Lord Edgware Dies

‘Well, I’ve been thinking and thinking. Sometimes you can’t get at things straight away. To get them clear you’ve got to think back-remember a lot of little words and phrases that perhaps you didn’t pay attention to at the time. Well, that’s what I’ve been doing. Thinking and thinking-and remembering just what she said. And I’ve come to a certain conclusion.’

‘Yes, Mademoiselle?’

‘I think the man that she cared about-or was beginning to care about-was Ronald Marsh-you know, the one who has just succeeded to the title.’

‘What makes you think it was he, Mademoiselle?’

‘Well, for one thing, Carlotta was speaking in a general sort of way one day. About a man having hard luck, and how it might affect character. That a man might be a decent sort really and yet go down the hill. More sinned against then sinning-you know the idea. The first thing a woman kids herself with when she’s getting soft about a man. I’ve heard the old wheeze so often! Carlotta had plenty of sense, yet here she was coming out with this stuff just like a complete ass who knew nothing of life. “Hello,” I said to myself. “Something’s up.” She didn’t mention a name-it was all general. But almost immediately after that she began to speak of Ronald Marsh and that she thought he’d been badly treated. She was very impersonal and offhand about it. I didn’t connect the two things at the time. But now-I wonder. It seems to me that it was Ronald she meant. What do you think, M. Poirot?’

Her face looked earnestly up into his.

‘I think, Mademoiselle, that you have perhaps given me some very valuable information.’

‘Good.’ Jenny clapped her hands.

Poirot looked kindly at her.

‘Perhaps you have not heard-the gentleman of whom you speak, Ronald Marsh-Lord Edgware-has just been arrested.’

‘Oh!’ Her mouth flew open in surprise. ‘Then my bit of thinking comes rather late in the day.’

‘It is never too late,’ said Poirot. ‘Not with me, you understand. Thank you, Mademoiselle.’

She left us to return to Bryan Martin. 

‘There, Poirot,’ I said. ‘Surely that shakes your belief.’

‘No, Hastings. On the contrary-it strengthens it.’

Despite that valiant assertion I believed myself that secretly he had weakened.

During the days that followed he never once mentioned the Edgware case. If I spoke of it, he answered monosyllabically and without interest. In other words, he had washed his hands of it. Whatever he had had lingering in his fantastic brain, he had now been forced to admit that it had not materialized-that his first conception of the case had been the true one and that Ronald Marsh was only too truly accused of the crime. Only, being Poirot, he could not admit openly that such was the case! Therefore he pretended to have lost interest.

Such, as I say, was my interpretation of his attitude. It seemed borne out by the facts. He took no faintest interest in the police court proceedings, which in any case were purely formal. He busied himself with other cases and, as I say, he displayed no interest when the subject was mentioned.

It was nearly a fortnight later than the events mentioned in my last chapter when I came to realize that my interpretation of his attitude was entirely wrong.

It was breakfast time. The usual heavy pile of letters lay by Poirot’s plate. He sorted through them with nimble fingers. Then he uttered a quick exclamation of pleasure and picked up a letter with an American stamp on it.

He opened it with his little letter-opener. I looked on with interest since he seemed so moved to pleasure about it. There was a letter and a fairly thick enclosure.

Poirot read the former through twice, then he looked up.

‘Would you like to see this, Hastings?’

I took it from him. It ran as follows:

Dear M. Poirot,-I was much touched by your kind-your very kind letter. I have been feeling so bewildered by everything. Apart from my terrible grief, I have been so affronted by the things that seem to have been hinted about Carlotta-the dearest, sweetest sister that a girl ever had. No, M. Poirot, she did not take drugs. I’m sure of it. She had a horror of that kind of thing. I’ve often heard her say so. If she played a part in that poor man’s death, it was an entirely innocent one-but of course her letter to me proves that. I am sending you the actual letter itself since you ask me to do so. I hate parting with the last letter she ever wrote, but I know you will take care of it and let me have it back, and if it helps you to clear up some of the mystery about her death, as you say it may do-why, then, of course it must go to you.

You ask whether Carlotta mentioned any friend specially in her letters. She mentioned a great many people, of course, but nobody in a very outstanding way. Bryan Martin whom we used to know years ago, a girl called Jenny Driver, and a Captain Ronald Marsh were, I think, the ones she saw most of.

I wish I could think of something to help you. You write so kindly and with such understanding, and you seem to realize what Carlotta and I were to each other.

Gratefully yours,