On arrival at Regent Gate we found that our quarry was at home. The family were still at the luncheon table. Japp proffered a request to speak to Lord Edgware privately. We were shown into the library.
In a minute or two the young man came to us. There was an easy smile on his face which changed a little as he cast a quick glance over us. His lips tightened.
‘Hello, Inspector,’ he said. ‘What’s all this about?’
Japp said his little piece in the classic fashion.
‘So that’s it, is it?’ said Ronald.
He drew a chair towards him and sat down. He pulled out a cigarette case.
‘I think, Inspector, I’d like to make a statement.’
‘That’s as you please, my lord.’
‘Meaning that it’s damned foolish on my part. All the same, I think I will. “Having no reason to fear the truth,” as the heroes in books always say.’
Japp said nothing. His face remained expressionless.
‘There’s a nice handy table and chair,’ went on the young man. ‘Your minion can sit down and take it all down in shorthand.’
I don’t think that Japp was used to having his arrangements made for him so thoughtfully. Lord Edgware’s suggestion was adopted.
‘To begin with,’ said the young man. ‘Having some grains of intelligence, I strongly suspect that my beautiful alibi has bust. Gone up in smoke. Exit the useful Dortheimers. Taxi-driver, I suppose?’
‘We know all about your movements on that night,’ said Japp woodenly.
‘I have the greatest admiration for Scotland Yard. All the same, you know, if I had really been planning a deed of violence I shouldn’t have hired a taxi and driven straight to the place and kept the fellow waiting. Have you thought of that? Ah! I see M. Poirot has.’
‘It had occurred to me, yes,’ said Poirot.
‘Such is not the manner of premeditated crime,’ said Ronald. ‘Put on a red moustache and horn-rimmed glasses and drive to the next street and pay the man off. Take the tube—well—well, I won’t go into it all. My Counsel, at a fee of several thousand guineas, will do it better than I can. Of course, I see the answer. Crime was a sudden impulse. There was I, waiting in the cab, etc., etc. It occurs to me, ‘Now, my boy, up and doing.’
‘Well, I’m going to tell you the truth. I was in a hole for money. That’s been pretty clear, I think. It was rather a desperate business. I had to get it by the next day or drop out of things. I tried my uncle. He’d no love for me, but I thought he might care for the honour of his name. Middle-aged men sometimes do. My uncle proved to be lamentably modern in his cynical indifference.
‘Well—it looked like just having to grin and bear it. I was going to try and have a shot at borrowing from Dortheimer, but I knew there wasn’t a hope. And marry his daughter I couldn’t. She’s much too sensible a girl to take me, anyway. Then, by chance, I met my cousin at the opera. I don’t often come across her, but she was always a decent kid when I lived in the house. I found myself telling her all about it. She’d heard something from her father anyway. Then she showed her mettle. She suggested I should take her pearls. They’d belonged to her mother.’
He paused. There was something like real emotion, I think, in his voice. Or else he suggested it better than I could have believed possible.
‘Well—I accepted the blessed child’s offer. I could raise the money I wanted on them, and I swore I’d turn to and redeem them even if it meant working to manage it. But the pearls were at home in Regent Gate. We decided that the best thing to do would be to go and fetch them at once. We jumped in a taxi and off we went.
‘We made the fellow stop on the opposite side of the street in case anyone should hear the taxi draw up at the door. Geraldine got out and went across the road. She had her latchkey with her. She would go in quietly, get the pearls and bring them out to me. She didn’t expect to meet anyone except, possibly, a servant. Miss Carroll, my uncle’s secretary, usually went to bed at half past nine. He, himself, would probably be in the library.