Poirot was staring thoughtfully at the carpet.
"You realize, M. Astwell," he said at last, "that your evidence is very important?"
"I suppose so, at least - what do you mean?"
"Your evidence that ten minutes elapsed between the slamming of the front door and Leverson's appearance upstairs. He himself says, so I understand, that he came into the house and went straight up to bed. But there is more than that. Lady Astwell's accusation of the secretary is fantastic, I admit, yet up to now it has not been proved impossible. But your evidence creates an alibi."
"How is that?"
"Lady Astwell says that she left her husband at a quarter to twelve, while the secretary had gone to bed at eleven o'clock. The only time he could have committed the crime was between a quarter to twelve and Charles Leverson's return. Now, if, as you say, you sat with your door open, he could not have come down from his room without your seeing him."
"That is so," agreed the other.
"There is no other staircase?"
"No, to get down to the Tower room he would have had to pass my door, and he didn't, I am quite sure of that. And, anyway, M. Poirot, as I said just now, the man is as meek as a parson, I assure you."
"But yes, but yes," said Poirot soothingly, "I understand all that." He paused. "And you will not tell me the subject of your quarrel with Sir Reuben?"
The other's face turned a dark red.
"You'll get nothing out of me."
Poirot looked at the ceiling.
"I can always be discreet," he murmured, "where a lady is concerned."
Victor Astwell sprang to his feet.
"Damn you, how did you - what do you mean?"
"I was thinking," said Poirot, "of Miss Lily Margrave."
Victor Astwell stood undecided for a minute or two then his color subsided, and he sat down again.
"You are too clever for me, M. Poirot. Yes, it was Lily we quarreled about. Reuben had his knife into her; he had ferreted out something or other about the girl - false references, something of that kind. I don't believe a word of it myself.
"And then he went further than he had any right to go, talked about her stealing down at night and getting out of the house to meet some fellow or other. My God! I gave it to him; I told him that better men than he had been killed for saying less. That shut him up. Reuben was inclined to be a bit afraid of me when I got going."
"I hardly wonder at it," murmured Poirot politely.
"I think a lot of Lily Margrave," said Victor in another tone. "A nice girl through and through."
Poirot did not answer. He was staring in front of him, seemingly lost in abstraction. He came out of his brown study with a jerk.
"I must, I think, promenade myself a little. There is a hotel here, yes?"
"Two," said Victor Astwell, "the Golf Hotel up by the links and the Mitre down by the station."
"I thank you," said Poirot. "Yes, certainly I must promenade myself a little."
The Golf Hotel as befits its name, stands on the golf links almost adjoining the club house. It was to this hostelry that Poirot repaired first in the course of that "promenade" which he had advertised himself as being about to take. The little man had his own way of doing things. Three minutes after he had entered the Golf Hotel he was in private consultation with Miss Langdon, the manageress.
"I regret to incommode you in any way, Mademoiselle," said Poirot, "but you see I am a detective."
Simplicity always appealed to him. In this case the method proved efficacious at once.
"A detective!" exclaimed Miss Langdon, looking at him doubtfully.
"Not from Scotland Yard," Poirot assured her. "In fact - you may have noticed it? I am not an Englishman. No, I make the private inquiries into the death of Sir Reuben Astwell."
"You don't say, now!" Miss Langdon goggled at him expectantly.
"Precisely," said Poirot, beaming. "Only to someone of discretion like yourself would I reveal the fact. I think, Mademoiselle, you may be able to aid me. Can you tell me of any gentleman staying here on the night of the murder who was absent from the hotel that evening and returned to it about twelve or half-past?"
Miss Langdon's eyes opened wider than ever.
"You don't think -?" she breathed.
"That yon had the murderer here? No, but I have reason to believe that a guest staying here promenaded himself in the direction of Mon Repos that night, and if so he may have seen something which, though conveying no meaning to him, might be very useful to me."
The manageress nodded her head sapiently, with an air of one thoroughly well up in the annals of detective law.
"I understand perfectly. Now, let me see; who did we have staying here?"
She frowned, evidently running over the names in her mind, and helping her memory by occasionally checking them off on her fingertips.
"Captain Swann, Mr Elkins, Major Blunt, old Mr Benson. No, really, sir, I don't believe anyone went out that evening."
"You would have noticed if they had done so, eh?"
"Oh, yes, sir, it is not very usual, you see. I mean gentlemen go out to dinner and all that, but they don't go out after dinner, because - well, there is nowhere to go to, is there?"
The attractions of Abbots Cross were golf and nothing but golf.
"That is so," agreed Poirot. "Then, as far as you remember, Mademoiselle, nobody from here was out that night?"
"Captain England and his wife were out to dinner."
Poirot shook his head.
"That is not the kind of thing I mean. I will try the other hotel; the Mitre, is it not?"
"Oh, the Mitre," said Miss Langdon. "Of course, anyone might have gone out walking from there."
The disparagement of her tone, though vague, was evident, and Poirot beat a tactful retreat.
Ten minutes later he was repeating the scene this time with Miss Cole, the brusque manageress of the Mitre, a less pretentious hotel with lower prices, situated close to the station.
"There was one gentleman out late that night, came in about half-past twelve, as far as I can remember. Quite a habit of his it was, to go out for a walk at that time of the evening. He had done it once or twice before. Let me see now, what was his name? Just for the moment I can't remember it."
She pulled a large ledger toward her and began turning over the pages.
"Nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first, twenty-second. Ah, here we are. Naylor, Captain Humphrey Naylor."
"He had stayed here before? You know him well?"
"Once before," said Miss Cole, "about a fortnight earlier. He went out then in the evening, I remember."
"He came to play golf, eh?"
"I suppose so," said Miss Cole; "that's what most of the gentlemen come for."
"Very true," said Poirot. "Well, Mademoiselle, I thank you infinitely, and I wish you good day."
He went back to Mon Repos with a very thoughtful face. Once or twice he drew something from his pocket and looked at it.
"It must be done," he murmured to himself, "and soon, as soon as I can make the opportunity."
His first proceeding on re-entering the house was to ask Parsons where Miss Margrave might be found. He was told that she was in the small study dealing with Lady Astwell's correspondence and the information seemed to afford Poirot satisfaction.
He found the little study without difficulty. Lily Margrave was seated at a desk by the window, writing. But for her the room was empty. Poirot carefully shut the door behind him and came toward the girl.
"I may have a little minute of your time, Mademoiselle, you will be so kind?"
"Certainly."
Lily Margrave put the papers aside and turned toward him.
"What can I do for you?"
"On the evening of the tragedy, Mademoiselle, I understand that when Lady Astwell went to her husband you went straight up to bed. Is that so?"
Lily Margrave nodded.
"You did not come down again, by any chance?"
The g
irl shook her head.
"I think you said, Mademoiselle, that you had not at any time that evening been in the Tower room?"
"I don't remember saying so, but as a matter of fact that is quite true. I was not in the Tower room that evening."
Poirot raised his eyebrows.
"Curious," he murmured.
"What do you mean?"
"Very curious," murmured Hercule Poirot again. "How do you account, then, for this?"
He drew from his pocket a little scrap of stained green chiffon and held it up for the girl's inspection.
Her expression did not change, but he felt rather than heard the sharp intake of breath.
"I don't understand, M. Poirot."
"You wore, I understand, a green chiffon dress that evening, Mademoiselle. This -" he tapped the scrap in his fingers - "was torn from it."
"And you found it in the Tower room?" asked the girl sharply. "Whereabouts?"
Hercule Poirot looked at the ceiling.
"For the moment shall we just say - in the Tower room?"
For the first time, a look of fear sprang into the girl's eyes. She began to speak, then checked herself. Poirot watched her small white hands clenching themselves on the edge of the desk.
"I wonder if I did go into the Tower room that evening?" she mused. "Before dinner, I mean. I don't think so. I am almost sure I didn t. If that scrap has been in the Tower room all this time, it seems to me a very extraordinary thing the police did not find it right away."
"The police," said the little man, "do not think of things that Hercule Poirot thinks of."
"I may have run in there for a minute just before dinner," mused Lily Margrave, "or it may have been the night before. I wore the same dress then. Yes, I am almost sure it was the night before."
"I think not," said Poirot evenly.
"Why?"
He only shook his head slowly from side to side.
"What do you mean?" whispered the girl.
She was leaning forward, staring at him, all the color ebbing out of her face.
"You do not notice, Mademoiselle, that this fragment is stained? There is no doubt about it, that stain is human blood."
"You mean -?"
"I mean, Mademoiselle, that you were in the Tower room after the crime was committed, not before. I think you will do well to tell me the whole truth, lest worse should befall you."
He stood up now, a stern little figure of a man, his forefinger pointed accusingly at the girl.
"How did you find out?" gasped Lily.
"No matter, Mademoiselle. I tell you Hercule Poirot knows. I know all about Captain Humphrey Naylor, and that you went down to meet him that night."
Lily suddenly put her head down on her arms and burst into tears. Immediately Poirot relinquished his accusing attitude.
"There, there, my little one," he said, patting the girl on the shoulder. "Do not distress yourself. Impossible to deceive Hercule Poirot; once realize that and all your troubles will be at an end. And now you will tell me the whole story, will you not? You will tell old Papa Poirot?"
"It is not what you think, it isn't, indeed. Humphrey - my brother - never touched a hair of his head."
"Your brother, eh?" said Poirot. "So that is how the land lies. Well, if you wish to save him from suspicion, you must tell me the whole story now, without reservations."
Lily sat up again, pushing back the hair from her forehead. After a minute or two, she began to speak in a low, clear voice.
"I will tell you the truth, M. Poirot. I can see now that it would be absurd to do anything else. My real name is Lily Naylor, and Humphrey is my only brother. Some years ago, when he was out in Africa, he discovered a gold mine, or rather, I should say, discovered the presence of gold. I can't tell you this part of it properly, because I don't understand the technical details, but what it amounted to was this:
"The thing seemed likely to be a very big undertaking, and Humphrey came home with letters to Sir Reuben Astwell in the hopes of getting him interested in the matter. I don't understand the rights of it even now, but I gather that Sir Reuben sent out an expert to report, and that he subsequently told my brother that the expert's report was unfavorable and that he, Humphrey, had made a great mistake. My brother went back to Africa on an expedition into the interior and was lost sight of. It was assumed that he and the expedition had perished.
"It was soon after that that a company was formed to exploit the Mpala Cold Fields. When my brother got back to England he at once jumped to the conclusion that these gold fields were identical with those he had discovered. Sir Reuben Astwell had apparently nothing to do with this company, and they had seemingly discovered the place on their own. But my brother was not satisfied; he was convinced that Sir Reuben had deliberately swindled him.
"He became more and more violent and unhappy about the matter. We two are alone in the world, M. Poirot, and as it was necessary then for me to go out and earn my own living, I conceived the idea of taking a post in this household and trying to find out if any connection existed between Sir Reuben and the Mpala Gold Fields. For obvious reasons I concealed my real name, and I'll admit frankly that I used a forged reference.
"There were many applicants for the post, most of them with better qualifications than mine, so - well, M. Poirot, I wrote a beautiful letter from the Duchess of Perthshire who I knew had just gone to America. I thought a Duchess would have a great effect upon Lady Astwell, and I was quite right. She engaged me on the spot.
"Since then I have been that hateful thing, a spy, and until lately with no success. Sir Reuben is not a man to give away his business secrets, but when Victor Astwell came back from Africa he was less guarded in his talk, and I began to believe that, after all, Humphrey had not been mistaken. My brother came down here about a fortnight before the murder, and I crept out of the house to meet him secretly at night. I told him the things Victor Astwell had said, and he became very excited and assured me I was definitely on the right track.
"But after that things began to go wrong; someone must have seen me stealing out of the house and have reported the matter to Sir Reuben. He became suspicious and hunted up my references, and soon discovered the fact that they were forged. The crisis came on the day of the murder. I think he thought I was after his wife's jewels. Whatever his suspicions were, he had no intention to allow me to remain any longer at Mon Repos, though he agreed not to prosecute me on account of the references. Lady Astwell took my part throughout and stood up valiantly to Sir Reuben."
She paused. Poirot's face was very grave.
"And now, Mademoiselle," he said, "we come to the night of the murder."
Lily swallowed hard and nodded her head.
"To begin with, M, Poirot, I must tell you that my brother had come down again, and that I had arranged to creep out and meet him once more. I went up to my room, as I have said, but I did not go to bed. Instead, I waited till I thought everyone was asleep, and then stole downstairs again and out by the side door. I met Humphrey and acquainted him in a few hurried words what had occurred. I told him that I believed the papers he wanted were in Sir Reuben's safe in the Tower room, and we agreed as a last desperate adventure to try and get hold of them that night.
"I was to go in first and see that the way was clear. I heard the church clock strike twelve as I went in by the side door. I was halfway up the stairs leading to the Tower room, when I heard a thud of something falling, and a voice cried out, 'My God!' A minute or two afterward the door of the Tower room opened, and Charles Leverson came out. I could see his face quite clearly in the moonlight, but I was crouching some way below him on the stairs where it was dark, and he did not see me at all.
"He stood there a moment swaying on his feet and looking ghastly. He seemed to be listening; then with an effort he seemed to pull himself together and, opening the door into the Tower room, called out something about there being no harm done. His voice was quite jaunty and debonair, but his face gave the lie to it. He wai
ted a minute more, and then slowly went on upstairs and out of sight.
"When he had gone I waited a minute or two and then crept to the Tower room door, I had a feeling that something tragic had happened. The main light was out, but the desk lamp was on, and by its light I saw Sir Reuben lying on the floor by the desk. I don't know how I managed it, but I nerved myself at last to go over and kneel down by him. I saw at once that he was dead, struck down from behind, and also that he couldn't have been dead long; I touched his hand and it was still quite warm. It was just horrible, M. Poirot. Horrible!"
She shuddered again at the remembrance.
"And then?" said Poirot, looking at her keenly.
Lily Margrave nodded.
"Yes, M. Poirot, I know what you are thinking. Why didn't I give the alarm and raise the house? I should have done so, I know, but it came over me in a flash, as I knelt there, that my quarrel with Sir Reuben, my stealing out to meet Humphrey, the fact that I was being sent away on the morrow, made a fatal sequence. They would say that I had let Humphrey in, and that Humphrey had killed Sir Reuben out of revenge. If I said that I had seen Charles Leverson leaving the room, no one would believe me.
"It was terrible, M. Poirot! I knelt there, and thought and thought, and the more I thought the more my nerve failed me. Presently I noticed Sir Reuben's keys which had dropped from his pocket as he fell. Among them was the key of the safe, the combination word I already knew, since Lady Astwell had mentioned it once in my hearing. I went over to that safe, M. Poirot, unlocked it and rummaged through the papers I found there.
"In the end I found what I was looking for. Humphrey had been perfectly right. Sir Reuben was behind the Mpala Gold Fields, and he had deliberately swindled Humphrey. That made it all the worse. It gave a perfectly definite motive for Humphrey having comitted the crime. I put the papers back in the safe, left the key in the door of it, and went straight upstairs to my room. In the morning I pretended to be surprised and horror-stricken, like everyone else, when the housemaid discovered the body."
She stopped and looked piteously across at Poirot.
"You do believe me, M. Poirot. Oh, do say you believe me!"
Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and other stories Page 13
