! And then Mr Farr came running along and Magdalene and all the others and Mr Farr and Harry began to batter on the door. It went down and we saw the room, and there was no one in it – except Mr Lee lying dead in all that blood.’
Her quiet voice rose higher. She cried:
‘There was no one else there – no one, you understand! And no one had come out of the room…’
Superintendent Sugden drew a deep breath. He said:
‘Either I’m going mad or everybody else is! What you’ve said, Mrs Lee, is just plumb impossible. It’s crazy!’
Hilda Lee cried:
‘I tell you I heard them fighting in there, and I heard the old man scream when his throat was cut – and no one came out and no one was in the room!’
Hercule Poirot said:
‘And all this time you have said nothing.’
Hilda Lee’s face was white, but she said steadily:
‘No, because if I told you what had happened, there’s only one thing you could say or think – that it was I who killed him…’
Poirot shook his head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You did not kill him. His son killed him.’
Stephen Farr said:
‘I swear before God I never touched him!’
‘Not you,’ said Poirot. ‘He had other sons!’
Harry said:
‘What the hell–’
George stared. David drew his hand across his eyes. Alfred blinked twice.
Poirot said:
‘The very first night I was here – the night of the murder – I saw a ghost. It was the ghost of the dead man. When I first saw Harry Lee I was puzzled. I felt I had seen him before. Then I noted his features carefully and I realized how like his father he was, and I told myself that that was what caused the feeling of familiarity.
‘But yesterday a man sitting opposite me threw back his head and laughed – and I knew who it was Harry Lee reminded me of. And I traced again, in another face, the features of the dead man.
‘No wonder poor old Tressilian felt confused when he had answered the door not to two, but to three men who resembled each other closely. No wonder he confessed to getting muddled about people when there were three men in the house who, at a little distance, could pass for each other! The same build, the same gestures (one in particular, a trick of stroking the jaw), the same habit of laughing with the head thrown back, the same distinctive high-bridged nose. Yet the similarity was not always easy to see – for the third man had a moustache.’
He leaned forward.
‘One forgets sometimes that police officers are men, that they have wives and children, mothers’ – he paused – ‘and fathers… Remember Simeon Lee’s local reputation: a man who broke his wife’s heart because of his affairs with women. A son born the wrong side of the blanket may inherit many things. He may inherit his father’s features and even his gestures. He may inherit his pride and his patience and his revengeful spirit!’
His voice rose.
‘All your life, Sugden, you’ve resented the wrong your father did you. I think you determined long ago to kill him. You come from the next county, not very far away. Doubtless your mother, with the money Simeon Lee so generously gave her, was able to find a husband who would stand father to her child. Easy for you to enter the Middleshire Police Force and wait your opportunity. A police superintendent has a grand opportunity of committing a murder and getting away with it.’
Sugden’s face had gone white as paper.
He said:
‘You’re mad! I was outside the house when he was killed.’
Poirot shook his head.
‘No, you killed him before you left the house the first time. No one saw him alive after you left. It was all so easy for you. Simeon Lee expected you, yes, but he never sent for you. It was you who rang him up and spoke vaguely about an attempt at robbery. You said you would call upon him just before eight that night and would
