Hercule Poirot's Casebook

infatuation for Mrs Vanderlyn. The whole thing is clear to her.

Mrs Vanderlyn has persuaded Reggie to steal the plans. But

she determines to play her part also. She will tackle Reggie, get

hold of the papers and return them.'

55

'But the whole thing is quite impossible,' cried Lord

Mayfield.

'Yes, it is impossible, but Lady Julia does not know that. She

does not know what I, Hercule Poirot, know, that ycng

Reggie Carrington was not stealing papers last night, hut

instead was philandering with Mrs Vanderlyn's French rwid.'

'The whole thing is a mare's nest!'

'Exactly.'

'And the case is not ended at all!'

'Yes, it is ended. I, Hercule Poirot, know the truth. You do ;ot

believe me? You did not believe me yesterday when I said I

knew where the plans were. But I did know. They were very

close at hand.'

'Where?'

'They were in your pocket, my lord.'

There was a pause, then Lord Mayfield said.'

'Do you really know what you are saying, M. Poirot?'

'Yes, I know. I know that I am speaking to a very clever man.

From the first it worried me that you, who were admitxedly

short-sighted, should be so positive about the figure you had

seen leaving the window. You wanted that solution - the

convenient solution - to be accepted. Why? Later, one by one,

I eliminated everyone else. Mrs Vandedyn was upstairs, Sir

George was with you on the terrace, Reggie Carrington was

with the French girl on the stairs, Mrs Macatta was blamelessly

in her bedroom. (It is next to the housekeeper's room, and Mrs

Macatta snores!) Lady Julia clearly believed her son guilty. So

there remained only two possibilities. Either Carlile did not put

the papers on the desk but into his own pocket (and that is not

reasonable, because, as you pointed out, he could have taken a

tracing of them), or else - or else the plans were there when you

walked over to the desk, and the only place they could have

gone was into your pocket. In that case everything was clear.

Your insistence on the figure you had seen, your insistence on

Carlile's innocence, your disinclination to have me summoned.

'One thing did puzzle me - the motive. You were, I was

convinced, an honest man, a man of integrity. That showed in

56

your anxiety that no innocent person should be suspected. It

was also obvious that the theft of the plans might easily affect

your career unfavourably. Why, then, this wholly unreason-able

theft? And at last the answer came to me. The crisis in your

career, some years ago, the assurances given to the world by the

prime Minister that you had had no negotiations with the

power in question. Suppose that that was not strictly true, that

there remained some record - a letter, perhaps - showing that

in actual fact you had done what you had publicly denied. Such

a denial was necessary in the interests of public policy. But it is

doubtful if the man in the street would see it that way. It might

mean that at the moment when supreme power might be given

into your hands, some stupid echo from the past would undo

everything.

'I suspect that that letter has been preserved in the hands of

a certain government, that that government offered to trade

with you - the letter in exchange for the plans of the new

bomber. Some men would have refused. You - did not! You

agreed. Mrs Vanderlyn was the agent in the matter. She came

here by arrangement to make the exchange. You gave yourself

iaway when you admitted that you had formed no definite

stratagem for entrapping her. That admission made your

'Sreason for inviting her here incredibly weak.

'You arranged the robbery. Pretended to see the thief on the

terrace - thereby clearing Carlile of suspicion. Even if he had

not left the room, the desk was so near the window that a thief

might have taken the plans while Carlile was busy at the safe

with his back turned. You walked over to the desk, took the

plans and kept them on your own person until the moment

when, by prearranged plan, you slipped them into Mrs

Vanderlyn's dressing-case. In return she handed you the fatal

letter disguised as an unposted letter of her own.'

Poirot stopped.

Lord Mayfield said:

'Your knowledge is very complete, M. Poirot. You must

think me an unutterable skunk.'

Poirot made a quick gesture.

57

'No, no, Lord Mayfield. I think, as I said, that you are a very

clever man. It came to me suddenly as we talked here last night.

You are a first-class engineer. There will be, I think, some

subtle alterations in the specifications of that bomber, altera-tions

done so skilfully that it will be difficult to grasp why the

machine is not the success it ought to be. A certain foreign

power will find the type a failure... It will be a disappointment

to them, I am sure...'

Again there was a silence - then Lord Mayfield said:

'You are much too clever, M. Poirot. I will only ask you to

believe one thing. I have faith in myself. I believe that I am the

man to guide England through the days of crisis that I see

coming. If I did not honestly believe that I am needed by my

country to steer the ship of state, I would not have done what