‘I await a visitor,’ he explained. ‘It cannot be – surely it cannot be that I am mistaken? No, here she is.’ To my utter astonishment, in another minute Miss Clegg walked into the room. She was less calm than usual, and was breathing hard as though she had been running. I saw the fear in her eyes as she looked at Poirot.
‘Sit down, mademoiselle,’ he said kindly. ‘I guessed rightly, did I not?’ For answer she burst into tears.
‘Why did you do it?’ asked Poirot gently. ‘Why?’ ‘I loved him so,’ she answered. ‘I was nursemaid to him when he was a little boy. Oh, be merciful to me!’ ‘I will do all I can. But you understand that I cannot permit an innocent man to hang – even though he is an unpleasing scoundrel.’ She sat up and said in a low voice: ‘Perhaps in the end I could not have, either. Do whatever must be done.’ Then, rising, she hurried from the room.
‘Did she shoot him?’ I asked, utterly bewildered.
Poirot smiled and shook his head.
‘He shot himself. Do you remember that he carried his handkerchief in his right sleeve? That showed me that he was left-handed.
Fearing exposure, after his stormy interview with Mr Parker, he shot himself. In the morning Miss Clegg came to call him as usual and found him lying dead. As she has just told us, she had known him from a little boy upward, and was filled with fury against the Parkers, who had driven him to this shameful death. She regarded them as murderers, and then suddenly she saw a chance of making them suffer for the deed they had inspired.
She alone knew that he was left-handed. She changed the pistol to his right hand, closed and bolted the window, dropped the bit of cuff-link she had picked up in one of the downstairs rooms, and went out, locking the door and removing the key.’
‘Poirot,’ I said, in a burst of enthusiasm, ‘you are magnificent.
All that from the one little clue of the handkerchiefl’
‘And the cigarette-smoke. If the window had been closed, and all those cigarettes smoked, the room ought to have been full of stale tobacco. Instead, it was perfectly fresh, so I deduced at once that the window must have been open all night, and only closed in the morning, and that gave me a very interesting line of specula-tion.
I could conceive of no circumstances under which a murderer could want to shut the window. It would be to his advantage to leave it open, and pretend that the murderer had escaped that way, if the theory of suicide did not go down. Of course, the tramp’s evidence, when I heard it, confirmed my suspicions. He could never have overheard that conversation unless the window had been open.’
‘Splendid? I said heartily. ‘Now, what about some tea?’
‘Spoken like a true Englishman,’ said Poirot with a sigh. ‘I suppose it is not likely that I could obtain here a glass of sirop?’
CHAPTER XV WASPS’ NEST
Out of the house came John Harrison and stood a moment on the terrace looking out over the garden. He was a big man with a lean, cadaverous face. His aspect was usually somewhat grim but when, as now, the rugged features softened into a smile, there was something very attractive about him.
John Harrison loved his garden, and it had never looked better than it did on this August evening, summery and languorous.
The rambler roses were still beautiful; sweet peas scented the air.
A well-known creaking sound made Harrison turn his head sharply. Who was coming in through the garden gate? In another minute, an expression of utter astonishment came over his face, for the dandified figure coming up the path was the last he expected to see in this part of the world.
‘By all that’s wonderful,’ cried Harrison. ‘Monsieur Poirott’
It was, indeed, the famous Hercule Poirot whose renown as a detective had spread over the whole world.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it is I. You said to me once: “If you are ever in this part of the world, come and see me.” I take you at your word.