‘It isn’t true,’ the actor bawled. The perspiration was running down his face. His eyes looked wild with horror. ‘I tell you I heard nothing—nothing—I did nothing.’
Then, I think, came the greatest shock of the morning.
‘That is quite true,’ said Poirot quietly. ‘And I hope you have now been sufficiently punished for coming to me—me, Hercule Poirot, with a cock-and-bull story.’
We all gasped. Poirot continued dreamily.
‘You see—I am showing you all my mistakes. There were five questions I had asked myself. Hastings knows them. The answer to three of them fitted in very well. Who had suppressed that letter? Clearly Bryan Martin answered that question very well. Another question was what had induced Lord Edgware suddenly to change his mind and agree to a divorce? Well, I had an idea as to that. Either he wanted to marry again—but I could find no evidence pointing to that—or else some kind of blackmail was involved. Lord Edgware was a man of peculiar tastes. It was possible that facts about him had come to light which, while not entitling his wife to an English divorce, might yet be used by her as a lever coupled with the threat of publicity. I think that is what happened. Lord Edgware did not want an open scandal attached to his name. He gave in, though his fury at having to do so was expressed in the murderous look on his face when he thought himself unobserved. It also explains the suspicious quickness with which he said, “Not because of anything in the letter,” before I had even suggested that that might be the case.
‘Two questions remained. The question of an odd pair of pince-nez in Miss Adams’ bag which did not belong to her. And the question of why Lady Edgware was rung up on the telephone whilst she was at dinner at Chiswick. In no way could I fit in M. Bryan Martin with either of those questions.
‘So I was forced to the conclusion that either I was wrong about Mr Martin, or wrong about the questions. In despair I once again read that letter of Miss Adams’ through very carefully. And I found something! Yes, I found something!
‘See for yourselves. Here it is. You see the sheet is torn? Unevenly, as often happens. Supposing now that before the “h” at the top there was an “s”…
‘Ah! you have it! You see. Not he—but she! It was a woman who suggested this hoax to Carlotta Adams.
‘Well, I made a list of all the women who had been even remotely connected with the case. Besides Jane Wilkinson, there were four—Geraldine Marsh, Miss Carroll, Miss Driver and the Duchess of Merton.
‘Of those four, the one that interested me most was Miss Carroll. She wore glasses, she was in the house that night, she had already been inaccurate in her evidence owing to her desire to incriminate Lady Edgware, and she was also a woman of great efficiency and nerve who could have carried out such a crime. The motive was more obscure—but after all, she had worked with Lord Edgware some years and some motive might exist of which we were totally unaware.
‘I also felt that I could not quite dismiss Geraldine Marsh from the case. She hated her father—she had told me so. She was a neurotic, highly-strung type. Suppose when she went into the house that night she had deliberately stabbed her father and then coolly proceeded upstairs to fetch the pearls. Imagine her agony when she found that her cousin whom she loved devotedly had not remained outside in the taxi but had entered the house.
‘Her agitated manner could be well explained on these lines. It could equally well be explained by her own innocence, but by her fear that her cousin really had done the crime. There was another small point. The gold box found in Miss Adams’ bag had the initial D in it. I had heard Geraldine addressed by her cousin as “Dina”. Also, she was in a pensionnat in Paris last November and might possibly have met Carlotta Adams in Paris.
‘You may think it fantastic to add the Duchess of Merton to the list. But she had called upon me and I recognized in her a fanatical type. The love of her whole life was centred on her son, and she might have worked herself up to contrive a plot to destroy the woman who was about to ruin her son’s life.