I gave him Poirot’s message.
‘Come round at eleven? Well, I dare say I could. He’s not got anything to help us over young Ross’s death, has he? I don’t mind confessing that we could do with something. There’s not a clue of any kind. Most mysterious business.’
‘I think he’s got something for you,’ I said noncommittally. ‘He seems very pleased with himself at all events.’
‘That’s more than I am, I can tell you. All right, Captain Hastings. I’ll be there.’
My next task was to ring up Bryan Martin. To him I said what I had been told to say: That Poirot had discovered something rather interesting which he thought Mr Martin would like to hear. When asked what it was, I said that I had no idea. Poirot had not confided in me. There was a pause.
‘All right,’ said Bryan at last. ‘I’ll come.’
He rang off.
Presently, somewhat to my surprise, Poirot rang up Jenny Driver and asked her, also, to be present.
He was quiet and rather grave. I asked him no questions.
Bryan Martin was the first to arrive. He looked in good health and spirits, but—or it might have been my fancy—a shade uneasy. Jenny Driver arrived almost immediately afterwards. She seemed surprised to see Bryan and he seemed to share her surprise.
Poirot brought forward two chairs and urged them to sit down. He glanced at his watch.
‘Inspector Japp will be here in one moment, I expect.’
‘Inspector Japp?’ Bryan seemed startled.
‘Yes—I have asked him to come here—informally—as a friend.’
‘I see.’
He relapsed into silence. Jenny gave a quick glance at him then glanced away. She seemed rather preoccupied about something this morning.
A moment later Japp entered the room.
He was, I think, a trifle surprised to find Bryan Martin and Jenny Driver there, but he made no sign. He greeted Poirot with his usual jocularity.
‘Well, M. Poirot, what’s it all about? You’ve got some wonderful theory or other, I suppose.’
Poirot beamed at him.
‘No, no—nothing wonderful. Just a little story quite simple—so simple that I am ashamed not to have seen it at once. I want, if you permit, to take you with me through the case from the beginning.’
Japp sighed and looked at his watch.
‘If you won’t be more than an hour—’ he said.
‘Reassure yourself,’ said Poirot. ‘It will not take as long as that. See here, you want to know, do you not, who it was killed Lord Edgware, who it was killed Miss Adams, who it was killed Donald Ross?’
‘I’d like to know the last,’ said Japp cautiously.
‘Listen to me and you shall know everything. See, I am going to be humble.’ (Not likely! I thought unbelievingly.) ‘I am going to show you every step of the way—I am going to reveal how I was hoodwinked, how I displayed the gross imbecility, how it needed the conversation of my friend Hastings and a chance remark by a total stranger to put me on the right track.’
He paused and then, clearing his throat, he began to speak in what I called his ‘lecture’ voice.
‘I will begin at the supper party at the Savoy. Lady Edgware accosted me and asked for a private interview. She wanted to get rid of her husband. At the close of our interview she said—somewhat unwisely, I thought—that she might have to go round in a taxi and kill him herself. Those words were heard by Mr Bryan Martin, who came in at that moment.’
He wheeled round.
‘Eh? That is so, is it not?’
‘We all heard,’ said the actor. ‘The Widburns, Marsh, Carlotta—all of us.’
‘Oh! I agree. I agree perfectly. Eh bien, I did not have a chance to forget those words of Lady Edgware’s. Mr Bryan Martin called on the following morning for the express purpose of driving those words home.’
‘Not at all,’ cried Bryan Martin angrily. ‘I came—’
Poirot held up a hand.
‘You came, ostensibly, to tell me a cock-and-bull story about being shadowed. A tale that a child might have seen through. You probably took it from an out-of-date film. A girl whose consent you had to obtain—a man whom you recognized by a gold tooth. Mon ami, no young man would have a gold tooth—it is not done in these days—and especially in America. The gold tooth it is a hopelessly old-fashioned piece of dentistry. Oh! it was all of a piece—absurd! Having told your cock-and-bull story you get down to the real purpose of your visit—to poison my mind against Lady Edgware. To put it clearly, you prepare the ground for the moment when she murders her husband.’