Murder in the Mews - Agatha Christie [22]
Jane flung her head back.
‘Do you wonder I did what I did? And you stand there calling it murder!’
‘Because it is murder,’ Poirot’s voice was stern. ‘Murder can sometimes seem justified, but it is murder all the same. You are truthful and clear-minded — face the truth, mademoiselle! Your friend died, in the last resort, because she had not the courage to live. We may sympathize with her. We may pity her. But the fact remains — the act was hers — not another.’
He paused.
‘And you? That man is now in prison, he will serve a long sentence for other matters. Do you really wish, of your own volition, to destroy the life — the life, mind — of any human being?’
She stared at him. Her eyes darkened. Suddenly she muttered:
‘No. You’re right. I don’t.’
Then, turning on her heel, she went swiftly from the room. The outer door banged…
II
Japp gave a long — a very prolonged — whistle.
‘Well, I’m damned!’ he said.
Poirot sat down and smiled at him amiably. It was quite a long time before the silence was broken. Then Japp said:
‘Not murder disguised as suicide, but suicide made to look like murder!’
‘Yes, and very cleverly done, too. Nothing overemphasized.’
Japp said suddenly:
‘But the attaché-case? Where did that come in?’
‘But, my dear, my very dear friend, I have already told you that it did not come in.’
‘Then why —’
‘The golf clubs. The golf clubs, Japp. They were the golf clubs of a left-handed person. Jane Plenderleith kept her clubs at Wentworth. Those were Barbara Allen’s clubs. No wonder the girl got, as you say, the wind up when we opened that cupboard. Her whole plan might have been ruined. But she is quick, she realized that she had, for one short moment, given herself away. She saw that we saw. So she does the best thing she can think of on the spur of the moment. She tries to focus our attention on the wrong object. She says of the attaché-case “That’s mine. I — it came back with me this morning. So there can’t be anything there.” And, as she hoped, away you go on the false trail. For the same reason, when she sets out the following day to get rid of the golf clubs, she continues to use the attaché-case as a — what is it — kippered herring?’
‘Red herring. Do you mean that her real object was —?’
‘Consider, my friend. Where is the best place to get rid of a bag of golf clubs? One cannot burn them or put them in a dustbin. If one leaves them somewhere they may be returned to you. Miss Plenderleith took them to a golf course. She leaves them in the clubhouse while she gets a couple of irons from her own bag, and then she goes round without a caddy. Doubtless at judicious intervals she breaks a club in half and throws it into some deep undergrowth, and ends by throwing the empty bag away. If anyone should find a broken golf club here and there it will not create surprise. People have been known to break and throw away all their clubs in a mood of intense exasperation over the game! It is, in fact, that kind of game!
‘But since she realizes that her actions may still be a matter of interest, she throws that useful red herring — the attaché-case — in a somewhat spectacular manner into the lake — and that, my friend, is the truth of “The Mystery of the Attaché-Case.”’
Japp looked at his friend for some moments in silence. Then he rose, clapped him on the shoulder, and burst out laughing.
‘Not so bad for an old dog! Upon my word, you take the cake! Come out and have a spot of lunch?’
‘With pleasure, my friend, but we will not have the cake. Indeed, an Omelette aux Champignons, Blanquette de Veau, Petits pois à la Francaise, and — to follow — a Baba au Rhum.’
‘Lead me to it,’ said Japp.
The Incredible Theft
Chapter 1
As the butler