He said, “Rhoda….”
Their hands clung together….
He had a sudden vision—of African scrub, and Rhoda, laughing and adventurous, by his side….
Thirty
MURDER
“Do you mean to say,” said Rhoda incredulously, “that Anne meant to push me in? I know it felt like it. And she knew I can’t swim. But—but was it deliberate?”
“It was quite deliberate,” said Poirot.
They were driving through the outskirts of London.
“But—but—why?”
Poirot did not reply for a minute or two. He thought he knew one of the motives that had led Anne to act as she had done, and that motive was sitting next to Rhoda at the minute.
Superintendent Battle coughed.
“You’ll have to prepare yourself, Miss Dawes, for a bit of a shock. This Mrs. Benson your friend lived with, her death wasn’t quite the accident that it appeared—at least, so we’ve reason to suppose.”
“What do you mean?”
“We believe,” said Poirot, “that Anne Meredith changed two bottles.”
“Oh, no—no, how horrible! It’s impossible. Anne? Why should she?”
“She had her reasons,” said Superintendent Battle. “But the point is, Miss Dawes, that, as far as Miss Meredith knew, you were the only person who could give us a clue to that incident. You didn’t tell her, I suppose, that you’d mentioned it to Mrs. Oliver?”
Rhoda said slowly:
“No. I thought she’d be annoyed with me.”
“She would. Very annoyed,” said Battle grimly. “But she thought that the only danger could come from you, and that’s why she decided to—er—eliminate you.”
“Eliminate? Me? Oh, how beastly! It can’t be all true.”
“Well, she’s dead now,” said Superintendent Battle, “so we might as well leave it at that; but she wasn’t a nice friend for you to have, Miss Dawes—and that’s a fact.”
The car drew up in front of a door.
“We’ll go in to M. Poirot’s,” said Superintendent Battle, “and have a bit of a talk about it all.”
In Poirot’s sitting room they were welcomed by Mrs. Oliver, who was entertaining Dr. Roberts. They were drinking sherry. Mrs. Oliver was wearing one of her new horsy hats and a velvet dress with a bow on the chest on which reposed a large piece of apple core.
“Come in. Come in,” said Mrs. Oliver hospitably and quite as though it were her house and not Poirot’s.
“As soon as I got your telephone call I rang up Dr. Roberts, and we came round here. And all his patients are dying, but he doesn’t care. They’re probably getting better, really. We want to hear all about everything.”
“Yes, indeed, I’m thoroughly fogged,” said Roberts.
“Eh bien,” said Poirot. “The case is ended. The murderer of Mr. Shaitana is found at last.”
“So Mrs. Oliver told me. That pretty little thing, Anne Meredith. I can hardly believe it. A most unbelievable murderess.”
“She was a murderess all right,” said Battle. “Three murders to her credit—and not her fault that she didn’t get away with a fourth one.”