Battle did his conjuring trick. Anne Meredith shrank back.
“Oh, horrible. Must I—take it?”
“I’d rather you did.”
He watched her as she took the stiletto gingerly, her face contracted with repulsion.
“With this tiny thing—with this—”
“Go in like butter,” said Battle with gusto. “A child could do it.”
“You mean—you mean”—wide, terrified eyes fixed themselves on his face—“that I might have done it? But I didn’t. Why should I?”
“That’s just the question we’d like to know,” said Battle. “What’s the motive? Why did anyone want to kill Shaitana? He was a picturesque person, but he wasn’t dangerous, as far as I can make out.”
Was there a slight indrawing of her breath—a sudden lifting of her breast?
“Not a blackmailer, for instance, or anything of that sort?” went on Battle. “And anyway, Miss Meredith, you don’t look the sort of girl who’s got a lot of guilty secrets.”
For the first time she smiled, reassured by his geniality.
“No, indeed I haven’t. I haven’t got any secrets at all.”
“Then don’t worry, Miss Meredith. We shall have to come round and ask you a few more questions, I expect, but it will be all a matter of routine.”
He got up.
“Now off you go. My constable will get you a taxi; and don’t you lie awake worrying yourself. Take a couple of aspirins.”
He ushered her out. As he came back Colonel Race said in a low, amused voice:
“Battle, what a really accomplished liar you are! Your fatherly air was unsurpassed.”
“No good dallying about with her, Colonel Race. Either the poor kid is dead scared—in which case it’s cruelty, and I’m not a cruel man; I never have been—or she’s a highly accomplished little actress, and we shouldn’t get any further if we were to keep her here half the night.”
Mrs. Oliver gave a sigh and ran her hands freely through her fringe until it stood upright and gave her a wholly drunken appearance.
“Do you know,” she said, “I rather believe now that she did it! It’s lucky it’s not in a book. They don’t really like the young and beautiful girl to have done it. All the same, I rather think she did. What do you think, M. Poirot?”
“Me, I have just made a discovery.”
“In the bridge scores again?”
“Yes, Miss Anne Meredith turns her score over, draws lines and uses the back.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means she has the habit of poverty or else is of a naturally economical turn of mind.”
“She’s expensively dressed,” said Mrs. Oliver.
“Send in Major Despard,” said Superintendent Battle.
Seven
FOURTH MURDERER?
Despard entered the room with a quick springing step—a step that reminded Poirot of something or someone.