Tanios sat in a grandfather chair. His eyes were red-rimmed and he wore a black band round his arm.
On an upright chair by a round table sat the owner of the house. Miss Lawson. She, too, had red eyes. Her hair was even untidier than usual. Dr. Donaldson sat directly facing Poirot. His face was quite expressionless.
My interest quickened as I looked at each face in turn.
In the course of my association with Poirot I had assisted at many such a scene. A little company of people, all outwardly composed with well-bred masks for faces. And I had seen Poirot strip the mask from one face and show it for what it was–the face of a killer!
Yes, there was no doubt of it. One of these people was a murderer! But which? Even now I was not sure.
Poirot cleared his throat–a little pompously as was his habit–and began to speak.
“We are assembled here, ladies and gentlemen, to inquire into the death of Emily Arundell on the first of May last. There are four possibilities–that she died naturally– that she died as the result of an accident– that she took her own life–or lastly that she met her death at the hands of some person known or unknown.
“No inquest was held at the time of her death, since it was assumed that she died from natural causes and a medical certificate to that effect was given by Dr. Grainger.
“In a case where suspicion arises after burial has taken place it is usual to exhume the body of the person in question. There are reasons why I have not advocated that course. The chief of them is that my client would not have liked it.55 It was Dr. Donaldson who interrupted.
He said: “Your client?” Poirot turned to him.
“My client is Miss Emily Arundell. I am acting for her. Her greatest desire was that there should be no scandal.” I will pass over the next ten minutes, since it would involve much needless repetition.
Poirot told of the letter he had received, and producing it he read it aloud. He went on to explain the steps he had taken on coming to Market Basing, and of his discovery of the means taken to bring about the accident.
Then he paused, cleared his throat once more, and went on: “I am now going to take you over the ground I travelled to get at the truth. I am going to show you what I believe to be a true reconstruction of the facts of the case.
“To begin with it is necessary to picture exactly what passed in Miss ArundelFs mind. That, I think, is fairly easy. She has a fall, her fall is supposed to be occasioned by a dog’s ball, but she herself knows better. Lying there on her bed her active and shrewd mind goes over the circumstances of her fall and she comes to a very definite conclusion about it. Some one has deliberately tried to injure–perhaps to kill her.
“From that conclusion she passes to a consideration of who that person can be. There were seven people in the house–four guests, her companion and two servants. Of these seven people only one can be entirely exonerated–since to that one person no advantage could accrue. She does not seriously suspect the two servants, both of whom have been with her for many years and whom she knows to be devoted to her. There remain then, four persons, three of them members of her family, and one of them a connection by marriage. Each of those four persons benefit, three directly, one indirectly, by her death.
“She is in a difficult position, since she is a woman with a strong sense of family feeling.
Essentially she is not one who wishes to wash the dirty linen in public, as the saying goes. On the other hand, she is not one to submit tamely to attempted murder!
“She takes her decision and writes to me.
She also takes a further step. That further step was, I believe, actuated by two motives.
One, I think, was a distant feeling of spite against her entire family! She suspected them all impartially, and she determined at all costs to score off them! The second and more reasoned motive was a wish to protect herself and a realization of how this could be accomplished. As you know, she wrote to her lawyer, Mr. Pur vis, and directed him to draw up a will in favour of the one person in the house whom, she felt convinced, could have had no hand in her accident.