‘I ask your pardon, Mr Farr, but you did see her. Remember your impression that there were three statues in that recess, not two. Only one person wore a white dress that night, Mademoiselle Estravados. She was the third white figure you saw. That is so, is it not, mademoiselle?’
Pilar said, after a moment’s hesitation: ‘Yes, it is true.’
Poirot said gently: ‘Now tell us, mademoiselle, the whole truth. Why were you there?’
Pilar said:
‘I left the drawing-room after dinner and I thought I would go and see my grandfather. I thought he would be pleased. But when I turned into the passage I saw someone else was there at his door. I did not want to be seen because I knew my grandfather had said he did not want to see anyone that night. I slipped into the recess in case the person at the door turned round.’
‘Then, all at once, I heard the most horrible sounds, tables—chairs’—she waved her hands—‘everything falling and crashing. I did not move. I do not know why. I was frightened. And then there was a terrible scream’—she crossed herself—‘and my heart it stopped beating, and I said, “Someone is dead…” ’
‘And then?’
‘And then people began coming running along the passage and I came out at the end and joined them.’
Super
intendent Sugden said sharply:
‘You said nothing of all this when we first questioned you. Why not?’
Pilar shook her head. She said, with an air of wisdom:
‘It is not good to tell too much to the police. I thought, you see, that if I said I was near there you might think that I had killed him. So I said I was in my room.’
Sugden said sharply:
‘If you tell deliberate lies all that it ends in is that you’re bound to come under suspicion.’
Stephen Farr said: ‘Pilar?’
‘Yes?’
‘Who did you see standing at the door when you turned into the passage? Tell us.’
Sugden said: ‘Yes, tell us.’
For a moment the girl hesitated. Her eyes opened, then narrowed. She said slowly:
‘I don’t know who it was. It was too dimly lit to see. But it was a woman…’
V
Superintendent Sugden looked round at the circle of faces. He said, with something as near irritation as he had yet shown:
‘This is very irregular, Mr Poirot.’
Poirot said:
‘It is a little idea of mine. I wish to share with everyone the knowledge that I have acquired. I shall then invite their co-operation, and so we shall get at the truth.’
Sugden murmured under his breath: ‘Monkey tricks.’
He leaned back in his chair. Poirot said:
‘To begin with, you have, I think, an explanation to ask of Mr Farr.’
Sugden’s mouth tightened.