‘And M. Poirot is in charge of the St Loo Police?’
‘Oh! quelle idée, Madame! I am a mere humble adviser.’
‘M. Poirot,’ said Nick. ‘Can’t we hush it up?’
‘You wish that, Mademoiselle?’
‘Yes. After all—I’m the person most concerned. And there will be no more attacks on me—now.’
‘No, that is true. There will be no more attacks on you now.’
‘You’re thinking of Maggie. But, M. Poirot, nothing will bring Maggie back to life again! If you make all this public, you’ll only bring a terrible lot of suffering and publicity on Frederica—and she hasn’t deserved it.’
‘You say she has not deserved it?’
‘Of course she hasn’t! I told you right at the beginning that she had a brute of a husband. You’ve seen to-night—what he was. Well, he’s dead. Let that be the end of things. Let the police go on looking for the man who shot Maggie. They just won’t find him, that’s all.’
‘So that is what you say, Mademoiselle? Hush it all up.’
‘Yes. Please. Oh! Please. Please, dear M. Poirot.’
Poirot looked slowly round.
‘What do you all say?’
Each spoke in turn.
‘I agree,’ I said, as Poirot looked at me.
‘I, too,’ said Lazarus.
‘Best thing to do,’ from Challenger.
‘Let’s forget everything that’s passed in this room tonight.’ This very determinedly from Croft.
‘You would say that!’ interpolated Japp.
‘Don’t be hard on me, dearie,’ his wife sniffed to Nick, who looked at her scornfully but made no reply.
‘Ellen?’
‘Me and William won’t say a word, sir. Least said, soonest mended.’
‘And you, M. Vyse?’
‘A thing like this can’t be hushed up,’ said Charles Vyse. ‘The facts must be made known in the proper quarter.’
‘Charles!’ cried Nick.
‘I’m sorry, dear. I look at it from the legal aspect.’
Poirot gave a sudden laugh.
‘So you are seven to one. The good Japp is neutral.’
‘I’m on holiday,’ said Japp, with a grin. ‘I don’t count.’
‘Seven to one. Only M. Vyse holds out—on the side of law and order! You know, M. Vyse, you are a man of character!’
Vyse shrugged his shoulders.
‘The position is quite clear. There is only one thing to do.’
‘Yes—you are an honest man. Eh bien—I, too, range myself on the side of the minority. I, too, am for the truth.’
‘M. Poirot!’ cried Nick.
‘Mademoiselle—you dragged me into the case. I came into it at your wish. You cannot silence me now.’
He raised a threatening forefinger in a gesture that I knew well.
‘Sit down—all of you, and I will tell you—the truth.’
Silenced by his imperious attitude, we sat down meekly and turned attentive faces towards him.
‘Ecoutez! I have a list here—a list of persons connected with the crime. I numbered them with the letters of the alphabet including the letter J. J. stood for a person unknown—linked to the crime by one of the others. I did not know who J. was until tonight, but I knew that there was such a person. The events of tonight have proved that I was right.
‘But yesterday, I suddenly realized that I had made a grave error. I had made an omission. I added another letter to my list. The letter K.’
‘Another person unknown?’ asked Vyse, with a slight sneer.
‘Not exactly. I adopted J. as the symbol for a person unknown. Another person unknown would be merely another J. K. has a different significance. It stands for a person who should have been included in the original list, but who was overlooked.’
He bent over Frederica.
‘Reassure yourself, Madame. Your husband was not guilty of murder. Itwas the person K. who shot Mademoiselle Maggie.’
She stared.
‘But who is K.?’
Poirot nodded to Japp. He stepped forward and spoke in tones reminiscent of the days when he had given evidence in police courts.
‘Acting on information received, I took up a position here early in the evening, having been introduced secretly into the house by M. Poirot. I was concealed behind the curtains in the drawing-room. When everyone was assembled in this room, a young lady entered the drawing-room and switched on the light. She made her way to the fireplace and opened a small recess in the panelling that appeared to be operated with a spring. She took from the recess a pistol. With this in her hand she left the room. I followed her and opening the door a crack I was able to observe her further movements. Coats and wraps had been left in the hall by the visitors on arrival. The young lady carefully wiped the pistol with a handkerchief and then placed it in the pocket of a grey wrap, the property of Mrs Rice—’
A cry burst from Nick.
‘This is untrue—every word of it!’
Poirot pointed a hand at her.
‘Voilà!’he said. ‘The person K.! It was Mademoiselle Nick who shot her cousin, Maggie Buckley.’
‘Are you mad?’ cried Nick. ‘Why should I kill Maggie?’
‘In order to inherit the money left to her by Michael Seton! Her name too was Magdala Buckley—and it was to her he was engaged—not you.’
‘You—you—’
She stood there trembling—unable to speak. Poirot turned to Japp.
‘You telephoned to the police?’
‘Yes, they are waiting in the hall now. They’ve got the warrant.’
‘You’re all mad!’ cried Nick, contemptuously. She moved swiftly to Frederica’s side. ‘Freddie, give me your wrist-watch as—as a souvenir, will you?’
Slowly Frederica unclasped the jewelled watch from her wrist and handed it to Nick.
‘Thanks. And now—I suppose we must go through with this perfectly ridiculous comedy.’
‘The comedy you planned and produced in End House. Yes—but you should not have given the star part to Hercule Poirot. That, Mademoiselle, was your mistake—your very grave mistake.’
Chapter 22
The End of the Story
‘You want me to explain?’
Poirot looked round with a gratified smile and the air of mock humility I knew so well.
We had moved into the drawing-room and our numbers had lessened. The domestics had withdrawn tactfully, and the Crofts had been asked to accompany the police. Frederica, Lazarus, Challenger, Vyse and I remained.
‘Eh bien—I confess it—I was fooled—fooled completely and absolutely. The little Nick, she had me where she wanted me, as your idiom so well expresses it. Ah! Mad
ame, when you said that your friend was a clever little liar—how right you were! How right!’
‘Nick always told lies,’ said Frederica, composedly. ‘That’s why I didn’t really believe in these marvellous escapes of hers.’
‘And I—imbecile that I was—did!’
‘Didn’t they really happen?’ I asked. I was, I admit, still hopelessly confused.
‘They were invented—very cleverly—to give just the impression they did.’
‘What was that?’
‘They gave the impression that Mademoiselle Nick’s life was in danger. But I will begin earlier than that. I will tell you the story as I have pieced it out—not as it came to me imperfectly and in flashes.
‘At the beginning of the business then, we have this girl, this Nick Buckley, young and beautiful, unscrupulous, and passionately and fanatically devoted to her home.’
Charles Vyse nodded.
‘I told you that.’
‘And you were right. Mademoiselle Nick loved End House. But she had no money. The house was mortgaged. She wanted money—she wanted it feverishly—and she could not get it. She meets this young Seton at Le Touquet, he is attracted by her. She knows that in all probability he is his uncle’s heir and that that uncle is worth millions. Good, her star is in the ascendant, she thinks. But he is not really seriously attracted. He thinks her good fun, that is all. They meet at Scarborough, he takes her up in his machine and then—the catastrophe occurs. He meets Maggie and falls in love with her at first sight.
‘Mademoiselle Nick is dumbfounded. Her cousin Maggie whom she has never considered pretty! But to young Seton she is “different”. The one girl in the world for him. They become secretly engaged. Only one person knows—has to know. That person is Mademoiselle Nick. The poor Maggie—she is glad that there is one person she can talk to. Doubtless she reads to her cousin parts of her fiancé’s letters. So it is that Mademoiselle gets to hear of the will. She pays no attention to it at the time. But it remains in her mind.
‘Then comes the sudden and unexpected death of Sir Matthew Seton, and hard upon that the rumours of Michael Seton’s being missing. And straightaway an outrageous plan comes into our young lady’s head. Seton does not know that her name is Magdala also. He only knows her as Nick. His will is clearly quite informal—a mere mention of a name. But in the eyes of the world Seton is her friend! It is with her that his name has been coupled. If she were to claim to be engaged to him, no one would be surprised. But to do that successfully Maggie must be out of the way.