“You mean that Valerie Hobhouse put through that call? That she pretended to speak as Patricia Lane, and that Patricia Lane was already dead?” “That is what I mean, yes.” The Inspector was silent for a moment, then he brou,eaealit down his fist with a crash on the table.
“I don’t believe it. The voice-I heard it myself” “You heard it, yes. A girl’s voice-breathless, agitated. But you didn’t know Patricia Lane’s voice well enough to say definitely that it was her voice.” “I didn’t, perhaps. But it was Nigel Chapman who actually took the call. You can’t ten me that Nigel Chapman could be deceived. It isn’t so easy to disguile a voice over the telephone, or to counterfeit somebody else’s voice. Nigel Chapman would have known if it wasn’t Pat’s voice speaking.” “Yes,” said Poirot. — “Nigel Chapman would have known. Nigel Chapman knew quite well that it wasn’t Patricia. Who should know better than he, since he had killed her with a blow on the back of the head only a short while before.” It was a moment or two before the Inspector recovered his voice.
“Ni el Chapman? Nigel Chapman? But when we found her dead-he cried-cried like a child.” “I daresay,” said Poirot. “I think he was as fond of that irl as he could be of anybody-but that wouldn’t save her-not if she represented a menace to his interests. All along, Nigel Chapman has stood out as the obvious probability. Who had morphia in his possession? Nigel Chapman.
Who has the shallow brilliant intellect to plan, and the audacity to carry out fraud and murder?
Nigel Chapman. Who do we know to be both ruthless and vain? Nigel Chapman. He has all the hallraarks of the killer; the overweening vanity, the spitefulness, the growing recklessness that led him to draw attention to himself in every conceivable way comusing the green ink in a stupendous double bluff, and finally overreaching himself by the silly deliberate mistake of putting Len Bateson’s hairs in Patricia’s fingers, oblivious of the fact that as Patricia was struck down from behind, she could not possibly have grasped her assailant by the hair. They are like that, these murderers-carried away by their own egoism, by their admiration of their own cleverness, relying on their charm-for he has charm, this Nigel-he has all the charm of a spoiled child who has never grown up, who never will grow up-who sees only one thing, Himself, and what he wants!” “But why, Mr. Poirot? Why murder?
Celia Austin, perhaps, but why Patricia Lane?” “That,” said Poirot, “we have got to find out.” “I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU for a long time,” said old Mr. Endicott to Hercule Poirot. He peered at the other keenly. “It’s very nice of you to drop in.” “Not really,” said Hercule Poirot. “I want something.” “Well, as you know, I’m deeply in your debt.
You cleared up that nasty Abemethy business for me.” “I am surprised really to find you here. I thought you had retired.” The old lawyer smiled grimly. His firm was a most respectable and old established one.
“I came in specially today to see a very old client. I still attend to the affairs of one or two old friends.” “Sir Arthur Stanley was an old friend and client, was he not?” “Yes. We’ve undertaken all his legal work since he was quite a young man. A very brilliant man, Poirotquite an exceptional brain.” “His death was announced on the six o’clock news yesterday, I believe.” “Yes. The funeral’s on Friday. He’s been ailing some time. A malignant growth, I understand.” “Lady Stanley died some years ago?” “Two and a hall years ago, roughly.” The keen eyes below the bushy brows looked sharply at Poirot.
“How did she die?” The lawyer repried promptly.
“Overdose of sleeping stuff. Medinal as far as’remember.” “There was an inquest?” “Yes. The verdict was that she took it accidentally.” “Did she?” Mr. Endicott was silent for a moment.
“I won’t insult you,” he said. “I’ve no doubt you’ve got a good reason for asking.
Medinal’s a rather dangerous drug, I understand, because there’s not a big margin between an effective dose and a lethal one. If the patient gets drowsy and forgets she’s taken a dose and takes another-well, it can have a fatal result.” Poirot nodded.