Cards On The Table Part 48

Cards on Se Tab 495

Lorrimer struck me as by far the most likely to plan and carry out a successful murder but I could not see her as committing any crime that had to be improvised on the spur of the moment. On the other hand her manner that first evening puzzled me. It suggested either that she had committed the murder herself or that she knew who had committed it. Miss Meredith, Major Despard and Dr. Roberts were all psychological possibilities, though, as I have already mentioned, each of them would have committed the crime from an entirely different angle.

"I next made a second test. I got every one in turn to tell me just what they remembered of the room. From that I got some very valuable information. First of all, by far the most likely person to have noticed the dagger was Dr. Roberts. He was a natural observer of trifles of all kinds--what is called an observant man. Of the bridge hands, however, he remembered practically nothing at all. I did not expect him to remember much, but his complete forgetfulness looked as though he had had something else on his mind all the evening. Again, you see, Dr. Roberts was indicated.

"Mrs. Lorrimer I found to have a marvellous card memory, and I could well imagine that with any one of her powers of concentration a murder could easily be committed close at hand and she would never notice anything. She gave me a valuable piece of information. The grand slam was bid by Dr. Roberts (quite unjustifiably)--and he bid it in her suit, not his own, so that she necessarily played the hand.

"The third test, the test on which Superintendent Battle and I built a good deal, was the discovery of the earlier murders so as to establish a similarity of method. Well, the credit for those discoveries belongs to Superintendent Battle, to Mrs. Oliver and to Colonel Race. Discussing the matter with my friend Battle, he confessed himself disappointed because there were no points of similarity between any of the three earlier crimes and that of the murder of Mr. Shaitana. But actually that was not true. The two murders attributed to Dr. Roberts, when examined closely, and from the psychological points of view and not the material one, proved to be almost exactly the same. They, too, had been what I might describe as public murders. A shaving brush boldly infected in the victim's own dressing-room while the doctor officially washes his hands after a visit. The murder of Mrs. Craddock under cover of a typhoid inoculation. Again done quite openly--in the sight of the world, as you might say. And the reaction of the man is the same. Pushed into a corner, he seizes a chance and acts at one--sheer bold audacious bluff-exactly like his play at bridge. As at bridge, so in the murder of Shaitana, he took a long chance and played his cards well. The blow was perfectly struck and at exactly the right moment.

"Now just at the moment that I had decided quite definitely that Roberts was the man, Mrs. Lorrimer asked me to come and see her--and quite convincingly accused herself of the crime! I nearly believed her! For a minute or two I did believe her--and then my little grey cells rea.s.serted their mastery. It could not beso it was not!

"But what she told me was more difficult still.

"She a.s.sured me that she had actually seen Anne Meredith commit the crime.

"It was not till the following morning--when I stood by a dead woman's bed--that I saw how I could still be right and Mrs. Lorrimer still have spoken the truth.

"Anne Meredith went over to the fireplace--and saw that Mr. Shaitana was dead! She stopped over him--perhaps stretched out her hand to the gleaming head of the jewelled pin.

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"Her lips part to call out, but she does not call out. She remembers Shaitana's

talk at dinner. Perhaps he has left some record. She, Anne Meredith, has a motive

for desiring his death. Every one will say that she has killed him. She dare not call

out. Trembling with fear and apprehension she goes back to her seat.

"So Mrs. Lorrimer is right, since she, as she thought, saw the crime

committed but I am right too, for actually she did not see it.

"If Roberts had held his hand at this point, I doubt if we could have ever

brought his crimes home to him. We might have done so-by a mixture ofbluffand various ingenious devices. I would at any rate have tried.

"But he lost his nerve and once again overbid his hand. And this time the

cards lay wrong for him and he came down heavily.

"No doubt he was uneasy. He knew that Battle was nosing about. He foresaw

the present situation going on indefinitely, the police still searching--and perhaps,

by some miracle--coming on traces of his former crimes. He hit upon the brilliant

idea of making Mrs. Lorrimer the scapegoat for the party. His practised eye

guessed, no doubt, that she was ill and that her life could not be very much

prolonged. How natural in those circ.u.mstances for her to choose a quick way out,

and before taking it, confess to the crime! So he manages to get a sample of her

handwriting--forges three identical letters and arrives at the house hot-foot in the

morning with his story of the letter he has just received. His parlourmaid quite

correctly is instructed to ring up the police. All he needs is a start. And he gets it.

By the time the police surgeon arrives it is all over. Dr. Roberts is ready with his

story of artificial respiration that has failed. It is all perfectly plausibleperfectly/ straightforward.

/ "In all this he has no idea of throwing suspicion on Anne Meredith. He d/ooes

not even know of her visit the night before. It is suicide and security only that he is

aiming at.

"It is in fact an awkward moment for him when I ask if he is acquainted with

Mrs. Lorrimer's handwriting. If the forgery has been detected he must save

himself by saying that he has never seen her handwriting. His mind works quickly,

but not quickly enough.

"From Wallingford I telephone to Mrs. Oliver. She plays her part by lulling

his suspicions and bringing him here. And then when he is congratulating himself

that all is well, though not exactly in the way he has planned, the blow falls.

Hercule Poirot springs! And so--the gambler will gather in no more tricks. He has

thrown his cards upon the table. C'estfini."

There was silence. Rhoda broke it with a sigh.

"What amazing luck that window-cleaner happened to be there," she said.

"Luck? Luck? That was not luck, mademoiselle. That was the grey cells of Hercule Poirot. And that reminds me "

He went to the door.

"Come in-come in, my dear fellow. You acted your part i merveille."

He returned accompanied by the window cleaner, who now held his red hair in his hand and who looked somehow a very different person.

"My friend Mr. Gerald Hemmingway, a very promising young actor."