‘Of course,’ began Giraud, ‘I soon saw through all that Chilean tomfoolery. Two men were in it—but they were not mysterious foreigners! All that was a blind.’
‘Very creditable so far, my dear Giraud,’ murmured Poirot. ‘Especially after that clever trick of theirs with the match and cigarette end.’
Giraud glared, but continued. ‘A man must have been connected with the case, in order to dig the grave. There is no man who actually benefits by the crime, but there was a man who thought he would benefit. I heard of Jack Renauld’s quarrel with his father, and of the threats that he had used. The motive was established. Now as to means. Jack Renauld was in Merlinville that night. He concealed the fact—which turned suspicion into certainty.’
‘Then we found a second victim—stabbed with the same dagger. We know when that dagger was stolen. Captain Hastings here can fix the time. Jack Renauld, arriving from Cherbourg, was the only person who could have taken it.’
‘I have accounted for all the other members of the household.’
Poirot interrupted.
‘You are wrong. There is one other person who could have taken the dagger.’
‘You refer to Monsieur Stonor? He arrived at the front door, in an automobile which had brought him straight from Calais. Ah! believe me, I have looked into everything. Monsieur Jack Renauld arrived by train. An hour elapsed between his arrival and the moment when he presented himself at the house. Without doubt, he saw Captain Hastings and his companion leave the shed, slipped in himself and took the dagger, stabbed his accomplice in the shed—’
‘Who was already dead!’
Giraud shrugged his shoulders. ‘Possibly he did not observe that. He may have judged him to be sleeping. Without doubt they had a rendezvous. In any case he knew this apparent second murder would greatly complicate the case. It did.’
‘But it could not deceive Monsieur Giraud,’ murmured Poirot.
‘You mock at me! But I will give you one last irrefutable proof. Madame Renauld’s story was false—a fabrication from beginning to end. We believe Madame Renauld to have loved her husband—yet she lied to shield his murderer. For whom will a woman lie? Sometimes for herself, usually for the man she loves, always for her children. That is the last—the irrefutable proof. You cannot get round it.’
Giraud paused flushed and triumphant. Poirot regarded him steadily.
‘That is my case,’ said Giraud. ‘What have you to say to it?’
‘Only that there is one thing you have failed to take into account.’
‘What is that?’
‘Jack Renauld was presumably acquainted with the planning out of the golf course. He knew that the body would be discovered almost at once when they started to dig the bunker.’
Giraud laughed out loud. ‘But it is idiotic what you say there! He wanted the body to be found! Until it was found, he could not presume death and would have been unable to enter into his inheritance.’
I saw a quick flash of green in Poiroes eyes as he rose to his feet.
‘Then why bury it?’ he asked very softly. ‘Reflect, Giraud. Since it was to Jack Renauld’s advantage that the body should be found without delay, why dig a grave at all?’
Giraud did not reply. The question found him unprepared. He shrugged his shoulders as though to intimate that it was of no importance.
Poirot moved towards the door. I followed him.
‘There is one more thing that you have failed to take into account,’ he said over his shoulder.
‘What is that?’
‘The piece of lead piping,’ said Poirot, and left the room.
Jack Renauld still stood in the hall, with a white dumb face, but as we came out of the salon he looked up sharply.
At the same moment there was the sound of a footfall on the staircase. Mrs. Renauld was descending it. At the sight of her son, standing between the two myrmidons of the law, she stopped as though petrified.
‘Jack,’ she faltered. ‘Jack, what is this?’
He looked up at her, his face set. ‘They have arrested me, mother.’
‘What?’
She uttered a piercing cry, and before anyone could get to her, swayed, and fell heavily. We both ran to her and lifted her up. In a minute Poirot stood up again.