English Rose (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 13)

by Frank Howell Evans

  “In the prison, Monsieur?”

  “In prison.”

  Mrs. Bromley added, “We are people of our word, sir. If we promise to do something, we do it.”

  Poiret walked to Kimberley.

  “Mademoiselle, do you recognize the lockets?”

  He opened his hand to show her the lockets. Kimberley glanced at them briefly then looked away. Poiret walked to Ian. He showed him the lockets. Ian went pale and moved back.

  “Monsieur Ian, do you recognize the lockets?”

  “Yes!’

  “You gave them to Poiret.”

  “Yes.”

  “They contained not the portraits, but the poison.”

  Ian looked at Kimberley.

  “No!” he said.

  “To murder her”

  “No!”

  “Monsieur, no one has the right to end the life of someone else,” said Poiret, suddenly emotional. “Poiret he gives the lockets to Monsieur le Juge. Monsieur le Juge, he gives them to Monsieur Bromley and he gives them to Mademoiselle Kimberley and she takes the poison. Correct, Mademoiselle?”

  Kimberley nodded slowly, without looking at him.

  “My husband didn’t know there was poison in the lockets,” protested Mrs. Bromley.

  “Not to fear, Madame! There was none.” Poiret waited and when he felt all eyes were pointed at him he continued, “Poiret, he replaced the poison inside with the emetic.”

  His audience gasped.

  “Outrageous!” said Richard Monk.

  Poiret looked triumphantly at Kimberley.

  “Mademoiselle, Poiret, he has saved your life,” he said with a bow.

  There was a murmur in the room.

  Ian stood up and declared, with his lips trembling slightly and a cold sweat on his forehead, that he was ready to submit to his fate.

  “I can’t stand to lose her. If you have nothing further to say, sir, I will go with the policemen.”

  “For you, Monsieur, there is nothing more,” replied Poiret.

  As Ian Spencer walked past Kimberley, he stopped, but she did not look at him. He nodded and walked out of the room, followed by two policemen.

  “Him and Adam tried to kill me and my daughter. It’s unforgivable!” said Hassocks.

  He was mistaken. Something occurred to him. An idea flashed so suddenly that he became white as his shirt and he had to lean on the arm of the chair in order to not faint.

  “The gazebo,” he said.

  Poiret was not listening. A thunderous, intermittent, rhythmical noise appraised him that he couldn’t be far from the sea. The consulting detective’s eyes, which had not lost their habit of taking everything in, rested on the window.

  “Mr. Poiret,” said Colliver, “the name Adam Ashby seems to have affected you.”

  Poiret thought that his saliva, which at that moment he had the greatest difficulty in swallowing, would not permit him to utter a word. But disdain of such a weakness, when he remembered the coolness of so many condemned people in their last moments, brought him the last strength needed to maintain his reputation.

  “It is too sad,” he said, turning around. “Let us continue,” and he wavered a little. “Non, Monsieur Adam and Monsieur Ian, they were not the confederates. It was the illusion, the appearance. Monsieur Adam, he was the poisoner. Poiret, he has found out that Monsieur Adam, he was the doctor of a wealthy stone mason and he has poisoned him and forged his will. Is that not true, Monsieur le Juge?”

  “There is no way for me to know,” said the talkative judge curtly.

  “But you must know, Monsieur, as you were the judge, who sentenced him to three years instead of the gallows.”

  “I don’t remember,” answered the judge.

  Hassocks stood up, looked at Mr. Colliver and shook his head violently, “A vulgar poisoner! And you knew about it? And you kept silent? You, sir, cannot count on my friendship any longer.”

  A hostile murmur showed the detective that the patience of his guests was getting near its limit.

  Christian Cooper was the first to speak.

  “Sir, it is Kimberley Hassocks, whose mystery we so far have not been able to penetrate. She’s the one accused of trying to poison her father and her stepmother and under such conditions that it seems impossible for human reason to demonstrate the contrary.”

  The words were spoken in an even voice, but were just as damning. Poiret glanced at the oil magnate.

  “Monsieur Cooper, until recently, you were the wool merchant. Now you have become the major supplier of oil to the navy.”

  Poiret’s words, spoken calmly, did not miss their effect. Both Cooper and Bromley moved back in their chairs.

  “From where this good fortune, Monsieur?”

  It was Bromley, who answered.

  “Armies need oil, sir.”

  “Oui, but why the oil produced by Monsieur Cooper?”

  No one spoke.

  “Mesdames, Messieurs,” said Poiret, walking around the room, “it is only recently that Poiret, he has been able to solve this mystery. It is because Poiret, he was ill, very ill. The affair of Monsieur Adam Ashby and the poison that still continued after he was dead, it robbed Poiret of all his powers. Now Poiret, he is sure that he is not the means of murdering an innocent man. He is Jules Poiret once more! And Poiret, he will see through this mystery.”

  The guests looked at one another in silence. Poiret was silent for a moment too. He stood in front of the fireplace, his fist under his jaw, his eyes fixed on the window. Hassocks’s pocket watch sounded the half hour.

  Poiret raised his head, with his face alight and his eyes shining, as if he had been waiting for this signal. They saw him take one step forward, spread out his arms and cry, “Poiret, he knows the truth!”

  Such joy shone in his countenance that there seemed to be an aureole around him and none of those there doubted that he had the solution of the impossible problem. Poiret looked at the faces in front of him. He read the liveliest curiosity in all their faces. Except for Hassocks, he glanced from Poiret to his daughter. His impatience knew no reason. The face of the arms manufacturer ordinarily so calm, so pleasant and smiling, was severe and his eyes had an angry light. He sat back and lit a cigarette.

  “Sir,” he began, “I’m not otherwise sorry to see you before your departure in order to say to you myself that I’m not at all pleased with you. I remove you from any responsibility for my wellbeing.”

  “Poiret, he removes himself further, Monsieur.”

  “Sir, I pray you not to interrupt me and not to speak unless I ask you a question.”

  “Oh, pardon, Monsieur, pardon.”

  “I’m not duped by the pretext you have offered Mr. Watkins in order to penetrate here.”

  “It was not the pretext, Monsieur.”

  “Again!”

  “Oh, pardon, Monsieur, pardon.”

  “I say to you that, called here to aid me against my enemies, they themselves have not found a stronger supporter than in you. Mr. Watkins justly complains that you have traversed all his plans and that you have taken it on yourself to ruin them. First, you removed his agents, who inconvenienced you, it seems. Then, the moment that we had the proof in hand of the abominable alliance of Adam Ashby with the Communists, who attempted my assassination your interventions permitted that proof to escape us. You, sir, alone are responsible for the attempt that followed in the gazebo.”

  “Monsieur Hassocks, you are trying to blame the attempts to poison you on Poiret?” Poiret frowned.

  “I say what I see.”

  “Monsieur, Poiret, he can only say to you that he has come to take leave of you, because his task here, it is finished. Poiret, he has been commissioned by the Prime Minister to guard your life and Poiret, he has done so. You, Monsieur, do not run the danger anymore! Poiret, he will also say further to you, Monsieur, that there exists nowhere in the world the daughter more devoted to her father than Kimberley, nor more innocent. So there is not the need to look at
Poiret for the scapegoat.”

  “Be careful, sir,” said Monk, who had been silent. “I inform you that I have studied this affair personally and very closely. You have the proofs of these statements you advance?”

  “Yes, Monsieur.”

  At this contradiction, uttered in a firm voice, the Member of Parliament moved forward, a flush of anger in his face. But, after this first movement, he succeeded in controlling himself.

  “Know, then, that there has been a mysterious exchange of letters between Kimberley and the Communist Committee and that these letters show the daughter of our honorable friend to be in perfect accord with the assassins of her father.”

  “Monsieur, the Communist Committee, it is the group of rich Englishmen and the students, who use their time to study to drink and to debate the advantages of the war and the peace. They are harmless.”

  “Harmless?” said the Secretary for Armaments. “What about the assassination attempts?”

  “Poiret, he has spent the past few days investigating the Communists and the Pacifists closely. They do not possess the weapons or the poison to murder anyone. It is again the smoke and the mirrors.”

  “Then, who are these assassins?” asked Monk, incredulously.

  “They are the men, who were hired by someone, who has no trouble coming into contact with men like that. Oui, Monsieur le Juge?”

  Poiret looked at Judge Colliver. Colliver licked his lips. They were dry. He looked at a bottle of brandy standing on a table on the other side of the room.

  “Mademoiselle Kimberley, she too was duped by the appearances. She too thought the Communists, they were responsible for the attempts to end the life of her father. That is the reason that she contacts the Communists and tries to come to an understanding with the Communists.”

  Monk said, “Ah, so it was true?”

  “Oui, Monsieur, Kimberley, she has the understanding with the Communists. It is not to murder her father, but to save him. It is to end the attacks of which you speak, instantly.”

  “You say that.”

  “Poiret, he speaks the truth, Monsieur. Is that not correct, Monsieur Holloway?”

  Lord Holloway looked at Roxy. She nodded.

  He said, “Yes. At first we had no idea what she meant. As Mr. Poiret correctly said, we abhor violence and only the romantic mind of a young woman could’ve come up with the idea that we were responsible for the attempts on the life of her father. Violence begets violence after all. On the other hand, when she proposed to us that if her father died a natural death and she inherited his factories, she would immediately stop producing weapons and change the factories’ production to benefit both civilians and workers, we could not but applaud this proposal.” He looked at Roxy. “We have been fighting for a weapons free world our entire adult lives.”

  Roxy smiled at him and held his hand. Hassocks looked at his daughter. His mouth opened. Mrs. Hassocks looked at Kimberley too, but the look in her eyes was indescribable.

  “Lies,” said Monk. “Where are the proofs? Show me your papers.”

  “I have none,” said the lord. “I have only my word.”

  “That is not sufficient.”

  Lord Holloway stood up.

  “It must be sufficient.”

  Poiret walked to the front of the room.

  “But there were the assassination attempts. They were not, how do you say, imaginary.”

  All eyes turned to him again. Lord Holloway, seeing Mr. Monk was no longer interested in arguing with him, sat down again.

  Poiret stopped a moment to judge the effect produced. It wasn’t good. The faces of his august listeners were more and more in a frown. The silence continued and now the consulting detective didn’t dare to break it. He waited.

  Finally, Mr. Cooper rose and said, “But tell me, who then has poisoned our friend and his wife in the gazebo, if not Kimberley? Was it you, as there were only the four of you there?”

  “Kimberley is the saint, Monsieur. It is sublime that she guarded in her heart the secret of her sacrifice from everyone and in spite of all, because secrecy, it was necessary and was required of her. See her guarding it before her father, who was brought to believe in the dishonor of his daughter and still to be silent, when a word would have proved her innocent.” Poiret slowly moved around the room. “In the gazebo, it was not Mademoiselle Kimberley, it was Madame Hassocks.”

  A bomb could not have had a different effect. Mrs. Hassocks stood up, but her strength failed her and she fell back on her chair. She opened her mouth to speak, but Poiret beat her to it.

  “Had this case been investigated by another detective, a detective, who looks at the footprints and uses the reason to come to the guilty party, they would have failed, because this case, it is filled with the appearances, which are false. Poiret, he uses the psychology and he comes to the correct conclusions. We have here four persons, two of whom have been poisoned and the other two with them have not been. Now, it is certain that of the four persons, Monsieur Hassocks, he has not wished to poison himself, that his wife, she has not wished to poison him and that, as for Poiret, he has not wished to poison anybody. That, if we are absolutely sure of it, leaves as the poisoner only Kimberley, unless no one had taken any poison.”

  “But the presence of the poison has been established!” cried the oil magnate.

  “Still, the presence of the poison proves only its presence, not the crime. The poison, it could have been introduced after the incident.”

  The merchant never left Poiret’s eyes.

  “That is extraordinary,” he said. “You will go to any length to save her. Why?”

  “She is innocent, Monsieur. Why do you wish her to be guilty?”

  Colliver interjected, “Where is your proof, sir?”

  Poiret smiled as if he was waiting for this question.

  “Madame Hassocks, she had the emetic on her before the sickness. If it was not to use it, why did she have it with her before? So in order to show the innocence of Kimberley, here it is necessary to prove that Lady Hassocks, she had the emetic on her, even when she went to look for it.”

  “Mr. Poiret, I can hardly breathe,” said Colliver.

  “Please to breathe, Monsieur. The proof, it is here. Lady Hassocks necessarily had the emetic on her, because after the sickness she had not the time for going to find it. Do you understand? Between the moment when she fled from the gazebo and when she returned there, she had not the actual time to go to her medicine-closet to find the emetic.”

  “How have you been able to compute the time?” asked the secretary.

  “Monsieur Hassocks, he was showing to us his watch at the time. It was on the table. Poiret, he has walked the distance from the gazebo to the room of Madame Hassocks. There was not enough time for her.”

  Poiret looked triumphantly around the room. Mr. Hassocks stood up and looked at his wife as if he wished to murder her on the spot.

  “You made me believe my daughter wanted to poison me, but it was you all the time!”

  His wife shook her head and looked at Poiret with eyes begging him to come to her aid.

  “Non, Monsieur, Lady Hassocks, she simulated the poisoning with the harmless medicine in the cognac. It is only afterwards that she put the arsenic in the glasses and the bottle and on the napkins. Poiret, he has already told to you that this case, it is filled with the appearances, which they are fake.”

  “But why?” asked the exasperated arms manufacturer.

  “To prevent the real poisoning! The end that she believed herself to have attained, Monsieur, by having Mademoiselle Kimberley accused and removed from the house forever.”

  “Oh, it’s monstrous! She told me she loved Kimberley sincerely.”

  “Monsieur, she loved her sincerely up to the day that she believed her guilty of conspiring with the Communists to poison you. Lady Hassocks, she was sure of the complicity of Mademoiselle Kimberley in the attempts of Monsieur Adam Ashby to poison you. Poiret, he shared her surprise, h
er despair, when you took your daughter in your arms after that tragic night and embraced her. It was then that Lady Hassocks, she decided to save you in spite of you!”

  “Is that true, Lady Hassocks?” asked the arms manufacturer, looking at his wife. His wife nodded, crying in her handkerchief.

  “Is what Mr. Poiret said true, Kimberley?”

  Kimberley stood up, but the policewomen prevented her from moving more than a step.

  “Yes, papa!” she said with tears in her eyes.

  “These foolish women!” Hassocks threw his hands in the air in despair.

  “Foolish, Monsieur? Oui, because they love you above all, Monsieur!”

  Hassocks sat down again. He put his head in his hands. Poiret walked to the window.

  “Crimes, they have been committed. A murder, there was one. In Maidstone!”

  All eyes turned to him again.

  “It was by solving the murder of the grocer by the locksmith that Poiret, he solved the mysteries, which happened in this house.”

  Poiret looked at the Secretary for Armaments.

  “It was you, Monsieur, who brought the grapes with the arsenic to this house.”

  The secretary moved uncomfortably in his chair.

  “He didn’t do that on purpose,” said his wife.

  “Madame, that is not what the locksmith, he told to Inspector Watkins.”

  She and her husband glanced at Watkins, who seemed just as surprised as they were.

  “Poiret, he found all the answers in Maidstone and in Cornwall.”

  The secretary stood up.

  “We have earned everything we have.”

  “Everything,” said his wife.

  “Non, Monsieur. Your salary, it is not enough to add the thousand acres of land to your estate in Cornwall. That Monsieur, it is greed!”

  The secretary believed he had not heard correctly or didn’t grasp the meaning. He repeated what Poiret had said. The consulting detective repeated it once more.

  “Greed, Monsieur! It helped you to accumulate the wealth quickly. Oui, Monsieur Cooper?”

  Christian Cooper took his cigar from his mouth and said, “Lies!”

  Poiret was not yet done.

  “It is you who has the access to the prisoners, the muscle, it is necessary for this plan to succeed, Monsieur le Juge.”