‘Really, Geraldine, I don’t think it’s necessary going into all this. Fathers and daughters often don’t get on. But the less said in life the better, I’ve found.’
Geraldine turned her back on her. She addressed herself to Poirot.
‘M. Poirot, I hated my father! I am glad he is dead! It means freedom for me—freedom and independence. I am not in the least anxious to find his murderer. For all we know the person who killed him may have had reasons—ample reasons—justifying that action.’
Poirot looked at her thoughtfully.
‘That is a dangerous principle to adopt, Mademoiselle.’
‘Will hanging someone else bring father back to life?’
‘No,’ said Poirot dryly. ‘But it may save other innocent people from being murdered.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘A person who has once killed, Mademoiselle, nearly always kills again—sometimes again and again.’
‘I don’t believe it. Not—not a real person.’
‘You mean—not a homicidal maniac? But yes, it is true. One life is removed—perhaps after a terrific struggle with the murderer’s conscience. Then—danger threatens—the second murder is morally easier. At the slightest threatening of suspicion a third follows. And little by little an artistic pride arises—it is a métier—to kill. It is done at last almost for pleasure.’
The girl had hidden her face in her hands.
‘Horrible. Horrible. It isn’t true.’
‘And supposing I told you that it had already happened? That already—to save himself—the murderer has killed a second time?’
‘What’s that, M. Poirot?’ cried Miss Carroll. ‘Another murder? Where? Who?’
Poirot gently shook his head.
‘It was an illustration only. I ask pardon.’
‘Oh! I see. For a moment I really thought—Now, Geraldine, if you’ve finished talking arrant nonsense.’
‘You are on my side, I see,’ said Poirot with a little bow.
‘I don’t believe in capital punishment,’ said Miss Carroll briskly. ‘Otherwise I am certainly on your side. Society must be protected.’
Geraldine got up. She smoothed back her hair.
‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I am afraid I have been making rather a fool of myself. You still refuse to tell me why my father called you in?’
‘Called him?’ said Miss Carroll in lively astonishment.
‘You misunderstand, Miss Marsh. I have not refused to tell you.’
Poirot was forced to come out into the open.
‘I was only considering how far that interview might have been said to be confidential. Your father did not call me in. I sought an interview with him on behalf of a client. That client was Lady Edgware.’
‘Oh! I see.’
An extraordinary expression came over the girl’s face. I thought at first it was disappointment. Then I saw it was relief.
‘I have been very foolish,’ she said slowly. ‘I thought my father had perhaps thought himself menaced by some danger. It was stupid.’
‘You know, M. Poirot, you gave me quite a turn just now,’ said Miss Carroll, ‘when you suggested that woman had done a second murder.’
Poirot did not answer her. He spoke to the girl.
‘Do you believe Lady Edgware committed the murder, Mademoiselle?’
She shook her head.
‘No, I don’t. I can’t see her doing a thing like that. She’s much too—well, artificial.’
‘I don’t see who else can have done it,’ said Miss Carroll. ‘And I don’t think women of that kind have got any moral sense.’
‘It needn’t have been her,’ argued Geraldine. ‘She may have come here and just had an interview with him and gone away, and the real murderer may have been some lunatic who got in afterwards.’
‘All murderers are mentally deficient—of that I am assured,’ said Miss Carroll. ‘Internal gland secretion.’
At that moment the door opened and a man came in—then stopped awkwardly.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know anyone was in here.’
Geraldine made a mechanical introduction.
‘My cousin, Lord Edgware. M. Poirot. It’s all right, Ronald. You’re not interrupting.’
‘Sure, Dina? How do you do, M. Poirot? Are your grey cells functioning over our particular family mystery?’
I cast my mind back trying to remember. That round, pleasant, vacuous face, the eyes with slight pouches underneath them, the little moustache marooned like an island in the middle of the expanse of face.
Of course! It was Carlotta Adams’ escort on the night of the supper party in Jane Wilkinson’s suite.