He stopped.
'Yes?' said Hercule Poirot, and his voice was still urgent – compelling -
Carter's voice croaked uncertainly.
'And he was lying there – dead. It's true! I swear it's true! Lying just as they said at the inquest. I couldn't believe it at first. I stooped over him. But he was dead all right. His hand was stone cold and I saw the bullet hole in his head with a crust of blood round it.'
At the memory of it, sweat broke out on his forehead again.
'I saw then I was in a jam. They'd go and say I'd done it. I hadn't touched anything except his hand and the door-handle. I wiped that with my handkerchief, both sides, as I went out, and I stole down stairs as quickly as I could. There was nobody in the hall and I let myself out and legged it away as fast as I could. No wonder I felt queer.'
He paused. His scared eyes went to Poirot.
'That's the truth, I swear that's the truth. He was dead already. You've got to believe me!'
Poirot got up. He said – and his voice was tired and sad – 'I believe you.'
He moved towards the door.
Frank Carter cried out:
'They'll hang me – they'll hang me for sure if they know that I was in there.'
Poirot said:
'By telling the truth you have saved yourself from being hanged.'
'I don't see it. They'll say -'
Poirot interrupted him.
'Your story has confirmed what I knew to be the truth. You can leave it now to me.'
He went out.
He was not at all happy.
IV
He reached Mr. Barnes' house at Ealing at 6:45. He remembered that Mr. Barnes had called that a good time of day.
Mr. Barnes was at work in his garden.
He said by way of greeting:
'We need rain, M. Poirot – need it badly.'
He looked thoughtfully at his guest. He said:
'You don't look very well, M. Poirot?'
'Sometimes,' said Hercule Poirot, 'I do not like the things I have to do.'
Mr. Barnes nodded his head sympathetically.
He said:
'I know.'
Hercule Poirot looked vaguely round at the neat arrangement of the small beds. He murmured:
'It is well-planned, this garden. Everything is to scale. It is small but exact.'
Mr. Barnes said:
'When you have only a small place you've got to make the most of it. You can't afford to make mistakes in the planning.'
Hercule Poirot nodded.
Barnes went on:
'I see you've got your man?'
'Frank Carter?'
'Yes. I'm rather surprised, really.'
'You did not think that it was, so to speak, a private murder?'
'No. Frankly I didn't. What with Amberiotis and Alistair Blunt – I was sure that it was of Espionage or Counter-Espionage mix-ups.'
'That is the view you expounded to me at our first meeting.'
'I know. I was quite sure of it at the time.'
Poirot said slowly:
'But you were wrong.'
'Yes. Don't rub it in. The trouble is, one has got one's own experience, I've been mixed up in that sort of thing so much I suppose I'm inclined to see it everywhere.'
Poirot said:
'You have observed in your time an obvious a card, have you not? What is called forcing a card?'
'Yes, of course.'
'That is what was done here. Every time one thinks of a private reason for Morley's dismiss, Adipresto! – the card is forced on one. Ambition – of Alistair Blunt, the unsettled state of politics of the country -' He shrugged his shoulders. 'Ma foi, Mr. Barnes, you did more to mislead me than anybody.'
'Oh, I say, Poirot, I'm sorry. I suppose that's true.'
'You were in a position to know, your words carried weight.'
'Well – I believed what I said. That's the only apology I can make.'
He paused and sighed.
'And all the time, it was a purely private reasons?'
'Exactly. It has taken me a long time to check every reason for the murder – although I had a definite piece of luck.'
'What was that?'
'A fragment of a conversation. Really, a very illuminating fragment if only I had had the sense to realize its significance at the time.'
Mr. Barnes scratched his nose thoughtfully with the trowl. A small piece of earth adhered to the side of his nose.
'Being rather cryptic, aren't you?' he asked genially.
Hercule Poirot shrugged his shoulders. He said:
'I am, perhaps, aggrieved that you were not more frank with me.'
'I?'
'Yes.'
'My dear fellow – I never had the least idea of Carter's guilt. As far as I knew, he'd left the house long before Morley was killed. I suppose now they've found he didn't leave when he said he did?'
Poirot said:
'Carter was in the house at twenty-six minutes past twelve. He actually saw the murderer.'
'Then Carter didn't -'
'Carter saw the murderer, I tell you!'
Mr. Barnes said:
'Did – did he recognize him?'
Slowly Hercule Poirot shook his head.
Chapter 9
SEVENTEEN, EIGHTEEN, MAIDS IN WAITING
