Lord Edgware Dies (Hercule Poirot 9)

“She did,” replied Lord Edgware dryly. “English lawyers, American lawyers, every kind of lawyer, down to the lowest kind of scallywag. Finally, as I say, she wrote to me herself.”

“You have previously refused?”

“That is so.”

“But on receiving her letter, you changed your mind. Why did you change your mind, Lord Edgware?”

“Not on account of anything in that letter,” he said sharply. “My views happened to have changed, that is all.”

“The change was somewhat sudden.”

Lord Edgware did not reply.

“What special circumstances brought about your change of mind, Lord Edgware?”

“That, really, is my own business M. Poirot. I cannot enter into the subject. Shall we say that gradually I had perceived the advantages of severing what—you will forgive my plain speaking—I considered a degrading association. My second marriage was a mistake.”

“Your wife says the same,” said Poirot softly.

“Does she?”

There was a queer flicker for a moment in his eyes, but it was gone almost at once.

He rose with an air of finality and as we said good-bye his manner became less unbending.

“You must forgive my altering the appointment. I have to go over to Paris tomorrow.”

“Perfectly—perfectly.”

“A sale of works of art as a matter of fact. I have my eye on a little statuette—a perfect thing in its way—a macabre way, perhaps. But I enjoy the macabre. I always have. My taste is peculiar.”

Again that queer smile. I had been looking at the books in the shelves near. There were the memoirs of Casanova, also a volume on the Comte de Sade, another on mediaeval tortures.

I remembered Jane Wilkinson’s little shudder as she spoke of her husband. That had not been acting. That had been real enough. I wondered exactly what kind of a man George Alfred St. Vincent Marsh, fourth Baron Edgware, was.

Very suavely he bid us farewell, touching the bell as he did so. We went out of the door. The Greek god of a butler was waiting in the hall. As I closed the library door behind me, I glanced back into the room. I almost uttered an exclamation as I did so.

That suave smiling face was transformed. The lips were drawn back from the teeth in a snarl, the eyes were alive with fury and an almost insane rage.

I wondered no longer that two wives had left Lord Edgware. What I did marvel at was the iron self-control of the man. To have gone through that interview with such frozen self-control, such aloof politeness!

Just as we reached the front door, a door on the right opened. A girl stood at the doorway of the room, shrinking back a little as she saw us.

She was a tall slender girl, with dark hair and a white face. Her eyes, dark and startled, looked for a moment into mine. Then, like a shadow, she shrank back into the room again, closing the door.

A moment later we were out in the street. Poirot hailed a taxi. We got in and he told the man to drive to the Savoy.

“Well, Hastings,” he said with a twinkle, “that interview did not go at all as I figured to myself it would.”

“No, indeed. What an extraordinary man Lord Edgware is.”

I related to him how I had looked back before closing the door of the study and what I had seen. He nodded his head slowly and thoughtfully.

“I fancy that he is very near the borderline of madness, Hastings. I should imagine he practises many curious vices, and that beneath his frigid exterior he hides a deep-rooted instinct of cruelty.”

“It is no wonder both his wives left him.”

“As you say.”

“Poirot, did you notice a girl as we were coming out? A dark girl with a white face.”

“Yes, I noticed her, mon ami. A young lady who was frightened and not happy.”

His voice was grave.

“Who do you think she was?”

“Probably his daughter. He has one.”

“She did look frightened,” I said slowly. “That house must be a gloomy place for a young girl.”

“Yes, indeed. Ah! here we are, mon ami. Now to acquaint her ladyship with the good news.”

Jane was in, and after telephoning, the clerk informed us that we were to go up. A page boy took us to the door.

It was opened by a neat middle-aged woman with glasses and primly arranged grey hair. From the bedroom Jane’s voice, with its husky note, called to her.

“Is that M. Poirot, Ellis? Make him sit right down. I’ll find a rag to put on and be there in a moment.”

Jane Wilkinson’s idea of a rag was a gossamer negligee which revealed more than it hid. She came in eagerly, saying: “Well?”

Poirot rose and bowed over her hand.

“Exactly the word, Madame, it is well.”

“Why—how do you mean?”

“Lord Edgware is perfectly willing to agree to a divorce.”

“What?”

Either the stupefaction on her face was genuine, or else she was indeed a most marvellous actress.

“M. Poirot! You’ve managed it! At once! Like that! Why, you’re a genius. How in mercy’s name did you set about it?”

“Madame, I cannot take compliments where they are not earned. Six months ago your husband wrote to you withdrawing his opposition.”

“What’s that you say? Wrote to me? Where?”

“It was when you were at Hollywood, I understand.”

“I never got it. Must have gone astray, I suppose. And to think I’ve been thinking and planning and fretting and going nearly crazy all these months.”

“Lord Edgware seemed to be under the impression that you wished to marry an actor.”

“Naturally. That’s what I told him.” She gave a pleased child’s smile. Suddenly it changed to a look of alarm. “Why, M. Poirot, you did not go and tell him about me and the duke?”

“No, no, reassure yourself. I am discreet. That would not have done, eh?”

“Well, you see, he’s got a queer mean nature. Marrying Merton, he’d feel, was perhaps a kind of leg up for me—so then naturally he’d queer the pitch. But a film actor’s different. Though, all the same, I’m surprised. Yes, I am. Aren’t you surprised, Ellis?”

I had noticed that the maid had come to and fro from the bedroom tidying away various outdoor garments which were lying flung over the backs of chairs. It had been my opinion that she had been listening to the conversation. Now it seemed that she was completely in Jane’s confidence.

“Yes, indeed, m’lady. His lordship must have changed a good deal since we knew him,” said the maid spitefully.

“Yes, he must.”

“You cannot understand his attitude. It puzzles you?” suggested Poirot.

“Oh, it does. But anyway, we needn’t worry about that. What does it matter what made him change his mind so long as he has changed it?”

“It may not interest you, but it interests me, Madame.”

Jane paid no attention to him.

“The thing is that I’m free—at last.”

“Not yet, Madame.”

She looked at him impatiently.

“Well, going to be free. It’s the same thing.”

Poirot looked as though he did not think it was.

“The duke is in Paris,” said Jane. “I must cable him right away. My—won’t his old mother be wild!”

Poirot rose.

“I am glad, Madame, that all is turning out as you wish.”

“Good-bye, M. Poirot, and thanks awfully.”

“I did nothing.”

“You brought me the good news, anyway, M. Poirot, and I’m ever so grateful. I really am.”

“And that is that,” said Poirot to me, as we left the suite. “The single idea—herself! She has no speculation, no curiosity as to why that letter never reached her. You observe, Hastings, she is shrewd beyond belief in the business sense, but she has absolutely no intellect. Well, well, the good God cannot give everything.”

“Except

to Hercule Poirot,” I said dryly.

“You mock yourself at me, my friend,” he replied serenely. “But come, let me walk along the Embankment. I wish to arrange my ideas with order and method.”

I maintained a discreet silence until such time as the oracle should speak.

“That letter,” he resumed when we were pacing along by the river. “It intrigues me. There are four solutions of that problem, my friend.”