Hercule Poirot's Casebook

'I don't believe it would have been any good if she had left

the island,' said Pamela. 'He would simply have followed her.'

'He?'

'Douglas Gold.'

'You think Douglas Gold would have followed her? Oh, no,

mademoiselle, you are wrong - you are completely wrong. You

have not yet appreciated the truth of this matter. If Valentine

Chantry had left the island, her husband would have gone with

her.'

Pamela looked puzzled.

'Well, naturally.'

'And then, you see, the crime would simply have taken place

somewhere else.'

'I don't understand you?'

'I am saying to you that the same crime would have occurred

somewhere else - that crime being the murder of Valentine

Chantry by her husband.'

Pamela stared:

'Are you trying to say that it was Commander Chantry o

Tony Chantry - who murdered Valentine?'

'Yes. You saw him do it! Douglas Gold brought him his

drink. He sat with it in front of him. When the women came in

we all looked across the room, he had the stropanthin ready, he

dropped it into the pink gin and presently, courteously, he

passed it along to his wife and she drank it.'

'But the packet of stropanthin was found in Douglas Gold's

pocket!'

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'A very simple matter to slip it there when we were all

crowding round the dying woman.'

It was quite two minutes before Pamela got her breath.

'But I don't understand a word! The triangle - you said

yourself -'

Hercule Poirot nodded his head vigorously.

'I said there was a triangle - yes. But you, you imagined the

wrong one. You were deceived by some very clever acting! You

thought, as you were meant to think, that both Tony Chantry

and Douglas Gold were in love with Valentine Chantry. You

believed, as you were meant to believe, that Douglas Gold,

being in love with Valentine Chantry (whose husband refused

to divorce her) took the desperate step of administering a

powerful heart poison to Chantry and that, by a fatal mistake,

Valentine Chantry drank that poison instead. All that is

illusion. Chantry has been meaning to do away with his wife for

some time. He was bored to death with her, I could see that

from the first. He married her for her money. Now he wants to

marry another woman - so he planned to get rid of Valentine

and keep her money. That entailed murder.'

'Another woman?' Poirot said slowly:

'Yes, yes - the little Marjorie Gold. It was the eternal triangle

all right! But you saw it the wrong way round. Neither of those

two men cared in the least for Valentine Chantry. It was her

vanity and Majorie Gold's very clever stage managing that made

you think they did! A very clever woman, Mrs Gold, and

amazingly attractive in her demure Madonna, poor-littlething-way!

I have known four women criminals of the same

type. There was Mrs Adams who was acquitted of murdering

her husband, but everybody knows she did it. Mary Parker did

away with an aunt, a sweetheart and two brothers before she

got a little careless and was caught. Then there was Mrs

Rowden, she was hanged all right. Mrs Lecray escaped by the

skin of her teeth. This woman is exactly the same type. I

recognized it as soon as I saw her! That type takes to crime like

a duck to water! And a very pretty bit of well-planned work it

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was. Tell me, what ev/dence did you ever have that Douglas

Gold was in love with Valentine Chantry? When you come to

think it out, you will realize that there was only Mrs Gold's

confidences Chantry's jealous bluster. Yes? You see?'

'It's horrible,' cried Pamela.

'They were a clever pair,' said Poirot with professional

detachment. 'They planned to "meet" here and stage their

crime. That Marjorie Gold, she is a cold-blooded devil! She

would have sent her poor, innocent fool of a husband to the

scaffold without the least remorse.'

Pamela cried out:

'But he was arrested and taken away by the police last night.'

'Ah,' said Hercule Poirot, 'but after that, me, I had a few

little words with the police. It is true that I did not see Chantry

put the stropanthin in the glass. I, like everyone else, looked up

when the ladies came in. But the moment I realized that

Valentine Chantry had been poisoned, I watched her husband

without taking my eyes offhim. And so, you see, I actually saw

him slip the packet of stropanthin in Douglas Gold's coat

pocket...'

He added with a grim expression on his face:

'I am a good witness. My name is well known. The moment

the police heard my story they realized that it put an entirely

different complexion on the matter.'

'AA then?' demanded Pamela, fascinated.

'Eh b/eh, then they asked Commander Chantry a few

questions. He tried to bluster it out, but he is not really clever,

he soon broke down.'

'So Douglas Gold was set at liberty?'

.

'Yes.'

'And - Marorie Gold?'

Poirot's face grew stero.

'I warned her,' he said. 'Yes, I warned her ... Up on the

Mount of the Prophet... It was the only chance of averting the

crime. I as good as told her that I suspected her. She

understood. But she believed herself too clever... I told her m

leave the island if she valued her life. She chose - to remain...'

142

Hercule Poirot gave the house a steady appraising glance. His