“Got the present Home Secretary in your pocket, haven’t you? That will be easy enough.”
Nine
Peter Lord said:
“Well?”
Hercule Poirot said:
“No, it is not very well.”
Peter Lord said heavily:
“You haven’t got hold of anything?”
Poirot said slowly:
“Elinor Carlisle killed Mary Gerrard out of jealousy… Elinor Carlisle killed her aunt so as to inherit her money… Elinor Carlisle killed her aunt out of compassion… My friend, you may make your choice!”
Peter Lord said:
“You’re talking nonsense!”
Hercule Poirot said:
“Am I?”
Lord’s freckled face looked angry. He said:
“What is all this?”
Hercule Poirot said:
“Do you think it is possible, that?”
“Do I think what is possible?”
“That Elinor Carlisle was unable to bear the sight of her aunt’s misery and helped her out of existence.”
“Nonsense!”
“Is it nonsense? You have told me yourself that the old lady asked you to help her.”
“She didn’t mean it seriously. She knew I wouldn’t do anything of the sort.”
“Still, the idea was in her mind. Elinor Carlisle might have helped her.”
Peter Lord strolled up and down. He said at last:
“One can’t deny that that sort of thing is possible. But Elinor Carlisle is a levelheaded, clear-thinking kind of young woman. I don’t think she’d be so carried away by pity as to lose sight of the risk. And she’d realize exactly what the risk was. She’d be liable to stand accused of murder.”
“So you don’t think she would do it?”
Peter Lord said slowly:
“I think a woman might do such a thing for her husband; or for her child; or for her mother, perhaps. I don’t think she’d do it for an aunt, though she might be fond of that aunt. And I think in any case she’d only do it if the person in question was actually suffering unbearable pain.”
Poirot said thoughtfully: