‘I began to reconstruct. The maid would provide herself with duplicate clothes. She and her accomplice chloroform and stab Mrs Carrington between London and Bristol, probably taking advantage of a tunnel. Her body is rolled under the seat; and the maid takes her place. At Weston she must make herself noticed. How? In all probability, a newspaper-boy will be selected. She will insure his remembering her by giving him a large tip. She also drew his attention to the colour of her dress by a remark about one of the magazines. After leaving Weston, she throws the knife out of the window to mark the place where the crime presumably occurred, and changes her clothes, or buttons a long mackintosh over them. At Taunton she leaves the train and returns to Bristol as soon as possible, where her accomplice has duly left the luggage in the cloakroom. He hands over the ticket and himself returns to London. She waits on the platform, carrying out her role, goes to a hotel for the night and returns to town in the morning, exactly as she said.
‘When Japp returned from his expedition, he confirmed all my deductions. He also told me that a well-known crook was passing the jewels. I knew that whoever it was would be the exact opposite of the man Jane Mason described. When I heard that it was Red Narky, who always worked with Gracie Kidd—well, I knew just where to find her.’
‘And the Count?’
‘The more I thought of it, the more I was convinced that he had nothing to do with it. That gentleman is much too careful of his own skin to risk murder. It would be out of keeping with his character.’
‘Well, Monsieur Poirot,’ said Halliday, ‘I owe you a big debt. And the cheque I write after lunch won’t go near to settling it.’
Poirot smiled modestly, and murmured to me: ‘The good Japp, he shall get the official credit, all right, but though he has got his Gracie Kidd, I think that I, as the Americans say, have got his goat!’
The Chocolate Box
It was a wild night. Outside, the wind howled malevolently, and the rain beat against the windows in great gusts.
Poirot and I sat facing the hearth, our legs stretched out to the cheerful blaze. Between us was a small table. On my side of it stood some carefully brewed hot toddy; on Poirot’s was a cup of thick, rich chocolate which I would not have drunk for a hundred pounds! Poirot sipped the thick brown mess in the pink china cup, and sighed with contentment.
‘Quelle belle vie!’ he murmured.
‘Yes, it’s a good old world,’ I agreed. ‘Here am I with a job, and a good job too! And here are you, famous—’
‘Oh, mon ami!’ protested Poirot.
‘But you are. And rightly so! When I think back on your long line of successes, I am positively amazed. I don’t believe you know what failure is!’
‘He would be a droll kind of original who could say that!’
‘No, but seriously, have you ever failed?’
‘Innumerable times, my friend. What would you? La bonne chance, it cannot always be on your side. I have been called in too late. Very often another, working towards the same goal, has arrived there first. Twice have I been stricken down with illness just as I was on the point of success. One must take the downs with the ups, my friend.’
‘I didn’t quite mean that,’ I said. ‘I meant, had you ever been completely down and out over a case through your own fault?’
‘Ah, I comprehend! You ask if I have ever made the complete prize ass of myself, as you say over here? Once, my friend—’ A slow, reflective smile hovered over his face. ‘Yes, once I made a fool of myself.’
He sat up suddenly in his chair.
‘See here, my friend, you have, I know, kept a record of my little successes. You shall add one more story to the collection, the story of a failure!’
He leaned forward and placed a log on the fire. Then, after carefully wiping his hands on a little duster that hung on a nail by the fireplace, he leaned back and commenced his story.