'That is where I let myself be misled. By the romantic inaccuracy of the Press.
'Evelyn Hope, Eva Kane's son, comes to England. He is talented and he attracts the attention of a very rich woman who knows nothing about his origin – only the romantic story he chooses to tell her. (A very pretty little story it was – all about a tragic young ballerina dying of tuberculosis in Paris!)
'She is a lonely woman who has recently lost her own son. The talented young playwright takes her name by deed poll.
'But your real name is Evelyn Hope, isn't it, Mr Upward?'
Robin Upward cried out shrilly:
'Of course it isn't! I don't know what you're talking about.'
'You really cannot hope to deny it. There are people who know you under that name. The name Evelyn Hope, written in the book, is in your handwriting – the same handwriting as the words 'my mother' on the back of this photograph. Mrs McGinty saw the photograph and the writing on it when she was tidying your things away. She spoke to you about it after reading the Sunday Companion. Mrs McGinty assumed that it was a photograph of Mrs Upward when young, since she had no idea Mrs Upward was not your real mother. But you knew that if once she mentioned the matter so that it came to Mrs Upward's ears, it would be the end. Mrs Upward had quite fanatical views on the subject of heredity. She would not tolerate for a moment an adopted son who was the son of a famous murderer. Nor would she forgive your lies on the subject.
'So Mrs McGinty had at all costs to be silenced. You promised her a little present, perhaps, for being discreet. You called on her the next evening on your way to broadcast – and you killed her! Like this…'
With a sudden movement, Poirot seized the sugar hammer from the shelf and whirled it round and down as though to bring it crashing down on Robin's head.
So menacing was the gesture that several of the circle cried out.
Robin Upward screamed. A high terrified scream.
He yelled: 'Don't… don't… It was an accident. I swear it was an accident. I didn't mean to kill her. I lost my head. I swear I did.'
'You washed off the blood and put the sugar hammer back in this room where you had found it. But there are new scientific methods of determining blood stains – and of bringing up latent fingerprints.'
'I tell you I never meant to kill her… It was all a mistake… And anyway it isn't my fault… I'm not responsible. It's in my blood. I can t help it. You can't hang me for something that isn't my fault…'
Under his breath Spence muttered: 'Can't we? You see if we don't!'
Aloud he spoke in a grave official voice:
'I must warn you, Mr Upward, that anything you say…'
Chapter 26
'I really don't see, M. Poirot, how ever you came to suspect Robin Upward.'
Poirot looked complacently at the faces turned towards him.
He always enjoyed explanations.
'I ought to have suspected him much sooner. The clue, such a simple clue, was the sentence uttered by Mrs Summerhayes at the cocktail party that day. She said to Robin Upward: 'I don't like being adopted, do you?' Those were the revealing two words. Do you? They meant – they could only mean – that Mrs Upward was not Robin's own mother.
'Mrs Upward was morbidly anxious herself that no one should know that Robin was not her own son. She had probably heard too many ribald comments on brilliant young men who live with and upon elderly women. And very few people did know – only the small theatrical coterie where she had first come across Robin. She had few intimate friends in this country, having lived abroad so long, and she chose in any case to come and settle down here far away from her own Yorkshire. Even when she met friends of the old days, she did not enlighten them when they assumed that this Robin was the same Robin they had known as a little boy.
'But from the very first something had struck me as not quite natural in the household at Laburnums. Robin's attitude to Mrs Upward was not that of either a spoiled child, or of a devoted son. It was the attitude of a protege to a patron. The rather fanciful title of Madre had a theatrical touch. And Mrs Upward, though she was clearly very fond of Robin, nevertheless unconsciously treated him as a prized possession that she had bought and paid for.
'So there is Robin Upward, comfortably established, with 'Madre's' purse to back his ventures, and then into his assured world comes Mrs McGinty who has recognised the photograph that he keeps in a drawer – the photograph with 'my mother' written on the back of it. His mother, whom he has told Mrs Upward was a talented young ballet dancer who died of tuberculosis! Mrs McGinty, of course, thinks that the photograph is of Mrs Upward when young, since she assumes as a matter of course that Mrs Upward is Robin's own mother. I do not think that actual blackmail ever entered Mrs McGinty's mind, but she did hope, perhaps, for a 'nice little present,' as a reward for holding her tongue about a piece of bygone gossip which would not have been pleasant for a 'proud' woman like Mrs Upward.
'But Robin Upward was taking no chances. He purloins the sugar hammer, laughingly referred to as a perfect weapon for murder by Mrs Summerhayes, and on the following evening, he stops at Mrs McGinty's cottage on his way to broadcast. She takes him into the parlour, quite unsuspicious, and he kills her. He knows where she keeps her savings – everyone in Broadhinny seems to know – and he fakes a burglary, hiding the money outside the house. Bentley is suspected and arrested. Everything is now safe for clever Robin Upward.
'But then, suddenly, I produce four photographs, and Mrs Upward recognises the one of Eva Kane as being identical with a photograph of Robin's ballerina mother! She needs a little time to think things out. Murder is involved. Can it be possible that Robin -? No, she refuses to believe it.
'What action she would have taken in the end we do not know. But Robin was taking no chances. He plans the whole mise en scene. The visit to the Rep on Janet's night out, the telephone calls, the coffee cup carefully smeared with lipstick taken from Eve Carpenter's bag, he even buys a bottle of her distinctive perfume. The whole thing was a theatrical scene setting with prepared props. Whilst Mrs Oliver waited in the car, Robin ran back twice into the house. The murder was a matter of seconds. After that there was only the swift distribution of the 'props.' And with Mrs Upward dead, he inherited a large fortune by the terms of her will, and no suspicion could attach to him since it would seem quite certain that a woman had committed the crime. With three women visiting the cottage that night, one of them was almost sure to be suspected. And that, indeed, was so.
'But Robin, like all criminals, was careless and over confident. Not only was there a book in the cottage with his original name scribbled in it, but he also kept, for purposes of his own, the fatal photograph. It would have been much safer for him if he had destroyed it, but he clung to the belief that he could use it to incriminate someone else at the right moment.
'He probably thought then of Mrs Summerhayes. That may be the reason he moved out of the cottage and into Long Meadows. After all, the sugar hammer was hers, and Mrs Summerhayes was, he knew, an adopted child and might find it hard to prove she was not Eva Kane's daughter.
'However, when Deirdre Henderson admitted having been on the scene of the crime, he conceived the idea of planting the photograph amongst her possessions. He tried to do so, using a ladder that the gardener had left against the window. But Mrs Wetherby was nervous and had insisted on all the windows being kept locked, so Robin did not succeed in his purpose. He came straight back here and put the photograph in a drawer which, unfortunately for him, I had searched only a short time before.
'I knew, therefore, that the photograph had been planted, and I knew by whom – by the only other person in the house – that person who was typing industriously over my head.
'Since the name Evelyn Hope had been written on the flyleaf of the book from the cottage, Evelyn Hope must be either Mrs Upward – or Robin Upward…
'The name Evelyn had led me astray – I had connected it with Mrs Carpenter since her name was Eve. But Evelyn was a man's name as well as a woman's.
'I remembered the conversation Mrs Oliver had told me about at the Little Rep in Cullenquay. The young actor who had been talking to her was the person I wanted to confirm my theory – the theory that Robin was not
