One, two, buckle my shoe - Agatha Christie [63]
He stopped.
‘Yes?’ said Hercule Poirot: and his voice was still urgent — compelling —
Carter’s voice croaked uncertainly.
‘And he was lying there — dead. It’s true! I swear it’s true! Lying just as they said at the inquest. I couldn’t believe it at first. I stooped over him. But he was dead all right. His hand was stone cold and I saw the bullet hole in his head with a hard black crust of blood round it…’
At the memory of it, sweat broke out on his forehead again.
‘I saw then I was in a jam. They’d go and say I’d done it. I hadn’t touched anything except his hand and the door-handle. I wiped that with my handkerchief, both sides, as I went out, and I stole downstairs as quickly as I could. There was nobody in the hall and I let myself out and legged it away as fast as I could. No wonder I felt queer.’
He paused. His scared eyes went to Poirot.
‘That’s the truth. I swear that’s the truth…He was dead already. You’ve got to believe me!’
Poirot got up. He said — and his voice was tired and sad — ‘I believe you.’
He moved towards the door.
Frank Carter cried out:
‘They’ll hang me — they’ll hang me for a cert if they know I was in there.’
Poirot said:
‘By telling the truth you have saved yourself from being hanged.’
‘I don’t see it. They’ll say —’
Poirot interrupted him.
‘Your story has confirmed what I knew to be the truth. You can leave it now to me.’
He went out.
He was not at all happy.
IV
He reached Mr Barnes’ House at Ealing at 6.45. He remembered that Mr Barnes had called that a good time of day.
Mr Barnes was at work in his garden.
He said by way of greeting:
‘We need rain, M. Poirot — need it badly.’
He looked thoughtfully at his guest. He said:
‘You don’t look very well, M. Poirot?’
‘Sometimes,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘I do not like the things I have to do.’
Mr Barnes nodded his head sympathetically.
He said:
‘I know.’
Hercule Poirot looked vaguely round at the neat arrangement of the small beds. He murmured:
‘It is well-planned, this garden. Everything is to scale. It is small but exact.’
Mr Barnes said:
‘When you have only a small place you’ve got to make the most of it. You can’t afford to make mistakes in the planning.’
Hercule Poirot nodded.
Barnes went on:
‘I see you’ve got your man?’
‘Frank Carter?’
‘Yes. I’m rather surprised, really.’
‘You did not think that it was, so to speak, a private murder?’
‘No. Frankly I didn’t. What with Amberiotis and Alistair Blunt — I made sure that it was one of these Espionage or Counter-Espionage mix-ups.’
‘That is the view you expounded to me at our first meeting.’
‘I know. I was quite sure of it at the time.’
Poirot said slowly:
‘But you were wrong.’
‘Yes. Don’t rub it in. The trouble is, one goes by one’s own experience. I’ve been mixed up in that sort of thing so much I suppose I’m inclined to see it everywhere.’
Poirot said:
‘You have observed in your time a conjurer offer a card, have you not? What is called — forcing a card?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘That is what was done here. Every time that one thinks of a private reason for Morley’s death, hey presto — the card is forced on one. Amberiotis, Alistair Blunt, the unsettled state of politics — of the country —’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘As for you, Mr Barnes, you did more to mislead me than anybody.’
‘Oh, I say, Poirot, I’m sorry. I suppose that’s true.’
‘You were in a position to know, you see. So your words carried weight.’
‘Well — I believed what I said. That’s the only apology I can make.’
He paused and sighed.
‘And all the time, it was a purely private motive?’
‘Exactly. It has taken me a long time to see the reason for the