The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories (Hercule Poirot 21)

would take me.

She

had just changed her frock for dinner, I remember,

when I burst into the room. I can see her

face--startled--beautiful--afraid.

I

said, "No one but me shall ever have you. No one."

And

I caught her throat in my hands and gripped

it and bent her backwards.

IN A GLASS DARKLY

189

And stddenly I saw our reflection in the mirror.

Sylvia choking amd myself strangling her, and the

scar on rny cheek: where the bullet grazed it under

the right ear.

No--I didn't kill her. That sudden revelation

paralyzed me and I loosened my grasp and let her

slip onto the floo ....

And then I broke down--and she comforted

me .... Yes, she comforted me.

I told her everything and she told me that by the

phrase "the one person who loved and needed

her" she had meant her brother Alan .... We saw

into eacla other's hearts that night, and I don't

think, from that moment, that we ever drifted

away from each other again ....

It's a sobering thought to go through life with

--that, but for the grace of God and a mirror, one

might be a murderer ....