She refused. She and I had discussed him, and she made it clear she was going to tell me. It was then that, in handing her her evening sleeping mixture, he administered an overdose. Before it took effect, however, she had come to my room and told me all about matters. When, the next morning, she was found dead, I knew who had done it.
“I accused Nigel and told him that I intended to make a clean breast of all the facts to the police. He pleaded desperately with me. What would you have done, Endicott? I have no illusions about my son, I know him for what he is, one of those dangerous misfits who have neither conscience nor pity.
I had no cause to save him. But it was the thought of my beloved wife that swayed me. Would she wish me to execute justice? I thought that I knew the answer-she would have wanted her son saved from the scaffold. She would have shrunk, as I shrank, from dragging down our name. But there was another consideration.
I firmly believe that once a killer, always a killer. There might be, in the future, other victims. I made a bargain with my son, and whether I did right or wrong, I do not know. He was to write out a confession of his crime which I should keep. He was comto leave my house and never return, but make a new are for hijnself. I would give him a second chance. Money belonging to his mother would come to him automatically. He had had a good education. He had every chance of making good.
“But-if he were convicted of any criminal activity whatsoever the confession he had left with me should go to the police. I safeguarded myself by explaining that my own death would not solve the problem.
“You are my oldest friend. I am placing a bur den on your shoulders, but I ask it in the name of a dead woman who was also your friend. Find Nigel. If his record is clean destroy this letter and the enclosed confession. If not-then justice must be done.
Your affectionate friend, Arthur Stanley “Ah!” Poirot breathed a long sigh. He unfolded the enclosure.
I hereby confess that I murdered my mother by giving her an overdose of medinal on Novem her 18, 195-.
Nigel Stanley.
“YOU QUITE UNDERSTAND your position, Miss Hobhouse. I have already warned you’ Valerie Hobhouse cut him short.
“I know what I’m doing. You’ve warned me that what I say will be used in evidence. I’m prepared for that. You’ve got me on the smuggling charge. I haven’t got a hope. That means a long term of imprisonment. This other means that I’ll be charged as an accessory to murder.” “Your being willing to make a statement may help you, but I can’t make any promise or hold out any inducement.” “I don’t know that I care. Just as well end it all as languish in prison for years. I want to make a statement. I may be what you call an accessory, but I’m not a killer. I never intended murder or wanted it. I’m not such a fool. What I do want is that there should be a clear case against Nigel .
“Celia knew far too much, but I could have dealt with that somehow. Nigel didn’t give me time. He got her to come out and meet him, told her that he was going to own up to the rucksack and the ink business and then slipped her the morphia in a cup of coffee. He’d got hold of her letter to Mrs.
Hubbard earlier on and had torn out a useful “suicide” phrase. He put that and the empty morphia phial (which he had retrieved after pretending to throw it away) by her bed. I see now that he’d been contemplating murder for quite a little time. Then he came and told me what he’d done.
For my own sake I had to stand in with him.
“The same thing must have happened with Mrs. Nick.
He’d found out that she drank, that she was getting unreliable-he managed to meet her somewhere on her way home, and poisoned her drink. He denied it to mbut I know that that’s what he did. Then came Pat. He came up to my room and told me what had happened. He told me what I’d got to do-so that both he and I would have an unbreakable alibi. I was in the net by then, there was no way out…. I suppose, if you hadn’t caught me, I’d have gone abroad somewhere, and made a new life for myself. But you did catch me. . . . And now I only care about one thing-to make sure that that cruel smiling devil gets hanged.” Inspector Sharpe drew a deep breath. All this was eminently satisfactory, it was an unbelievable piece of luck; but he was puzzled.