‘Assuredly, Mademoiselle. I am charmed to see you. Will not M. Martin join us also?’
‘I told him not to. You see, I wanted to talk to you about Carlotta.’
‘Yes, Mademoiselle?’
‘You wanted to get a line on to some man friend of hers. Isn’t that so?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘Well, I’ve been thinking and thinking. Sometimes you can’t get at things straight away. To get them clear you’ve got to think back—remember a lot of little words and phrases that perhaps you didn’t pay attention to at the time. Well, that’s what I’ve been doing. Thinking and thinking—and remembering just what she said. And I’ve come to a certain conclusion.’
‘Yes, Mademoiselle?’
‘I think the man that she cared about—or was beginning to care about—was Ronald Marsh—you know, the one who has just succeeded to the title.’
‘What makes you think it was he, Mademoiselle?’
‘Well, for one thing, Carlotta was speaking in a general sort of way one day. About a man having hard luck, and how it might affect character. That a man might be a decent sort really and yet go down the hill. More sinned against then sinning—you know the idea. The first thing a woman kids herself with when she’s getting soft about a man. I’ve heard the old wheeze so often! Carlotta had plenty of sense, yet here she was coming out with this stuff just like a complete ass who knew nothing of life. “Hello,” I said to myself. “Something’s up.” She didn’t mention a name—it was all general. But almost immediately after that she began to speak of Ronald Marsh and that she thought he’d been badly treated. She was very impersonal and offhand about it. I didn’t connect the two things at the time. But now—I wonder. It seems to me that it was Ronald she meant. What do you think, M. Poirot?’
Her face looked earnestly up into his.
‘I think, Mademoiselle, that you have perhaps given me some very valuable information.’
‘Good.’ Jenny clapped her hands.
Poirot looked kindly at her.
‘Perhaps you have not heard—the gentleman of whom you speak, Ronald Marsh—Lord Edgware—has just been arrested.’
‘Oh!’ Her mouth flew open in surprise. ‘Then my bit of thinking comes rather late in the day.’
‘It is never too late,’ said Poirot. ‘Not with me, you understand. Thank you, Mademoiselle.’
She left us to return to Bryan Martin.
‘There, Poirot,’ I said. ‘Surely that shakes your belief.’
‘No, Hastings. On the contrary—it strengthens it.’
Despite that valiant assertion I believed myself that secretly he had weakened.
During the days that followed he never once mentioned the Edgware case. If I spoke of it, he answered monosyllabically and without interest. In other words, he had washed his hands of it. Whatever he had had lingering in his fantastic brain, he had now been forced to admit that it had not materialized—that his first conception of the case had been the true one and that Ronald Marsh was only too truly accused of the crime. Only, being Poirot, he could not admit openly that such was the case! Therefore he pretended to have lost interest.
Such, as I say, was my interpretation of his attitude. It seemed borne out by the facts. He took no faintest interest in the police court proceedings, which in any case were purely formal. He busied himself with other cases and, as I say, he displayed no interest when the subject was mentioned.
It was nearly a fortnight later than the events mentioned in my last chapter when I came to realize that my interpretation of his attitude was entirely wrong.
It was breakfast time. The usual heavy pile of letters lay by Poirot’s plate. He sorted through them with nimble fingers. Then he uttered a quick exclamation of pleasure and picked up a letter with an American stamp on it.
He opened it with his little letter-opener. I looked on with interest since he seemed so moved to pleasure about it. There was a letter and a fairly thick enclosure.
Poirot read the former through twice, then he looked up.
‘Would you like to see this, Hastings?’
I took it from him. It ran as follows: