Poirot said:
“Eh bien?”
Peter Lord said:
“When they do, they’ll probably find what they’re looking for—morphine!”
“You knew that?”
Peter Lord, his face white under the freckles, muttered:
“I suspected it.”
Hercule Poirot beat with his hand on the arm of his chair. He cried out:
“Mon Dieu, I do not understand you! You knew when she died that she had been murdered?”
Peter Lord shouted:
“Good lord, no! I never dreamt of such a thing! I thought she’d taken it herself.”
Poirot sank back in his chair.
“Ah! You thought that….”
“Of course I did! She’d talked to me about it. Asked me more than once if I couldn’t ‘finish her off.’ She hated illness, the helplessness of it—the—what she called the indignity of lying there tended like a baby. And she was a very determined woman.”
He was silent a moment, then he went on:
“I was surprised at her death. I hadn’t expected it. I sent the nurse out of the room and made as thorough an investigation as I could. Of course, it was impossible to be sure without an autopsy. Well, what was the good of that? If she’d taken a shortcut, why make a song and dance about it and create a scandal? Better sign the certificate and let her be buried in peace. After all, I couldn’t be sure. I decided wrong, I suppose. But I never dreamed for one moment of foul play. I was quite sure she’d done it herself.”
Poirot asked:
“How do you think she had got hold of the morphine?”
“I hadn’t the least idea. But, as I tell you, she was a clever, resourceful woman, with plenty of ingenuity and remarkable determination.”
“Would she have got it from the nurses?”
Peter Lord shook his head.
“Never on your life! You don’t know nurses!”
“From her family?”
“Possibly. Might have worked on their feelings.”
Hercule Poirot said:
“You have told me that Mrs. Welman died intestate. If she had lived, would she have made a will?”
Peter Lord grinned suddenly.
“Putting your finger with fiendish accuracy on all the vital spots, aren’t you? Yes, she was going to make a will; very agitated about it. Couldn’t speak intelligently, but made her wishes clear. Elinor Carlisle was to have telephoned the lawyer first thing in the morning.”
“So Elinor Carlisle knew that her aunt wanted to make a will? And if her aunt died without making one, Elinor Carlisle inherited everything?”
Peter Lord said quickly: