Poirot’s reply was prompt:
“Useless to inquire at agency they will never have heard of her find out what vehicle took her up to hunters lodge when she first arrived there.”
Though mystified, I was obedient. The means of transport in Elmer’s Dale were limited. The local garage had two battered Ford cars, and there were two station flies. None of these had been requisitioned on the date in question. Questioned, Mrs. Havering explained that she had given the woman the money for her fare down to Derbyshire and sufficient to hire a car or fly to take her up to Hunter’s Lodge. There was usually one of the Fords at the station on the chance of its being required. Taking into consideration the further fact that nobody at the station had noticed the arrival of a stranger, black-bearded or otherwise, on the fatal evening, everything seemed to point to the conclusion that the murderer had come to the spot in a car, which had been waiting near at hand to aid his escape, and that the same car had brought the mysterious housekeeper to her new post. I may mention that inquiries at the Agency in London bore out Poirot’s prognostication. No such woman as “Mrs. Middleton” had ever been on their books. They had received the Hon. Mrs. Havering’s application for a housekeeper, and had sent her various applicants for the post. When she sent them the engagement fee, she omitted to mention which woman she had selected.
Somewhat crestfallen, I returned to London. I found Poirot established in an arm-chair by the fire in a garish, silk dressing-gown. He greeted me with much affection.
“_Mon ami_ Hastings! But how glad I am to see you. Veritably I have for you a great affection. And you have enjoyed yourself? You have run to and fro with the good Japp? You have interrogated and investigated to your heart’s content?”
“Poirot,” I cried, “the thing’s a dark mystery! It will never be solved.”
“It is true that we are not likely to cover ourselves with glory over it.”
“No, indeed. It’s a hard nut to crack.”
“Oh, as far as that goes, I am very good at cracking the nuts! A veritable squirrel! It is not that which embarrasses me. I know well enough who killed Mr. Harrington Pace.”
“You know? How did you find out?”
“Your illuminating answers to my wires supplied me with the truth. See here, Hastings, let us examine the facts methodically and in order. Mr. Harrington Pace is a man with a considerable fortune which at his death will doubtless pass to his nephew. Point No. 1. His nephew is known to be desperately hard up. Point No. 2. His nephew is also known to be—shall we say a man of rather loose moral fibre? Point No. 3.”
“But Roger Havering is proved to have journeyed straight up to London.”
“_Précisément_—and therefore, as Mr. Havering left Elmer’s Dale at 6.15, and since Mr. Pace cannot have been killed before he left, or the doctor would have spotted the time of the crime as being given wrongly when he examined the body, we conclude quite rightly, that Mr. Havering did not shoot his uncle. But there is a Mrs. Havering, Hastings.”
“Impossible! The housekeeper was with her when the shot was fired.”
“Ah, yes, the housekeeper. But she has disappeared.”
“She will be found.”
“I think not. There is something peculiarly elusive about that housekeeper, don’t you think so, Hastings? It struck me at once.”
“She played her part, I suppose, and then got out in the nick of time.”
“And what was her part?”
“Well, presumably to admit her confederate, the black-bearded man.”
“Oh, no, that was not her part! Her part was what you have just mentioned, to provide an alibi for Mrs. Havering at the moment the shot was fired. And no one will ever find her, _mon ami_, because she does not exist! ‘There’s no sech person,’ as your so great Shakespeare says.”
“It was Dickens,” I murmured, unable to suppress a smile. “But what do you mean, Poirot?”
“I mean that Zoe Havering was an actress before her marriage, that you and Japp only saw the housekeeper in a dark hall, a dim middle-aged figure in black with a faint subdued voice, and finally that neither you nor Japp, nor the local police whom the housekeeper fetched, ever saw Mrs. Middleton and her mistress at one and the same time. It was child’s play for that clever and daring woman. On the pretext of summoning her mistress, she runs upstairs, slips on a bright jumper and a hat with black curls attached which she jams down over the grey transformation. A few deft touches, and the make-up is removed, a slight dusting of rouge, and the brilliant Zoe Havering comes down with her clear ringing voice. Nobody looks particularly at the housekeeper. Why should they? There is nothing to connect her with the crime. She, too, has an alibi.”
“But the revolver that was found at Ealing? Mrs. Havering could not have placed it there?”
“No, that was Roger Havering’s job—but it was a mistake on their part. It put me on the right track. A man who has committed a murder with a revolver which he found on the spot would fling it away at once, he would not carry it up to London with him. No, the motive was clear, the criminals wished to focus the interest of the police on a spot far removed from Derbyshire they were anxious to get the police away as soon as possible from the vicinity of Hunter’s Lodge. Of course the revolver found at Ealing was not the one with which Mr. Pace was shot. Roger Havering discharged one shot from it, brought it up to London, went straight to his club to establish his alibi, then went quickly out to Ealing by the district, a matter of about twenty minutes only, placed the parcel where it was found and so back to town. That charming creature, his wife, quietly shoots Mr. Pace after dinner—you remember he was shot from behind? Another significant point, that!—reloads the revolver and puts it back in its place, and then starts off with her desperate little comedy.”
“It’s incredible,” I murmured, fascinated, “and yet——”
“And yet it is true. _Bien sur_, my friend, it is true. But to bring that precious pair to justice, that is another matter. Well, Japp must do what he can—I have written him fully—but I very much fear, Hastings, that we shall be obliged to leave them to Fate, or _le bon Dieu_, whichever you prefer.”
“The wicked flourish like a green bay tree,” I reminded him.
“But at a price, Hastings, always at a price, _croyez-moi!_”
Poirot’s forebodings were confirmed. Japp, though convinced of the truth of his theory, was unable to get together the necessary evidence to ensure a conviction.
Mr. Pace’s huge fortune passed into the hands of his murderers. Nevertheless, Nemesis did overtake them, and when I read in the paper that the Hon. Roger and Mrs. Havering were amongst those killed in the crashing of the Air Mail to Paris I knew that Justice was satisfied.
V
The Million Dollar Bond Robbery
“What a number of bond robberies there have been lately!” I observed one morning, laying aside the newspaper. “Poirot, let us forsake the science of detection, and take to crime instead!”
“You are on the—how do you say it?—get-rich-quick tack, eh, _mon ami_?”
“Well, look at this last _coup_, the million dollars’ worth of Liberty Bonds which the London and Scottish Bank were sending to New York, and which disappeared in such a remarkable manner on board the _Olympia_.”
“If it were not for the _mal de mer_, and the difficulty of practising the so excellent method of Laverguier for a longer time than the few hours of crossing the channel, I should delight to voyage myself on one of these big liners,” murmured Poirot dreamily.
“Yes, indeed,” I said enthusiastically. “Some of them must be perfect palaces; the swimming-baths, the lounges, the restaurant, the palm courts—really, it must be hard to believe that one is on the sea.”
“Me, I always know when I am on the sea,” said Poirot sadly. “And all those bagatelles that you enumerate, they say nothing to me; but, my friend, consider for a moment the geniuses that travel as it were incognito! On board these floating palaces, as you so justly call them, one would meet the élite, the _haute noblesse_ of the criminal world!”
I laughed.
“So that’s the way your enthusiasm runs! You would have liked to cross swords with the man who sneaked the Liberty Bonds?”
The landlady interrupted us.
“A young lady as wants to see you, Mr. Poirot. Here’s her card.”
The card bore the inscription: Miss Esmée Farquhar, and Poirot, after diving under the table to retrieve a stray crumb, and putting it carefully in the waste-paper-basket, nodded to the landlady to admit her.
In another minute one of the most charming girls I have ever seen was ushered into the room. She was perhaps about five-and-twenty, with big brown eyes and a perfect figure. She was well-dressed and perfectly composed in manner.
“Sit down, I beg of you, mademoiselle. This is my friend, Captain Hastings, who aids me in my little problems.”
“I am afraid it is a big problem I have brought you to-day, Monsieur Poirot,” said the girl, giving me a pleasant bow as she seated herself. “I dare say you have read about it in the papers. I am referring to the theft of Liberty Bonds on the _Olympia_.” Some astonishment must have shown itself in Poirot’s face, for she continued quickly: “You are doubtless asking yourself what I have to do with a grave institution like the London and Scottish Bank. In one sense nothing, in another sense everything. You see, Monsieur Poirot, I am engaged to Mr. Philip Ridgeway.”