Lord Edgware Dies - Agatha Christie [74]
‘Well, everybody, more or less. They were saying goodbye to Mrs Widburn. I didn’t notice particularly.’
Poirot got up again.
‘Have I been all wrong?’ he murmured as he began once more to pace the floor. ‘All the time, have I been wrong?’
I looked at him with sympathy. Exactly what the ideas were that passed through his head I did not know. ‘Close as an oyster’ Japp had called him, and the Scotland Yard inspector’s words were truly descriptive. I only know that now, at this moment, he was at war with himself.
‘At any rate,’ I said, ‘this murder cannot be put down to Ronald Marsh.’
‘It is a point in his favour,’ my friend said absent-mindedly. ‘But that does not concern us for the moment.’
Abruptly, as before, he sat down.
‘I cannot be entirely wrong. Hastings, do you remember that I once posed to myself five questions?’
‘I seem to remember dimly something of the sort.’
‘They were: Why did Lord Edgware change his mind on the subject of divorce? What is the explanation of the letter he said he wrote to his wife and which she said she never got? Why was there that expression of rage on his face when we left his house that day? What were a pair of pince-nez doing in Carlotta Adams’ handbag? Why did someone telephone to Lady Edgware at Chiswick and immediately ring off ?’
‘Yes, these were the questions,’ I said. ‘I remember now.’
‘Hastings, I have had in mind all along a certain little idea. An idea as to who the man was – the man behind. Three of those questions I have answered – and the answers accord with my little idea. But two of the questions, Hastings, I cannot answer.
‘You see what that means. Either I am wrong as to the person, and it cannot be that person. Or else the answer to the two questions that I cannot answer is there all the time. Which is it, Hastings? Which is it?’
Rising, he went to his desk, unlocked it and took out the letter Lucie Adams had sent him from America. He had asked Japp to let him keep it a day or two and Japp had agreed. Poirot laid it on the table in front of him and pored over it.
The minutes went by. I yawned and picked up a book. I did not think that Poirot would get much result from his study. We had already gone over and over the letter. Granted that it was not Ronald Marsh who was referred to, there was nothing whatever to show who else it might be.
I turned the pages of my book . . .
Possibly dozed off . . .
Suddenly Poirot uttered a low cry. I sat up abruptly. He was looking at me with an indescribable expression, his eyes green and shining.
‘Hastings, Hastings.’
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘Do you remember I said to you that if the murderer had been a man of order and method he would have cut this page, not torn it?’
‘Yes?’
‘I was wrong. There is order and method throughout this crime. The page had to be torn, not cut. Look for yourself.’
I looked.
‘Eh bien, you see?’
I shook my head.
‘You mean he was in a hurry?’
‘Hurry or no hurry it would be the same thing. Do you not see, my friend? The page had to be torn . . .’
I shook my head.
In a low voice Poirot said:
‘I have been foolish. I have been blind. But now – now – we shall get on!’
Chapter 27
Concerning Pince-Nez
A minute later his mood had changed. He sprang to his feet.
I also sprang to mine – completely uncomprehending but willing.
‘We will take a taxi. It is only nine o’clock. Not too late to make a visit.’
I hurried after him down the stairs.
‘Whom are we going to visit?’
‘We are going to Regent Gate.’
I judged it wisest to hold my peace. Poirot, I saw, was not in the mood for being questioned. That he was greatly excited I could see. As we sat side by side in the taxi his fingers drummed on his knees with a nervous impatience most unlike his usual calm.
I went over in my mind every word of Carlotta Adams’ letter to her sister. By this time I almost knew it by heart. I repeated again and again to myself Poirot’s words about the torn page.
But it was no good. As far as I was concerned, Poirot’s words simply did not make sense. Why had a page got to be torn. No,