Peter Lord said in a low, exasperated voice, 'She cares for him all right! Cares like hell!'
Poirot said, 'Then there was a motive.'
Peter Lord swerved round on him, his face alight with anger. 'Does it matter? She might have done it, yes! I don't care if she did.'
Poirot said, 'Aha!'
'But I don't want her hanged, I tell you! Supposing she was driven desperate? Love's a desperate and twisting business. It can turn a worm into a fine fellow – and it can bring a decent, straight man down to the dregs! Suppose she did do it. Haven't you got any pity?'
Hercule Poirot said, 'I do not approve of murder.'
Peter Lord stared at him, looked away, stared again, and finally burst out laughing.
'Of all the things to say – so prim and smug, too! Who's asking you to approve? I'm not asking you to tell lies! Truth's truth, isn't it? If you find something that tells in an accused person's favour, you wouldn't be inclined to suppress it because she's guilty, would you?'
'Certainly not.'
'Then why the hell can't you do what I ask you?'
Hercule Poirot said, 'My friend, I am perfectly prepared to do so.'
Chapter 9
Peter Lord stared at him, took out a handkerchief, wiped his face, and threw himself down in a chair.
'Whoof!' he said. 'You got me all worked up! I didn't see in the least what you were getting at!'
Poirot said, 'I was examining the case against Elinor Carlisle. Now I know it. Morphine was administered to Mary Gerrard; and, as far as I can see, it must have been given in the sandwiches. Nobody touched those sandwiches except Elinor Carlisle. Elinor Carlisle had a motive for killing Mary Gerrard, and she is, in your opinion, capable of killing Mary Gerrard, and in all probability she did kill Mary Gerrard. I see no reason for believing otherwise.'
'That, mon ami, is one side of the question. Now we will dismiss all those considerations from our mind and we will approach the matter from the opposite angle: If Elinor Carlisle did not kill Mary Gerrard, who did? Or did Mary Gerrard commit suicide?'
Peter Lord sat up. A frown creased his forehead. He said, 'You weren't quite accurate just now.'
'I? Not accurate?' Poirot sounded affronted.
Peter Lord pursued relentlessly, 'No. You said nobody but Elinor Carlisle touched those sandwiches. You don't know that.'
'There was no one else in the house.'
'As far as we know. But you are excluding a short period of time. There was a time during which Elinor Carlisle left the house to go down to the lodge. During that period of time the sandwiches were on a plate in the pantry, and somebody could have tampered with them.'
Poirot drew a deep breath. He said, 'You are right, my friend. I admit it. There was a time during which somebody could have had access to the plate of sandwiches. We must try to form some idea who that somebody could be; that is to say, what kind of person.'
He paused.
'Let us consider this Mary Gerrard. Someone, not Elinor Carlisle, desired her death. Why? Did anyone stand to gain by her death? Had she money to leave?'
Peter Lord shook his head. 'Not now. In another month she would have had two thousand pounds. Elinor Carlisle was making that sum over to her because she believed her aunt would have wished it. But the old lady's estate isn't wound up yet.'
Poirot said, 'Then we can wash out the money angle. Mary Gerrard was beautiful, you say. With that there are always complications. She had admirers?'
'Probably. I don't know much about it.'
'Who would know?'
Peter Lord grinned. 'I'd better put you on to Nurse Hopkins. She's the town crier. She knows everything that goes on in Maidensford.'
'I was going to ask you to give me your impressions of the two nurses.'
'Well, O'Brien's Irish, good nurse, competent, a bit silly, could be spiteful, a bit of a liar – the imaginative kind that's not so much deceitful, but just has to make a good story out of everything.'
Poirot nodded.
' Hopkins is a sensible, shrewd, middle-aged woman, quite kindly and competent, but a sight too much interested in other people's business!'
'If there had been trouble over some young man in the village, would Nurse Hopkins know about it?'
'You bet!'
He added slowly, 'All the same, I don't believe there can be anything very obvious in that line. Mary hadn't been home long. She'd been away in Germany for two years.'
'She was twenty-one?'
'Yes.'
'There may be some German complication.'
Peter Lord's face brightened. He said eagerly, 'You mean that some German fellow may have had it in for her? He may have followed her over here, waited his time, and finally achieved his object?'
'It sounds a little melodramatic,' said Hercule Poirot doubtfully.
'But it's possible?'
'Not very probable, though.'
Peter Lord said, 'I don't agree. Someone might get all het up about the girl, and see red when she turned him down. He may have fancied she treated him badly. It's an idea.'
'It is an idea, yes,' said Hercule Poirot, but his tone was not encouraging.
Peter Lord said pleadingly, 'Go on, Poirot.'
'You want me, I see, to be the conjurer. To take out of the empty hat rabbit after rabbit.'
'You can put it that way if you like.'
'There is another possibility,' said Hercule Poirot.
'Go on.'
'Someone abstracted a tube of morphine from Nurse Hopkins's case that evening in June. Suppose Mary Gerrard saw the person who did it?'
'She would have said so.'
'No, no, mon cher. Be reasonable. If Elinor Carlisle, or Roderick Welman, or Nurse O'Brien, or even any of the servants, were to open that case and abstract a little glass tube, what would anyone think? Simply that the person in question had been sent by the nurse to fetch something from it. The matter would pass straight out of Mary Gerrard's mind again, but it is possible that, later, she might recollect the fact and might mention it casually to the person in question – oh, without the least suspicion in the world. But to the person guilty of the murder of Mrs. Welman, imagine the effect of that remark! Mary had seen; Mary must be silenced at all costs! I can assure you, my friend, that anyone who has once committed a murder finds it only too easy to commit another!'
Peter Lord said with a frown, 'I've believed all along that Mrs. Welman took the stuff herself.'
'But she was paralysed – helpless – she had just had a second stroke.'
'Oh, I know. My idea was that, having got hold of morphine somehow or other, she kept it by her in a receptacle close at hand.'
'But in that case she must have got hold of the morphine before her second attack, and the nurse missed it afterward.'
' Hopkins may only have missed the morphine that morning. It might have been taken a couple of days before, and she hadn't noticed it.'
'How would the old lady have got hold of it?'
