Poor dear, she was so forgetful. She never remembered what she’d done with things.
She believed me. Said I must write for it and I said I would.
“Oh, dear–oh, dear–and then she got worse and couldn’t think of anything. And she died. And when the will was read and it was all that money I felt dreadful. Three hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds.
I’d never dreamed for a minute it was anything like that or I wouldn’t have done it.
“I felt just as though I’d embezzled the money–and I didn’t know what to do. The other day, when Bella came to me, I told her that she should have half of it. I felt sure that then I would feel happy again.” “You see?” said Poirot. “Mrs. Tanios was succeeding in her object. That is why she was so averse to any attempt to contest the will. She had her own plans and the last thing she wanted to do was to antagonize Miss Lawson. She pretended, of course, to fall in at once with her husband’s wishes, but she made it quite clear what her real feelings were.
“She had at that time two objects: to detach herself and her children from Dr. Tanios and to obtain her share of the money.
Then she would have what she wanted–a rich contented life in England with her children.
“As time went on she could no longer conceal her dislike from her husband. In fact, she did not try to. He, poor man, was seriously upset and distressed. Her actions must have seemed quite incomprehensible to him. Really, they were logical enough.
She was playing the part of the terrorized woman. If I had suspicions–and she was fairly sure that that must be the case–she wished me to believe that her husband had committed the murder. And at any moment that second murder which I am convinced was already planned in her mind might occur.
I knew that she had a lethal dose of chloral in her possession. I feared that she would stage a pretended suicide and confession on his part.
“And still I had no evidence against her!
And then, when I was quite in despair, I got something at last! Miss Lawson told me that she had seen Theresa Arundell kneeling on the stairs on the night of Easter Monday. I soon discovered that Miss Lawson could not have seen Theresa at all clearly–not nearly clearly enough to recognize her features. Yet she was quite positive in her identification.
On being pressed she mentioned a brooch with Theresa’s initials–T.A.
“On my request Miss Theresa Arundell showed me the brooch in question. At the same time she absolutely denied having been on the stairs at the time stated. At first I fancied some one else had borrowed her brooch, but when I looked at the brooch in the glass the truth leaped at me. Miss Lawson, waking up, had seen a dim figure with the initials T.A. flashing in the light. She had leapt to the conclusion that it was Theresa.
“But if in the glass she had seen the initials T.A.–then the real initials must have been A. T., since the glass naturally reversed the order.
“Of course! Mrs. Tanios’s mother was Arabella Arundell. Bella is only a contraction.
A. T. stood for Arabella Tanios. There was nothing odd in Mrs. Tanios possessing a similar type of brooch. It had been exclusive last Christmas, but by the spring they were all the rage, and I had already observed that Mrs. Tanios copied her cousin Theresa’s hats and clothes as far as she was able with her limited means.
“In my own mind, at any rate, my case was proved.
“Now–what was I to do? Obtain a Home Office order for the exhumation of the body?
That could doubtless be managed. I might prove that Miss Arundell had been poisoned with phosphorus, though there was a little doubt about that. The body had been buried two months, and I understand that there have been cases of phosphorus poisoning where no lesions have been found and where the post mortem appearances are very indecisive.
Even then, could I connect Mrs.