Why a presumably sane young woman should want to fling an
expensively-fitted dressing-case into a lake - d'you know, I
worried all night because I couldn't get the hang of it.'
'Mort patwreJaFp! But you need worry no longer. Here is the
answer coming. The bell has just rung.'
George, Poirot's immaculate man-servant, opened the door
and announced:
'Miss Plenderleith.'
The girl came into the room with her usual air of complete
self-assurance. She greeted the two men.
'I asked you to come here -' explained Poirot. 'Sit here, will
you not, and you here, Japp - because I have certain news to
give you.'
· The girl sat down. She looked from one to the other, pushing
aside her hat. She took it off and laid it aside impatiently.
'Well,' she said. 'Major Eustace has been arrested.'
'You saw that, I expect, in the morning paper?'
'Yes.'
'He is at the moment charged with a minor offence,' were on
Poirot. 'In the meantime we are gathering evidence in
connection with the murder.'
'It was murder, then?'
The girl asked it eagerly.
Poirot nodded his head.
'Yes,' he said. 'It was murder. The wilful destruction of one
human being by another human being.'
She shivered a little.
'Don't,' she murmured. 'It sounds horrible when you say it
like that.'
'Yes - but it is horrible!'
He paused - then he said:
'Now, Miss Plenderleith, I am going to tell you just how I
arrived at the truth in this matter.'
She looked, from Poirot to Japp. The latter was smiling.
109
'He has his methods, Miss Plenderleith,' he said. 'I humour
him, you know. I think we'll listen to what he has to say.'
Poirot began:
'As you know, mademoiselle, I arrived with my friend at the
scene of the crime on the morning of November the sixth. Te
went into the room where the body of Mrs Allen had been
found and I.was struck at once by several significant details.
There were things, you see, in that room that were decidedly
odd.'
'Go on,' said the girl.
'To begin with,' said Poirot, 'there w the smell of cigarette
smoke.'
'I think you're exaggerating there, Poirot,' said Japp. 'I
didn't smell anything.'
Poirot turned on him in a flash.
'Precisely. You did not smell any stale smoke. No more did I. And that was very, very strange - for the door and the window
were both closed and on an ashtray there were the stubs of no
fewer than ten cigarettes. It was odd, very odd, that the room
should smell - as it did, perfectly fresh.'
'So that's what you were getting at!' Japp sighed. 'Always
have to get at things in such a tortuous way.'
'Your Sherlock Holmes did the same. He drew attention,
remember, to the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime - and the answer to that was there was no curious incident. The
dog did nothing in the night-time. To proceed:
'The next thing that attracted my attention was a wristwatch
worn by the dead woman.'
'What about it?'
'Nothing particular about .it, but it was worn on the
wrist. Now in my experience it is more usual for a watch to be
worn on the left wrist.'
Japp shrugged his shoulders. Before he could speak, Poi,
hurried on:
'But as you say, there is nothing very definite about that.
Some people prefer to wear one on the right hand. And now I
110
come to something really interesting - I come, my friends, to
the writing-bureau.'
'Yes, I guessed that,' said JapP.
'That was really very odd - very remarkable! For two
reasons. The first reason was that something was missing from
that writing-table.'
Jane Plenderleith spoke.
'What was missing?'
Poirot turned to her.
'/1 sheet of blotting-paper, mademoiselle. The blotting-book
had on top a clean, untouched piece of blotting-paper.'
Jane shrugged her shoulders.
'Really, M. Poirot. People do occasionally tear off a very
much used sheet?
'Yes, but what do they do with it? Throw it into the wastepaper
basket, do they not? But it was not in the wastepaper basket. I looked.'
lane Plenderleith seemed impatient.
'Because it had probably been already thrown away the day
before. The sheet was clean because Barbara hadn't written
any letters that day.'
'That could hardly be the case, mademoiselle. For Mrs Allen
was seen going to the post-box that evening. Therefore she must
have been writing letters. She could not write downstairs - there
were no writing materials. She would be hardly likely to go to your room to write. So, then, what had happened to the sheet
of paper on which she had blotted her letters? It is true that
people sometimes throw things in the fire instead of the wastepaper
basket, but there was only a gas fire in the room. And the fire downstairs had not been alight the previous day, dnce you told
me it was all laid ready when you put a match to it.'
He paused.
'A curious little problem. I looked everywhere, in the wastepaper
baskets, in the dustbin, but I could not fred a sheet of
used blotting-paper - and that seemed to me very important. It
looked as though someone had deliberately taken that sheet of
111
blotting paper away. Why? Because there was writing on it that
could easily have been read by holding it up to a mirror.
'But there was a second curious point about the writing-table.
Perhaps, Japp, you remember roughly the arrangement
of it? Blotter and inkstand in the centre, pen tray to the left,
calendar and quill pen to the right. Eh b/en? You do not see?
The quill pen, remember, I examined, it was for show only - it
had not been used. Ah! still you do not see? I will say it again.
Blotter in the centre, pen tray to the left - to the left, Japp. But
is it not usual to find a pen tray on the right, convenient to the
right hand?.
'Ah, now it comes to you, does it not? The pen tray on the left
- the wrist-watch on the right wrist - the blotting-paper
removed - and something else brought into the room - the
ashtray with the cigarette ends!
'That room was fresh and pure smelling, Japp, a room in
which the window had been open, not closed all night... Anti
I made myself a picture.'
He spun round and faced Jane.
'A picture of you, mademoiselle, driving up in your taxi,
paying it off, running up the stairs, calling perhaps, 'Barbara'
- and you open the door and you fred your friend there lying
dead with the pistol clasped in her hand - the left hand,
naturally, since she is left-handed and therefore, too, the bullet
has entered on the left ride of the head. There is a note there
addressed to you. It tells you what it is that has driven her to
take her own life. It was, I fancy, a very moving letter ...
young, gentle, unhappy woman driven by blackma
il to take/tar
life...
'I think that, almost at once, the idea flashed into your head.
This was a certain man's doing. Let him be punished - fully
and adequately punished! You take the pistol, wipe it and ?!ace
it in the right hand. You take the note and you tear off thop
sheet of the blotting-paper on which the note has been blowd.
You go down, light the fire and put them both on the flay
Then you carry up the ashtray - to further the illusion that
people sat there talking - and you also take up a fragme:'
112
enamel cuff link that is on the floor. That is a lucky fred and you
expect it to clinch matters. Then you close the window and lock
the door. There must be no suspicion that you have tampered
with the room. The police must see it exactly as it is - so you do
not seek help in the mews but ring up the police straightaway.
'And so it goes on. You play your chosen rtle with judgment
and coolness. You refuse at first to say anything but cleverly
you suggest doubts of suicide. Later you are quite ready to set
us on the trail of Major Eustace...
'Yes, mademoiselle, it was clever - a very clever murder - for
that is what it is. The attempted murder of Major Eustace.'
Jane Plenderleith sprang to her feet.
'It wasn't murder - it was justice. That man hounded poor Barbara to her death! She was so sweet and helpless. You see,
poor kid, she got involved with a man in India when she first
went out. She was only seventeen and he was a married man
years older than her. Then she had a baby. She could have put
it in a home but she wouldn't hear of that. She went offto some
out of the way spot and came back calling herself Mrs Allen.
Later the child died. She came back here and she fell in love
with Charles - that pompous, stuffed owl; she adored him and
he took her adoration very complacently. If he had been a
different kind of man I'd have advised her to tell him
everything. But as it was, I urged her to hold her tongue. After
all, nobody knew anything about that business except me.
' 'And then that devil Eustace turned up! You know the rest.
He began to bleed her systematically, but it wasn't till that last
evening that she realised that she was exposing Charles too, to
the risk of scandal. Once married to Charles, Eustace had got
he wanted her - married to a rich man with a horror
scandal! When Eustace had gone with the money she
it over. Then she came up and
wrote a letter to me. She said she loved Charles and couldn't
live without him, but that for his own sake she mustn't marry
him. She was taking the best way out, she said.'
Jane flung her head back.
113
'Do you wonder I did what I did? And you stand there
calling it murder!'
'Because it is murder,' Poirot's voice was stem. 'Murder can
sometimes seem justified, but it is murder all the same. You are
truthful and clear-minded - face the truth, mademoiselle!
Your friend died, in the last resort, because she had not the
courage to live. We may sympathize with her. We may pity her.
But the fact remains - the act was hers - not another.'
He paused.
'And you? That man is now in prison, he will serve a ',g
sentence for other matters. Do you really wish, of your ,., n
volition, to destroy the life - the life, mind - of any hu?. :,n
being?'
She stared at him. Her eyes darkened. Suddenly .;ne
muttered:
'No. You're right. I don't.'
Then, turning on her heel, she went swiftly from the
The outer door banged...
Japp gave a long - a very prolonged - whistle.
'Well, I'm damned? he said.
Poirot sat down and smiled at him amiably. It was qu: a
long time before the silence was broken. Then Japp said:
'Not murder disguised as suicide, but suicide made to
like murder!'
'Yes, and very cleverly done, too. Nothing
emphasized.'
Japp said suddenly:
'But the attache-case? Where did that come in?'
'But, my dear, my very dear friend, I have already told you
that it did not come in.'
'Then why '
'The golf clubs. The golf clubs, Japp. They were the golf..
of a left-handed person. Jane Plenderleith kept her clul at
Wentworth. Those were Barbara Allen's clu3s. No wonde
girl got, as you say, the wind up when we opened at
cupboard. Her whole plan might have been ruined. But she is
114
quick, she realized that she had, for one short moment, given
herself away. She saw that we saw. So she does the best thing
she can think of on the spur of the moment. She tries to focus
our attention on the wrong object. She says of the attache-case
"That's mine. I - it came back with me this morning. So there
can't be anything there." And, as she hoped, away you go on
the false trail. For the same reason, when she sets out the
following day to get rid of the golf clubs, she continues to use
the attache-case as a - what is it - kippered herring?'
'Red herring. Do you mean that her real object was ?'
'Consider, my friend. Where is the best place to get rid of a
bag of golf clubs? One cannot burn them or put them in a
dustbin. If one leaves them somewhere they may be returned
to you. Miss Plenderleith took them to a golf course. She leaves
them in the clubhouse while she gets a couple of irons from her
own bag, and then she goes round without a caddy. Doubtless
at judicious intervals she breaks a club in half and throws it into
some deep undergrowth, and ends by throwing the empty bag
away. If anyone should f'md a broken golf club here and there
it will not create surprise. People have been known to break and
throw away all their clulas in a mood of intense exasperation
over the game! It is, in fact, that kind of game!
'But since she realizes that her actions may still be a matter
0finterest, she throws that useful red herring - the attache-case
- in a somewhat spectacular manner into the lake - and that, my
friend, is the truth of "The Mystery of the Attache-Case."'
Japp looked at his friend for some moments in silence. Then
he rose, clapped him on the shoulder, and burst out laughing.
'Not so bad for an old dog! Upon my word, you take the
cake! Come out and have a spot of lunch?'
'With pleasure, my friend, but we will not have the cake.
Indeed, an Omelette aux Champignons, Blanquette de Veau,
Petits pois la Francaise, and - to follow - a Baba au Rhum.'
:'Lead me to it,' said Japp.
115
TRI'qqE AT RHODES
CHAFI J R l
1
P ' g lb ,Ste'i '
s carefully dressed in a andified
fashion in i:.'ff . annels and a large nanama . -
h
ute/. ,.,
k o
'"- v'' x'ted
his
ead.
He
-,Ae;-d to the old-fashioned enerafi0 ·
g a
which
believed lZvo
,
h g itself carefully from the sun. Mi
L w
*
'
'
' ' sPamela
yall, het ach
,lde him and talked
ceaselessly,
re,re
t m
'' · sented
he oden
bl of thought m that she was
w ·
b st . .v, . ekfng
the
are
mm: 17 clothing on
her sun-browned
person.
occasio
ly
e
r flow of conversation stopped Whilst she
reanointed
r from a bottle of oily fluid
which stood beside
her.
On the l
alt
,lde of
Miss Pamela Lyall her ·
· %e
,. . great fnen(,
Mss Sara
ltffq lay face downwards on a gaudily
-st4?e,j
towel. Mis,
-' o: s tanning was as.perfect
as
ssible
if ' d
ar
,
. , po and ier
hen
cast%y .tiea gmnces at her more than once
I
m so atch j
ll, she murmured
regretfully
M,
Poirot -
would you .djti ist belo ,w the
right shoulder-blade - I can't
reach to ruhi.. li roperly.
M. Poir
thpi.
d and then wiped his oil hand car
h'
o,
,/ · .
. ?
ffully on
is handkethi(,ati?hss Lyall, whose pnncipal
interests
in
life
were
the
oh w 4nl)n
of
people
round
her
and
the
souhd
of
her
own
voice, ed
AgathaChristie-HerculePoirotsCasebook Page 13
