He paused.
‘I know what you’ll say: Why didn’t I tell you this right away? And now I put it to you: Would you, with a motive for murder sticking out a yard, admit light-heartedly that you’d actually been at the place the murder was committed on the night in question?
‘Frankly, I funked it! Even if we were believed, it was going to be a lot of worry for me and for Geraldine. We’d nothing to do with the murder, we’d seen nothing, we’d heard nothing. Obviously, I thought, Aunt Jane had done it. Well, why bring myself in? I told you about the quarrel and my lack of money because I knew you’d ferret it out, and if I’d tried to conceal all that you’d be much more suspicious and you’d probably examine that alibi much more closely. As it was, I thought that if I bucked enough about it it would almost hypnotize you into thinking it all right. The Dortheimers were, I know, honestly convinced that I’d been at Covent Garden all the time. That I spent one interval with my cousin wouldn’t strike them as suspicious. And she could always say she’d been with me there and that we hadn’t left the place.’
‘Miss Marsh agreed to this-concealment?’
‘Yes. Soon as I got the news, I got on to her and cautioned her for her life not to say anything about her excursion here last night. She’d been with me and I’d been with her during the last interval at Covent Garden. We’d talked in the street a little, that was all. She understood and she quite agreed.’
He paused.
‘I know it looks bad-coming out with this afterwards. But the story’s true enough. I can give you the name and address of the man who let me have the cash on Geraldine’s pearls this morning. And if you ask her, she’ll confirm every word I’ve told you.’
He sat back in his chair and looked at Japp.
Japp continued to look expressionless.
‘You say you thought Jane Wilkinson had committed the murder, Lord Edgware?’ he said.
‘Well, wouldn’t you have thought so? After the butler’s story?’
‘What about your wager with Miss Adams?’
‘Wager with Miss Adams? With Carlotta Adams, do you mean? What has she got to do with it?’
‘Do you deny that you offered her the sum of ten thousand dollars to impersonate Miss Jane Wilkinson at the house that night?’
Ronald stared.
‘Offered her ten thousand dollars? Nonsense. Someone’s been pulling your leg. I haven’t got ten thousand dollars to offer. You’ve got hold of a mare’s nest. Doesshe say so? Oh! Dash it all-I forgot, she’s dead, isn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ said Poirot quietly. ‘She is dead.’
Ronald turned his eyes from one to the other of us. He had been debonair before. Now his face had whitened. His eyes looked frightened.
‘I don’t understand all this,’ he said. ‘It’s true what I told you. I suppose you don’t believe me-any of you.’
And then, to my amazement, Poirot stepped forward.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I believe you.’
Chapter 22. Strange Behaviour of Hercule Poirot
We were in our rooms.
‘What on earth-’ I began.
Poirot stopped me with a gesture more extravagant than any gesture I had ever seen him make. Both arms whirled in the air.
‘I implore you, Hastings! Not now. Not now.’
And upon that he seized his hat, clapped it on his head as though he had never heard of order and method, and rushed headlong from the room. He had not returned when, about an hour later, Japp appeared.
‘Little man gone out?’ he inquired.
I nodded.
Japp sank into a seat. He dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief. The day was warm.
‘What the devil took him?’ he inquired. ‘I can tell you, Captain Hastings, you could have knocked me down with a feather when he stepped up to the man and said: “I believe you.” For all the world as though he were acting in a romantic melodrama. It beats me.’
It beat me also, and I said so.
‘And then he marches out of the house,’ said Japp.
‘What did he say about it to you?’
‘Nothing,’ I replied.
‘Nothing at all?’
‘Absolutely nothing. When I was going to speak to him he waved me aside. I thought it best to leave him alone. When we got back here I started to question him. He waved his arms, seized his hat and rushed out again.’
We looked at each other. Japp tapped his forehead significantly.
‘Must be,’ he said.
For once I was disposed to agree. Japp had often suggested before that Poirot was what he called ‘touched’. In those cases he had simply not understood what Poirot was driving at. Here, I was forced to confess, I could not understand Poirot’s attitude. If not touched, he was, at any rate, suspiciously changeable. Here was his own private theory triumphantly confirmed and straight away he went back on it.
It was enough to dismay and distress his warmest supporters. I shook my head in a discouraged fashion.
‘He’s always been what I call peculiar,’ said Japp. ‘Got his own particular angle of looking at things-and a very queer one it is. He’s a kind of genius, I admit that. But they always say that geniuses are very near the border line and liable to slip over any minute. He’s always been fond of having things difficult. A straightforward case is never good enough for him. No, it’s got to be tortuous. He’s got away from real life. He plays a game of his own. It’s like an old lady playing at patience. If it doesn’t come out, she cheats. Well, it’s the other way round with him. If it’s coming out too easily, he cheats to make it more difficult! That’s the way I look at it.’
I found it difficult to answer him. I, also, found Poirot’s behaviour unaccountable. And since I was very attached to my strange little friend, it worried me more than I cared to express.
In the middle of a gloomy silence, Poirot walked into the room.
He was, I was thankful to see, quite calm now.
Very carefully he removed his hat, placed it with his stick on the table, and sat down in his accustomed chair.
‘So you are here, my good Japp. I am glad. It was on my mind that I must see you as soon as possible.’
Japp looked at him without replying. He saw that this was only the beginning. He waited for Poirot to explain himself.
This my friend did, speaking slowly and carefully.
‘Ecoutez, Japp. We are wrong. We are all wrong. It is grievous to admit it, but we have made a mistake.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Japp confidently.
‘But it is not all right. It is deplorable. It grieves me to the heart.’
‘You needn’t be grieved about that young man. He richly deserves all he gets.’
‘It is not he I am grieving about-it is you.’
‘Me? You needn’t worry about me.’
‘But I do. See you, who was it set you on this course? It was Hercule Poirot. Mais oui, I set you on the trail. I direct your attention to Carlotta Adams, I mention to you the matter of the letter to America. Every step of the way it is I who point it!’
