Despard dropped down by Rhoda.
“Are you all right?” he asked hoarsely.
She said slowly:
“You saved me. You saved me … ” She held out her hands to him, and as he took them she burst suddenly into tears.
He said, “Rhoda….”
Their hands clung together….
He had a sudden vision—of African scrub, and Rhoda, laughing and adventurous, by his side….
Thirty
MURDER
“Do you mean to say,” said Rhoda incredulously, “that Anne meant to push me in? I know it felt like it. And she knew I can’t swim. But—but was it deliberate?”
“It was quite deliberate,” said Poirot.
They were driving through the outskirts of London.
“But—but—why?”
Poirot did not reply for a minute or two. He thought he knew one of the motives that had led Anne to act as she had done, and that motive was sitting next to Rhoda at the minute.
Superintendent Battle coughed.
“You’ll have to prepare yourself, Miss Dawes, for a bit of a shock. This Mrs. Benson your friend lived with, her death wasn’t quite the accident that it appeared—at least, so we’ve reason to suppose.”
“What do you mean?”
“We believe,” said Poirot, “that Anne Meredith changed two bottles.”
“Oh, no—no, how horrible! It’s impossible. Anne? Why should she?”
“She had her reasons,” said Superintendent Battle. “But the point is, Miss Dawes, that, as far as Miss Meredith knew, you were the only person who could give us a clue to that incident. You didn’t tell her, I suppose, that you’d mentioned it to Mrs. Oliver?”
Rhoda said slowly:
“No. I thought she’d be annoyed with me.”
“She would. Very annoyed,” said Battle grimly. “But she thought that the only danger could come from you, and that’s why she decided to—er—eliminate you.”
“Eliminate? Me? Oh, how beastly! It can’t be all true.”
“Well, she’s dead now,” said Superintendent Battle, “so we might as well leave it at that; but she wasn’t a nice friend for you to have, Miss Dawes—and that’s a fact.”
The car drew up in front of a door.
“We’ll go in to M. Poirot’s,” said Superintendent Battle, “and have a bit of a talk about it all.”
In Poirot’s sitting room they were welcomed by Mrs. Oliver, who was entertaining Dr. Roberts. They were drinking sherry. Mrs. Oliver was wearing one of her new horsy hats and a velvet dress with a bow on the chest on which reposed a large piece of apple core.
“Come in. Come in,” said Mrs. Oliver hospitably and quite as though it were her house and not Poirot’s.
“As soon as I got your telephone call I rang up Dr. Roberts, and we came round here. And all his patients are dying, but he doesn’t care. They’re probably getting better, really. We want to hear all about everything.”
“Yes, indeed, I’m thoroughly fogged,” said Roberts.
“Eh bien,” said Poirot. “The case is ended. The murderer of Mr. Shaitana is found at last.”
“So Mrs. Oliver told me. That pretty little thing, Anne Meredith. I can hardly believe it. A most unbelievable murderess.”
“She was a murderess all right,” said Battle. “Three murders to her credit—and not her fault that she didn’t get away with a fourth one.”
“Incredible!” murmured Roberts.
“Not at all,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Least likely person. It seems to work out in real life just the same as in books.”
“It’s been an amazing day,” said Roberts. “First Mrs. Lorrimer’s letter. I suppose that was a forgery, eh?”
“Precisely. A forgery written in triplicate.”
“She wrote one to herself, too?”
“Naturally. The forgery was quite skilful—it would not deceive an expert, of course—but, then, it was highly unlikely that an expert would have been called in. All the evidence pointed to Mrs. Lorrimer’s having committed suicide.”
“You will excuse my curiosity, M. Poirot, but what made you suspect that she had not committed suicide?”
“A little conversation that I had with a maidservant at Cheyne Lane.”
“She told you of Anne Meredith’s visit the former evening?”
“That among other things. And then, you see, I had already come to a conclusion in my own mind as to the identity of the guilty person—that is, the person who killed Mr. Shaitana. That person was not Mrs. Lorrimer.”
“What made you suspect Miss Meredith?”
Poirot raised his hand.
“A little minute. Let me approach this matter in my own way. Let me, that is to say, eliminate. The murderer of Mr. Shaitana was not Mrs. Lorrimer, nor was it Major Despard, and, curiously enough, it was not Anne Meredith….”
He leaned forward. His voice purred, soft and catlike.
“You see, Dr. Roberts, you were the person who killed Mr. Shaitana; and you also killed Mrs. Lorrimer….”
II
There was at least three minutes’ silence. Then Roberts laughed a rather menacing laugh.
“Are you quite mad, M. Poirot? I certainly did not murder Mr. Shaitana, and I could not possibly have murdered Mrs. Lorrimer. My dear Battle”—he turned to the Scotland Yard man—“are you standing for this?”
“I think you’d better listen to what M. Poirot has to say,” said Battle quietly.
Poirot said:
“It is true that though I have known for some time that you—and only you—could have killed Shaitana, it would not be an easy matter to prove it. But Mrs. Lorrimer’s case is quite different.” He leaned forward. “It is not a case of my knowing. It is much simpler than that—for we have an eyewitness who saw you do it.”
Roberts grew very quiet. His eyes glittered. He said sharply:
“You are talking rubbish!”