ABC谋杀案 38

Thirty-four

POIROT EXPLAINS

We were sitting in a state of tense attention to listen to Poirot’s final explanation of the case.

“All along,” he said, “I have been worried over the why of this case. Hastings said to me theother day that the case was ended. I replied to him that the case was the man! The mystery was notthe mystery of the murders, but the mystery of A B C. Why did he find it necessary to commit thesemurders? Why did he select me as his adversary¹?

“It is no answer to say that the man was mentally unhinged. To say a man does mad thingsbecause he is mad is merely unintelligent and stupid. A madman is as logical and reasoned in hisactions as a sane³ man—given his peculiar⁴ biased⁵ point of view. For example, if a man insists ongoing⁶ out and squatting⁷ about in nothing but a loin cloth his conduct seems eccentric in theextreme. But once you know that the man himself is firmly convinced that he is Mahatma Gandhi,then his conduct becomes perfectly⁸ reasonable and logical.

“What was necessary in this case was to imagine a mind so constituted that it was logical andreasonable to commit four or more murders and to announce them beforehand by letters written toHercule Poirot.

“My friend Hastings will tell you that from the moment I received the first letter I was upset anddisturbed. It seemed to me at once that there was something very wrong about the letter.”

“You were quite right,” said Franklin Clarke dryly.

“Yes. But there, at the very start, I made a grave error. I permitted my feeling—my very strongfeeling about the letter — to remain a mere² impression. I treated it as though it had been anintuition. In a well-balanced, reasoning mind there is no such thing as an intuition—an inspiredguess! You can guess, of course—and a guess is either right or wrong. If it is right you call it anintuition. If it is wrong you usually do not speak of it again. But what is often called an intuition isreally an impression based on logical deduction⁹ or experience. When an expert feels that there issomething wrong about a picture or a piece of furniture or the signature on a cheque he is reallybasing that feeling on a host of small signs and details. He has no need to go into them minutely—his experience obviates¹⁰ that—the net result is the definite impression that something is wrong. Butit is not a guess, it is an impression based on experience.

“Eh bien, I admit that I did not regard that first letter in the way I should. It just made meextremely uneasy. The police regarded it as a hoax¹¹. I myself took it seriously. I was convinced thata murder would take place in Andover as stated. As you know, a murder did take place.

“There was no means at that point, as I well realized, of knowing who the person was who haddone the deed. The only course open to me was to try and understand just what kind of a personhad done it.

“I had certain indications. The letter—the manner of the crime—the person murdered. What Ihad to discover was: the motive¹² of the crime, the motive of the letter.”

“Publicity¹³,” suggested Clarke.

“Surely an inferiority complex covers that,” added Thora Grey.

“That was, of course, the obvious line to take. But why me? Why Hercule Poirot? Greaterpublicity could be ensured by sending the letters to Scotland Yard. More again by sending them toa newspaper. A newspaper might not print the first letter, but by the time the second crime tookplace, A B C could have been assured of all the publicity the press could give. Why, then, HerculePoirot? Was it for some personal reason? There was, discernible in the letter, a slight anti-foreignbias—but not enough to explain the matter to my satisfaction.

“Then the second letter arrived—and was followed by the murder of Betty Barnard at Bexhill. Itbecame clear now (what I had already suspected) that the murders were to proceed on analphabetical plan, but the fact, which seemed final to most people, left the main question unalteredto my mind. Why did A B C need to commit these murders?”

Megan Barnard stirred in her chair.

“Isn’t there such a thing as—as a blood lust¹⁵?” she said.

Poirot turned to her.

“You are quite right, mademoiselle. There is such a thing. The lust to kill. But that did not quitefit the facts of the case. A homicidal maniac¹⁶ who desires to kill usually desires to kill as manyvictims as possible. It is a recurring¹⁷ craving¹⁸. The great idea of such a killer¹⁹ is to hide his tracks—not to advertise them. When we consider the four victims selected—or at any rate three of them(for I know very little of Mr. Downes or Mr. Earlsfield), we realize that if he had chosen, themurderer could have done away with them without incurring²⁰ any suspicion. Franz Ascher, DonaldFraser or Megan Barnard, possibly Mr. Clarke — those are the people the police would havesuspected even if they had been unable to get direct proof. An unknown homicidal murdererwould not have been thought of! Why, then, did the murderer feel it necessary to call attention tohimself? Was it the necessity of leaving on each body a copy of an A B C railway guide? Was thatthe compulsion? Was there some complex connected with the railway guide?

“I found it quite inconceivable at this point to enter into the mind of the murderer. Surely itcould not be magnanimity? A horror of responsibility for the crime being fastened on an innocentperson?

“Although I could not answer the main question, certain things I did feel I was learning aboutthe murderer.”

“Such as?” asked Fraser.

“To begin with—that he had a tabular mind. His crimes were listed by alphabetical¹⁴ progression—that was obviously important to him. On the other hand, he had no particular taste in victims—Mrs. Ascher, Betty Barnard, Sir Carmichael Clarke, they all differed widely from each other.

There was no sex complex—no particular age complex, and that seemed to me to be a verycurious fact. If a man kills indiscriminately it is usually because he removes anyone who stands inhis way or annoys him. But the alphabetical progression showed that such was not the case here.

The other type of killer usually selects a particular type of victim—nearly always of the oppositesex. There was something haphazard²¹ about the procedure of A B C that seemed to me to be at warwith the alphabetical selection.

“One slight inference I permitted myself to make. The choice of the A B C suggested to mewhat I may call a railway-minded man. This is more common in men than women. Small boyslove trains better than small girls do. It might be the sign, too, of an in some ways undevelopedmind. The ‘boy’ motif²² still predominated.

“The death of Betty Barnard and the manner of it gave me certain other indications. The mannerof her death was particularly suggestive. (Forgive me, Mr. Fraser.) To begin with, she wasstrangled with her own belt—therefore she must almost certainly have been killed by someonewith whom she was on friendly or affectionate terms. When I learnt something of her character apicture grew up in my mind.

“Betty Barnard was a flirt²³. She liked attention from a personable male. Therefore A B C, topersuade her to come out with him, must have had a certain amount of attraction—of le sexappeal! He must be able, as you English say, to ‘get off.’ He must be capable of the click! Ivisualize the scene on the beach thus: the man admires her belt. She takes it off, he passes itplayfully round her neck—says, perhaps, ‘I shall strangle you.’ It is all very playful. She giggles—and he pulls—”

Donald Fraser sprang up. He was livid.

“M. Poirot—for God’s sake.”

Poirot made a gesture.

“It is finished. I say no more. It is over. We pass to the next murder, that of Sir CarmichaelClarke. Here the murderer goes back to his first method — the blow on the head. The samealphabetical complex—but one fact worries me a little. To be consistent the murderer should havechosen his towns in some definite sequence.

“If Andover is the 155th name under A, then the B crime should be the 155th also—or it shouldbe the 156th and the C the 157th. Here again the towns seemed to be chosen in rather toohaphazard a fashion.”

“Isn’t that because you’re rather biased on that subject, Poirot?” I suggested. “You yourself arenormally methodical and orderly. It’s almost a disease with you.”

“No, it is not a disease! Quelle idée! But I admit that I may be over- stressing that point.

Passons!

“The Churston crime gave me very little extra help. We were unlucky over it, since the letterannouncing it went astray, hence no preparations could be made.

“But by the time the D crime was announced, a very formidable system of defence had beenevolved. It must have been obvious that A B C could not much longer hope to get away with hiscrimes.

“Moreover, it was at this point that the clue of the stockings came into my hand. It was perfectlyclear that the presence of an individual selling stockings on and near the scene of each crime couldnot be a coincidence. Hence the stocking seller must be the murderer. I may say that hisdescription, as given me by Miss Grey, did not quite correspond with my own picture of the manwho strangled Betty Barnard.

“I will pass over the next stages quickly. A fourth murder was committed—the murder of a mannamed George Earlsfield — it was supposed in mistake for a man named Downes, who wassomething of the same build and who was sitting near him in the cinema.

“And now at last comes the turn of the tide. Events play against A B C instead of into his hands.

He is marked down—hunted—and at last arrested.

“The case, as Hastings says, is ended!

“True enough as far as the public is concerned. The man is in prison and will eventually, nodoubt, go to Broadmoor. There will be no more murders. Exit! Finis! R.I.P.

“But not for me! I know nothing—nothing at all! Neither the why nor the wherefore.

“And there is one small vexing²⁵ fact. The man Cust has an alibi²⁶ for the night of the Bexhillcrime.”

“That’s been worrying me all along,” said Franklin Clarke.

“Yes. It worried me. For the alibi, it has the air of being genuine. But it cannot be genuineunless—and now we come to two very interesting speculations²⁷.

“Supposing, my friends, that while Cust committed three of the crimes—the A, C, and D crimes—he did not commit the B crime.”

“M. Poirot. It isn’t—”

Poirot silenced Megan Barnard with a look.

“Be quiet, mademoiselle. I am for the truth, I am! I have done with lies. Supposing, I say, that AB C did not commit the second crime. It took place, remember, in the early hours of the 25th—theday he had arrived for the crime. Supposing someone had forestalled²⁹ him? What in thosecircumstances would he do? Commit a second murder, or lie low and accept the first as a kind ofmacabre present?”

“M. Poirot!” said Megan. “That’s a fantastic thought! All the crimes must have been committedby the same person!”

He took no notice of her and went steadily³⁰ on:

“Such a hypothesis had the merit of explaining one fact — the discrepancy³¹ between thepersonality of Alexander Bonaparte Cust (who could never have made the click with any girl) andthe personality of Betty Barnard’s murderer. And it has been known, before now, that would-bemurderers have taken advantage of the crimes committed by other people. Not all the crimes ofJack the Ripper were committed by Jack³² the Ripper, for instance. So far, so good.

“But then I came up against a definite difficulty.

“Up to the time of the Barnard murder, no facts about the A B C murders had been made public.

The Andover murder had created little interest. The incident of the open railway guide had noteven been mentioned in the press. It therefore followed that whoever killed Betty Barnard musthave had access to facts known only to certain persons—myself, the police, and certain relationsand neighbours of Mrs. Ascher.

“That line of research seemed to lead me up against a blank wall.”

The faces that looked at him were blank too. Blank and puzzled.

Donald Fraser said thoughtfully:

“The police, after all, are human beings. And they’re good-looking men—”

He stopped, looking at Poirot inquiringly.

Poirot shook his head gently.

“No—it is simpler than that. I told you that there was a second speculation²⁸.

“Supposing that Cust was not responsible for the killing³³ of Betty Barnard? Supposing thatsomeone else killed her. Could that someone else have been responsible for the other murderstoo?”

“But that doesn’t make sense!” cried Clarke.

“Doesn’t it? I did then what I ought to have done at first. I examined the letters I had receivedfrom a totally different point of view. I had felt from the beginning that there was somethingwrong with them—just as a picture expert knows a picture is wrong….

“I had assumed, without pausing to consider, that what was wrong with them was the fact thatthey were written by a madman.

“Now I examined them again—and this time I came to a totally different conclusion. What waswrong with them was the fact that they were written by a sane man!”

“What?” I cried.

“But yes—just that precisely³⁴! They were wrong as a picture is wrong—because they were afake! They pretended to be the letters of a madman—of a homicidal lunatic, but in reality theywere nothing of the kind.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Franklin Clarke repeated.

“Mais si! One must reason—reflect. What would be the object of writing such letters? To focusattention on the writer, to call attention to the murders! En vérité, it did not seem to make sense atfirst sight. And then I saw light. It was to focus attention on several murders—on a group ofmurders…Is it not your great Shakespeare who has said ‘You cannot see the trees for the wood.’”

I did not correct Poirot’s literary reminiscences. I was trying to see his point. A glimmer³⁵ cameto me. He went on:

“When do you notice a pin least? When it is in a pincushion! When do you notice an individualmurder least? When it is one of a series of related murders.

“I had to deal with an intensely clever, resourceful murderer—reckless, daring and a thoroughgambler. Not Mr. Cust! He could never have committed these murders! No, I had to deal with avery different stamp of man—a man with a boyish temperament³⁶ (witness the schoolboy-like lettersand the railway guide), an attractive man to women, and a man with a ruthless disregard forhuman life, a man who was necessarily a prominent person in one of the crimes!

“Consider when a man or woman is killed, what are the questions that the police ask?

Opportunity. Where everybody was at the time of the crime? Motive. Who benefited by thedeceased’s death? If the motive and the opportunity are fairly obvious, what is a would- bemurderer to do? Fake an alibi — that is, manipulate time in some way? But that is always ahazardous proceeding³⁷. Our murderer thought of a more fantastic defence. Create a homicidalmurderer!

“I had now only to review the various crimes and find the possible guilty person. The Andovercrime? The most likely suspect for that was Franz Ascher, but I could not imagine Ascherinventing and carrying out such an elaborate scheme, nor could I see him planning a premeditatedmurder. The Bexhill crime? Donald Fraser was a possibility. He had brains and ability, and amethodical turn of mind. But his motive for killing his sweetheart could only be jealousy—andjealousy does not tend to premeditation. Also I learned that he had his holidays early in August,which rendered it unlikely he had anything to do with the Churston crime. We come to theChurston crime next—and at once we are on infinitely³⁹ more promising⁴⁰ ground.

“Sir Carmichael Clarke was an immensely wealthy man. Who inherits his money? His wife,who is dying, has a life interest in it, and it then goes to his brother Franklin.”

Poirot turned slowly round till his eyes met those of Franklin Clarke.

“I was quite sure then. The man I had known a long time in my secret mind was the same as theman whom I had known as a person. A B C and Franklin Clarke were one and the same! Thedaring adventurous⁴¹ character, the roving life, the partiality for England that had showed itself,very faintly, in the jeer⁴² at foreigners. The attractive free and easy manner—nothing easier for himthan to pick up a girl in a café. The methodical tabular mind—he made a list here one day, tickedoff over the headings A B C—and finally, the boyish mind—mentioned by Lady Clarke and evenshown by his taste in fiction—I have ascertained⁴³ that there is a book in the library called TheRailway Children by E. Nesbit. I had no further doubt in my own mind—A B C, the man whowrote the letters and committed the crimes, was Franklin Clarke.”

Clarke suddenly burst out laughing.

“Very ingenious! And what about our friend Cust, caught red-handed? What about the blood onhis coat? And the knife he hid in his lodgings⁴⁴? He may deny he committed the crimes—”

Poirot interrupted.

“You are quite wrong. He admits the fact.”

“What?” Clarke looked really startled.

“Oh, yes,” said Poirot gently. “I had no sooner spoken to him than I was aware that Custbelieved himself to be guilty.”

“And even that didn’t satisfy M. Poirot?” said Clarke.

“No. Because as soon as I saw him I also knew that he could not be guilty! He has neither thenerve nor the daring—nor, I may add, the brains to plan! All along I have been aware of the dualpersonality of the murderer. Now I see wherein it consisted. Two people were involved—the realmurderer, cunning, resourceful and daring — and the pseudo murderer, stupid, vacillating andsuggestible.

“Suggestible—it is in that word that the mystery of Mr. Cust consists! It was not enough foryou, Mr. Clarke, to devise this plan of a series to distract attention from a single crime. You hadalso to have a stalking horse.

“I think the idea first originated in your mind as the result of a chance encounter in a city coffeeden with this odd personality with his bombastic⁴⁵ Christian⁴⁶ names. You were at that time turningover in your mind various plans for the murder of your brother.”

“Really? And why?”

“Because you were seriously alarmed for the future. I do not know whether you realize it, Mr.

Clarke, but you played into my hands when you showed me a certain letter written to you by yourbrother. In it he displayed very clearly his affection and absorption in Miss Thora Grey. His regardmay have been a paternal⁴⁷ one—or he may have preferred to think it so. Nevertheless, there was avery real danger that on the death of your sister-in-law he might, in his loneliness, turn to thisbeautiful girl for sympathy and comfort and it might end—as so often happens with elderly men—in his marrying her. Your fear was increased by your knowledge of Miss Grey. You are, I fancy,an excellent, if somewhat cynical⁴⁸ judge of character. You judged, whether correctly or not, thatMiss Grey was a type of young woman ‘on the make.’ You had no doubt that she would jump atthe chance of becoming Lady Clarke. Your brother was an extremely healthy and vigorous man.

There might be children and your chance of inheriting your brother’s wealth would vanish.

“You have been, I fancy, in essence a disappointed man all your life. You have been the rollingstone—and you have gathered very little moss⁴⁹. You were bitterly jealous of your brother’s wealth.

“I repeat then that, turning over various schemes in your mind, your meeting with Mr. Custgave you an idea. His bombastic Christian names, his account of his epileptic seizures⁵⁰ and of hisheadaches, his whole shrinking and insignificant⁵¹ personality, struck you as fitting him for the toolyou wanted. The whole alphabetical plan sprang into your mind—Cust’s initials—the fact thatyour brother’s name began with a C and that he lived at Churston were the nucleus⁵² of the scheme.

You even went so far as to hint to Cust at his possible end—though you could hardly hope thatthat suggestion would bear the rich fruit that it did!

“Your arrangements were excellent. In Cust’s name you wrote for a large consignment⁵³ ofhosiery to be sent to him. You yourself sent a number of A B C’s looking like a similar parcel.

You wrote to him—a typed letter purporting⁵⁴ to be from the same firm offering him a good salaryand commission. Your plans were so well laid beforehand that you typed all the letters that weresent subsequently, and then presented him with the machine on which they had been typed.

“You had now to look about for two victims whose names began with A and B respectively andwho lived at places also beginning with those same letters.

“You hit on Andover as quite a likely spot and your preliminary reconnaissance there led you toselect Mrs. Ascher’s shop as the scene of the first crime. Her name was written clearly over thedoor, and you found by experiment that she was usually alone in the shop. Her murder needednerve, daring and reasonable luck.

“For the letter B you had to vary your tactics. Lonely women in shops might conceivably havebeen warned. I should imagine that you frequented a few cafés and teashops, laughing and jokingwith the girls there and finding out whose name began with the right letter and who would besuitable for your purpose.

“In Betty Barnard you found just the type of girl you were looking for. You took her out once ortwice, explaining to her that you were a married man, and that outings must therefore take place ina somewhat hole-and-corner manner.

“Then, your preliminary plans completed, you set to work! You sent the Andover list to Cust,directing him to go there on a certain date, and you sent off the first A B C letter to me.

“On the appointed day you went to Andover—and killed Mrs. Ascher—without anythingoccurring to damage your plans.

“Murder No. 1 was successfully accomplished⁵⁵.

“For the second murder, you took the precaution of committing it, in reality, the day before. Iam fairly certain that Betty Barnard was killed well before midnight on the 24th July.

“We now come to murder No. 3—the important—in fact, the real murder from your point ofview.

“And here a full meed of praise is due to Hastings, who made a simple and obvious remark towhich no attention was paid.

“He suggested that the third letter went astray intentionally⁵⁶!

“And he was right!…

“In that one simple fact lies the answer to the question that has puzzled me so all along. Whywere the letters addressed in the first place to Hercule Poirot, a private detective, and not to thepolice?

“Erroneously I imagined some personal reason.

“Not at all! The letters were sent to me because the essence of your plan was that one of themshould be wrongly addressed and go astray—but you cannot arrange for a letter addressed to theCriminal Investigation⁵⁷ Department of Scotland Yard to go astray! It is necessary to have a privateaddress. You chose me as a fairly well-known person, and a person who was sure to take theletters to the police—and also, in your rather insular⁵⁸ mind, you enjoyed scoring off a foreigner.

“You addressed your envelope very cleverly—Whitehaven—Whitehorse—quite a natural slip.

Only Hastings was sufficiently⁵⁹ perspicacious⁶⁰ to disregard subtleties⁶¹ and go straight for theobvious!

“Of course the letter was meant to go astray! The police were to be set on the trail only when themurder was safely over. Your brother’s nightly walk provided you with the opportunity. And sosuccessfully had the A B C terror taken hold on the public mind that the possibility of your guiltnever occurred to anyone.

“After the death of your brother, of course, your object was accomplished. You had no wish tocommit any more murders. On the other hand, if the murders stopped without reason, a suspicionof the truth might come to someone.

“Your stalking horse, Mr. Cust, had so successfully lived up to his role of the invisible—because insignificant—man, that so far no one had noticed that the same person had been seen inthe vicinity of the three murders! To your annoyance⁶², even his visit to Combeside had not beenmentioned. The matter had passed completely out of Miss Grey’s head.

“Always daring, you decided⁶³ that one more murder must take place but this time the trail mustbe well blazed.

“You selected Doncaster for the scene of operations.

“Your plan was very simple. You yourself would be on the scene in the nature of things. Mr.

Cust would be ordered to Doncaster by his firm. Your plan was to follow him round and trust toopportunity. Everything fell out well. Mr. Cust went to a cinema. That was simplicity⁶⁴ itself. Yousat a few seats away from him. When he got up to go, you did the same. You pretended tostumble, leaned over and stabbed a dozing⁶⁵ man in the row in front, slid the A B C on to his kneesand managed to collide heavily with Mr. Cust in the darkened doorway⁶⁶, wiping the knife on hissleeve and slipping it into his pocket.

“You were not in the least at pains to choose a victim whose name began with D. Anyonewould do! You assumed—and quite rightly—that it would be considered to be a mistake. Therewas sure to be someone whose name began with D not far off in the audience. It would beassumed that he had been intended to be the victim.

“And now, my friends, let us consider the matter from the point of view of the false A B C—from the point of view of Mr. Cust.

“The Andover crime means nothing to him. He is shocked and surprised by the Bexhill crime—why, he himself was there about the time! Then comes the Churston crime and the headlines in thenewspapers. An A B C crime at Andover when he was there, an A B C crime at Bexhill, and nowanother close by…Three crimes and he has been at the scene of each of them. Persons sufferingfrom epilepsy often have blanks when they cannot remember what they have done…Rememberthat Cust was a nervous, highly neurotic⁶⁷ subject and extremely suggestible.

“Then he receives the order to go to Doncaster.

“Doncaster! And the next A B C crime is to be in Doncaster. He must have felt as though it wasfate. He loses his nerve, fancies his landlady⁶⁸ is looking at him suspiciously, and tells her he isgoing to Cheltenham.

“He goes to Doncaster because it is his duty. In the afternoon he goes to a cinema. Possibly hedozes off for a minute or two.

“Imagine his feelings when on his return to his inn he discovers that there is blood on his coatsleeve and a blood-stained knife in his pocket. All his vague forebodings leap into certainty.

“He—he himself—is the killer! He remembers his headaches—his lapses⁶⁹ of memory. He isquite sure of the truth—he, Alexander Bonaparte Cust, is a homicidal lunatic.

“His conduct after that is the conduct of a hunted animal. He gets back to his lodgings inLondon. He is safe there—known. They think he has been in Cheltenham. He has the knife withhim still—a thoroughly⁷⁰ stupid thing to do, of course. He hides it behind the hall stand.

“Then, one day, he is warned that the police are coming. It is the end! They know!

“The hunted animal does his last run….

“I don’t know why he went to Andover—a morbid⁷¹ desire, I think, to go and look at the placewhere the crime was committed—the crime he committed though he can remember nothing aboutit….

“He has no money left—he is worn out…his feet lead him of his own accord to the policestation.

“But even a cornered beast will fight. Mr. Cust fully²⁴ believes that he did the murders but hesticks strongly to his plea of innocence⁷². And he holds with desperation to that alibi for the secondmurder. At least that cannot be laid to his door.

“As I say, when I saw him, I knew at once that he was not the murderer and that my namemeant nothing to him. I knew, too, that he thought himself the murderer!

“After he had confessed his guilt³⁸ to me, I knew more strongly than ever that my own theory wasright.”

“Your theory,” said Franklin Clarke, “is absurd!”

Poirot shook his head.

“No, Mr. Clarke. You were safe enough so long as no one suspected you. Once you weresuspected proofs were easy to obtain.”

“Proofs?”

“Yes. I found the stick that you used in the Andover and Churston murders in a cupboard atCombeside. An ordinary stick with a thick knob handle. A section of wood had been removed andmelted lead poured in. Your photograph was picked out from half a dozen others by two peoplewho saw you leaving the cinema when you were supposed to be on the race course at Doncaster.

You were identified at Bexhill the other day by Milly Higley and a girl from the Scarlet⁷³ RunnerRoadhouse, where you took Betty Barnard to dine on the fatal evening. And finally — mostdamning of all—you overlooked a most elementary precaution. You left a fingerprint⁷⁴ on Cust’stypewriter—the typewriter that, if you are innocent, you could never have handled.”

Clarke sat quite still for a minute, then he said:

“Rouge, impair⁷⁵, manque!—you win, M. Poirot! But it was worth trying!”

With an incredibly rapid motion he whipped out a small automatic from his pocket and held itto his head.

I gave a cry and involuntarily flinched⁷⁶ as I waited for the report.

But no report came—the hammer clicked harmlessly.

Clarke stared at it in astonishment⁷⁷ and uttered an oath.

“No, Mr. Clarke,” said Poirot. “You may have noticed I had a new manservant today—a friendof mine—an expert sneak⁷⁸ thief. He removed your pistol from your pocket, unloaded it, andreturned it, all without you being aware of the fact.”

“You unutterable little jackanapes of a foreigner!” cried Clarke, purple with rage.

“Yes, yes, that is how you feel. No, Mr. Clarke, no easy death for you. You told Mr. Cust thatyou had had near escapes from drowning. You know what that means—that you were born foranother fate.”

“You—”

Words failed him. His face was livid. His fists clenched⁷⁹ menacingly.

Two detectives from Scotland Yard emerged from the next room. One of them was Crome. Headvanced and uttered his time-honoured formula: “I warn you that anything you say may be usedas evidence.”

“He has said quite enough,” said Poirot, and he added to Clarke: “You are very full of an insularsuperiority, but for myself I consider your crime not an English crime at all—not aboveboard—notsporting—”

 

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