“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 point 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 once—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 Dr. 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 reasserted their mastery. It could not be—so it was not!
“But what she told me was more difficult still.
“She assured 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 stooped over him—perhaps stretched out her hand to the gleaming head of the jewelled pin.
“Her lips part to call out, but she does not call out. She remembers Shaitana’s talk at dinner. Perhaps he had left some record. She, Anne Meredith, has a motive for desiring his death. Everyone 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 of bluff and 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 he
avily.
“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 circumstances 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 hotfoot 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 plausible—perfectly straightforward.
“In all this he has no idea of throwing suspicion on Anne Meredith. He does 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 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’est fini.”
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 à 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.”
“Then there was no window cleaner?” cried Rhoda. “Nobody saw him?”
“I saw,” said Poirot. “With the eyes of the mind one can see more than with the eyes of the body. One leans back and closes the eyes—”
Despard said cheerfully:
“Let’s stab him, Rhoda, and see if his ghost can come back and find out who did it.”
* * *