‘I don’t see the point of the gold box.’
‘Listen, Hastings, Carlotta Adams was not addicted to veronal. Lucie Adams says so, and I, too, believe it to be true. She was a clear-eyed healthy girl with no predilection for such things. None of her friends nor her maid recognized the box. Why, then, was it found in her possession after she died? To create the impression that she did take veronal and that she had taken it for a considerable time—that is to say at least six months. Let us say that she met the murderer after the murder if only for a few minutes. They had a drink together, Hastings, to celebrate the success of their plan. And in the girl’s drink he put sufficient veronal to ensure that there should be no waking for her on the following morning.’
‘Horrible,’ I said with a shudder.
‘Yes, it was not pretty,’ said Poirot dryly.
‘Are you going to tell Japp all this?’ I asked after a minute or two.
‘Not at the moment. What have I got to tell? He would say, the excellent Japp, “another nest of the mare! The girl wrote on an odd sheet of paper!” C’est tout.’
I looked guiltily at the ground.
‘What can I say to that? Nothing. It is a thing that might have happened. I only know it did not happen because it is necessary that it should not have happened.’
He paused. A dreamy expression stole across his face.
‘Figure to yourself, Hastings, if only that man had had the order and the method, he would have cut that sheet not torn it. And we should have noticed nothing. But nothing!’
‘So we deduce that he is a man of careless habits,’ I said, smiling.
‘No, no. He might have been in a hurry. You observe it is very carelessly torn. Oh! assuredly he was pressed for time.’
He paused and then said:
‘One thing you do remark, I hope. This man—this D—he must have had a very good alibi for that evening.’
‘I can’t see how he could have had any alibi at all if he spent his time first at Regent Gate doing a murder and then with Carlotta Adams.’
‘Precisely,’ said Poirot. ‘That is what I mean. He is badly in need of an alibi, so no doubt he prepared one. Another point: Does his name really begin with D? Or does D stand for some nickname by which he was known to her?’
He paused and then said softly:
‘A man whose initial or whose nickname is D. We have got to find him, Hastings. Yes, we have got to find him.’
Chapter 24
News from Paris
On the following day we had an unexpected visit.
Geraldine Marsh was announced.
I felt sorry for her as Poirot greeted her and set a chair for her. Her large dark eyes seemed wider and darker than ever. There were black circles round them as though she had not slept. Her face looked extraordinarily haggard and weary for one so young—little more, really, than a child.
‘I have come to see you, M. Poirot, because I don’t know how to go on any longer. I am so terribly worried and upset.’
‘Yes, Mademoiselle?’
His manner was gravely sympathetic.
‘Ronald told me what you said to him that day. I mean that dreadful day when he was arrested.’ She shivered. ‘He told me that you came up to him suddenly, just when he had said that he supposed no one would believe him, and that you said to him: “I believe you.” Is that true, M. Poirot?’
‘It is true, Mademoiselle, that is what I said.’
‘I know, but I meant not was it true you said it, but were the words really true. I mean, did you believe his story?’
Terribly anxious she looked, leaning forward there, her hands clasped together.
‘The words were true, Mademoiselle,’ said Poirot quietly. ‘I do not believe your cousin killed Lord Edgware.’
‘Oh!’ The colour came into her face, her eyes opened big and wide. ‘Then you must think—that someone else did it!’
‘Evidemment, Mademoiselle.’ He smiled.
‘I’m stupid. I say things badly. What I mean is—you think you know who that somebody is?’