The Labors of Hercules - Agatha Christie [65]
White, shaking, Hugh asked:
“Who did it? Why?”
Hercule Poirot said:
“That is what I have been studying ever since I arrived here. I have been looking for a motive for murder. Diana Maberly gained financially by your death, but I did not consider her seriously—”
Hugh Chandler flashed out:
“I should hope not!”
“I envisaged another possible motive. The eternal triangle; two men and a woman. Colonel Frobisher had been in love with your mother, Admiral Chandler married her.”
Admiral Chandler cried out:
“George? George! I won’t believe it.”
Hugh said in an incredulous voice:
“Do you mean that hatred could go on—to a son?”
Hercule Poirot said:
“Under certain circumstances, yes.”
Frobisher cried out:
“It’s a damned lie! Don’t believe him, Charles.”
Chandler shrank away from him. He muttered to himself:
“The datura . . . India—yes, I see . . . And we’d never suspect poison—not with madness in the family already. . . .”
“Mais oui!” Hercule Poirot’s voice rose high and shrill. “Madness in the family. A madman—bent on revenge—cunning—as madmen are, concealing his madness for years.” He whirled round on Frobisher. “Mon Dieu, you must have known, you must have suspected, that Hugh was your son? Why did you never tell him so?”
Frobisher stammered, gulped.
“I didn’t know. I couldn’t be sure . . . You see, Caroline came to me once—she was frightened of something—in great trouble. I don’t know, I never have known, what it was all about. She—I—we lost our heads. Afterwards I went away at once—it was the only thing to be done, we both knew we’d got to play the game. I—well, I wondered, but I couldn’t be sure. Caroline never said anything that led me to think Hugh was my son. And then when this—this streak of madness appeared, it settled things definitely, I thought.”
Poirot said:
“Yes, it settled things! You could not see the way the boy has of thrusting out his face and bringing down his brows—a trick he inherited from you. But Charles Chandler saw it. Saw it years ago—and learnt the truth from his wife. I think she was afraid of him—he’d begun to show her the mad streak—that was what drove her into your arms—you whom she had always loved. Charles Chandler planned his revenge. His wife died in a boating accident. He and she were out in the boat alone and he knows how that accident came about. Then he settled down to feed his concentrated hatred against the boy who bore his name but who was not his son. Your Indian stories put the idea of datura poisoning into his head. Hugh should be slowly driven mad. Driven to the stage where he would take his own life in despair. The blood lust was Admiral Chandler’s, not Hugh’s. It was Charles Chandler who was driven to cut the throats of sheep in lonely fields. But it was Hugh who was to pay the penalty!
“Do you know when I suspected? When Admiral Chandler was so averse to his son seeing a doctor. For Hugh to object was natural enough. But the father! There might be treatment which would save his son—there were a hundred reasons why he should seek to have a doctor’s opinion. But no, a doctor must not be allowed to see Hugh Chandler—in case a doctor should discover that Hugh was sane!”
Hugh said very quietly:
“Sane . . . I am sane?”
He took a step towards Diana. Frobisher said in a gruff voice:
“You’re sane enough. There’s no taint in our family.”
Diana said:
“Hugh . . .”
Admiral Chandler picked up Hugh’s gun. He said:
“All a lot of nonsense! Think I’ll go and see if I can get a rabbit—”
Frobisher started forward, but the hand of Hercule Poirot restrained him. Poirot said:
“You said yourself—just now—that it was the best way. . . .”
Hugh and Diana had gone from the room.
The two men, the Englishman and the Belgian, watched the last of the Chandlers cross the Park and go up into the woods.
Presently, they heard a shot. . . .
Eight
THE HORSES OF DIOMEDES
The telephone rang.
“Hallo, Poirot, is that