“Very creditable so far, my dear Giraud,” murmured Poirot. “Especially after that clever trick of theirs with the match and cigarette end.”
Giraud glared, but continued:
“A man must have been connected with the case, in order to dig the grave. There is no man who actually benefits by the crime, but there was a man who thought he would benefit. I heard of Jack Renauld’s quarrel with his father, and of the threats that he had used. The motive was established. Now as to means. Jack Renauld was in Merlinville that night. He concealed the fact—which turned suspicion into certainty. Then we found a second victim—_stabbed with the same dagger___. We know when that dagger was stolen. Captain Hastings here can fix the time. Jack Renauld, arriving from Cherbourg, was the only person who could have taken it. I have accounted for all the other members of the household.”
Poirot interrupted:
“You are wrong. There is one other person who could have taken the dagger.”
“You refer to M. Stonor? He arrived at the front door, in an automobile which had brought him straight from Calais. Ah, believe me, I have looked into everything. M. Jack Renauld arrived by train. An hour elapsed between his arrival, and the moment he presented himself at the house. Without doubt, he saw Captain Hastings and his companion leave the shed, slipped in himself and took the dagger, stabbed his accomplice in the shed—”
“Who was already dead!”
Giraud shrugged his shoulders.
“Possibly he did not observe that. He may have judged him to be sleeping. Without doubt they had a rendezvous. In any case he knew this apparent second murder would greatly complicate the case. It did.”
“But it could not deceive M. Giraud,” murmured Poirot.
“You mock yourself at me. But I will give you one last irrefutable proof. Madame Renauld’s story was false—a fabrication from beginning to end. We believe Madame Renauld to have loved her husband—_yet she lied to shield his murderer___. For whom will a woman lie? Sometimes for herself, usually for the man she loves, _always___ for her children. That is the last—the irrefutable proof. You cannot get round it.”
Giraud paused, flushed and triumphant. Poirot regarded him steadily.
“That is my case,” said Giraud. “What have you to say to it?”
“Only that there is one thing you have failed to take into account.”
“What is that?”
“Jack Renauld was presumably acquainted with the planning out of the golf course. He knew that the body would be discovered almost at once, when they started to dig the bunker.”
Giraud laughed out loud.
“But it is idiotic what you say there! He wanted the body to be found! Until it was found, he could not presume death, and would have been unable to enter into his inheritance.”
I saw a quick flash of green in Poirot’s eyes as he rose to his feet.
“Then why bury it?” he asked softly. “Reflect, Giraud. Since it was to Jack Renauld’s advantage that the body should be found without delay, _why dig a grave at all?___”
Giraud did not reply. The question found him unprepared. He shrugged his shoulders as though to intimate that it was of no importance.
Poirot moved towards the door. I followed him.
“There is one more thing that you have failed to take into account,” he said over his shoulder.
“What is that?”
“The piece of lead piping,” said Poirot, and left the room.
Jack Renauld still stood in the hall, with a white dumb face, but as we came out of the _salon___, he looked up sharply. At the same moment there was the sound of a footfall on the staircase. Mrs. Renauld was descending it. At the sight of her son, standing between the two myrmidons of the law, she stopped as though petrified.
“Jack,” she faltered. “Jack, what is this?”
He looked up at her, his face set.
“They have arrested me, mother.”
“What?”
She uttered a piercing cry, and before any one could get to her swayed and fell heavily. We both ran to her and lifted her up. In a minute Poirot stood up again.
“She has cut her head badly, on the corner of the stairs. I fancy there is a slight concussion also. If Giraud wants a statement from her, he will have to wait. She will probably be unconscious for at least a week.”
Denise and Françoise had run to their mistress, and leaving her in their charge Poirot left the house. He walked with his head bent down, frowning thoughtfully at the ground. For some time I did not speak, but at last I ventured to put a question to him.
“Do you believe then, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, that Jack Renauld may not be guilty?”
Poirot did not answer at once, but after a long wait he said gravely:
“I do not know, Hastings. There is just a chance of it. Of course Giraud is all wrong—wrong from beginning to end. If Jack Renauld is guilty, it is in spite of Giraud’s arguments, not _because___ of them. And the gravest indictment against him is known only to me.”
“What is that?” I asked, impressed.
“If you would use your grey cells, and see the whole case clearly as I do, you too would perceive it, my friend.”
This was what I called one of Poirot’s irritating answers. He went on, without waiting for me to speak.
“Let us walk this way to the sea. We will sit on that little mound there, overlooking the beach, and review the case. You shall know all that I know, but I would prefer that you should come at the truth by your own efforts—not by my leading you by the hand.”
We established ourselves on the grassy knoll as Poirot had suggested, looking out to sea. From farther along the sand, the cries of the bathers reached us faintly. The sea was of the palest blue, and the halcyon calm reminded me of the day we had arrived at Merlinville, my own good spirits, and Poirot’s suggestion that I was “fey.” What a long time seemed to have elapsed since then. And in reality it was only three days!
“Think, my friend,” said Poirot’s voice encouragingly. “Arrange your ideas. Be methodical. Be orderly. There is the secret of success.”
I endeavoured to obey him, casting my mind back over all the details of the case. And reluctantly it seemed to me that the only clear and possible solution was that of Giraud—which Poirot despised. I reflected anew. If there was daylight anywhere it was in the direction of Madame Daubreuil. Giraud was ignorant of her connection with the Beroldy Case. Poirot had declared the Beroldy Case to be all important. It was there I must seek. I was on the right track now. And suddenly I started as an idea of bewildering luminosity shot into my brain. Trembling I built up my hypothesis.
“You have a little idea, I see, _mon ami!___ Capital. We progress.”
I sat up, and lit a pipe.
“Poirot,” I said, “it seems to me we have been strangely remiss. I say we—although I dare say _I___ would be nearer the mark. But you must pay the penalty of your determined secrecy. So I say again we have been strangely remiss. There is some one we have forgotten.”
“And who is that?” inquired Poirot, with twinkling eyes.
“Georges Conneau!”
20 An Amazing Statement
The next moment Poirot embraced me warmly. “_Enfin!___ You have arrived. And all by yourself. It is superb! Continue your reasoning. You are right. Decidedly we have done wrong to forget Georges Conneau.”
I was so flattered by the little man’s approval that I could hardly continue. But at last I collected my thoughts and went on.
“Georges Conneau disappeared twenty years ago, but we have no reason to believe that he is dead.”
“_Aucunement___,” agreed Poirot. “Proceed.”
“Therefore we will assume that he is alive.”
“Exactly.”
“Or that he was alive until recently.”
“_De mieux en mieux!___”
“We will presume,” I continued, my enthusiasm rising, “that he has fallen on evil days. He has become a criminal, an apache, a tramp—a what you will. He chances to come to Merlinville. There he finds the woman he has never ceased to love.”
“Eh eh! The sentimentality,” warned Poirot.
“Where one hates one also loves,” I quoted or misquoted. “At any rate he finds her there, living under an assumed name. But she has a new lover, the Englishman, Renauld. Georges Conneau, the memory of old wrongs rising in him, quarrels with this Renauld. He lies in wait for him as he comes to visit his mistress, and stabs him in the back. Then, terrified at what he has done, he starts to dig a grave. I imagine it likely that Madame Daubreuil comes out to look for her lover. She and Conneau have a terrible scene. He drags her into the shed, and there suddenly falls down in an epileptic fit. Now supposing Jack Renauld to appear. Madame Daubreuil tells him all, points out to him the dreadful consequences to her daughter if this scandal of the past is revived. His father’s murderer is dead—let them do their best to hush it up. Jack Renauld consents—goes to the house and has an interview with his mother, winning her over to his point of view. Primed with the story that Madame Daubreuil has suggested to him, she permits herself to be gagged and bound. There, Poirot, what do you think of that?” I leaned back, flushed with the pride of successful reconstruction.
Poirot looked at me thoughtfully.
“I think that you should write for the Kinema, _mon ami___,” he remarked at last.