Chapter XII. The Last Link

by Agatha Christie

　　Poirot's abrupt departure had intrigued us all greatly. Sundaymorning wore away, and still he did not reappear. But aboutthree o'clock a ferocious and prolonged hooting outside drove usto the window, to see Poirot alighting from a car, accompanied byJapp and Summerhaye. The little man was transformed. Heradiated an absurd complacency. He bowed with exaggeratedrespect to Mary Cavendish."Madame, I have your permission to hold a little reunion in thesalon? It is necessary for every one to attend."Mary smiled sadly."You know, Monsieur Poirot, that you have carte blanche in everyway.""You are too amiable, madame."Still beaming, Poirot marshalled us all into the drawing- room,bringing forward chairs as he did so."Miss Howard--here. Mademoiselle Cynthia. Monsieur Lawrence.The good Dorcas. And Annie. Bien! We must delay our proceedingsa few minutes until Mr. Inglethorp arrives. I have sent him anote."Miss Howard rose immediately from her seat."If that man comes into the house, I leave it!""No, no!" Poirot went up to her and pleaded in a low voice.Finally Miss Howard consented to return to her chair. A fewminutes later Alfred Inglethorp entered the room.The company once assembled, Poirot rose from his seat with theair of a popular lecturer, and bowed politely to his audience."Messieurs, mesdames, as you all know, I was called in byMonsieur John Cavendish to investigate this case. I at onceexamined the bedroom of the deceased which, by the advice of thedoctors, had been kept locked, and was consequently exactly as ithad been when the tragedy occurred. I found: first, a fragmentof green material; second, a stain on the carpet near the window,still damp; thirdly, an empty box of bromide powders."To take the fragment of green material first, I found it caughtin the bolt of the communicating door between that room and theadjoining one occupied by Mademoiselle Cynthia. I handed thefragment over to the police who did not consider it of muchimportance. Nor did they recognize it for what it was--a piecetorn from a green land armlet."There was a little stir of excitement."Now there was only one person at Styles who worked on theland--Mrs. Cavendish. Therefore it must have been Mrs. Cavendishwho entered the deceased's room through the door communicatingwith Mademoiselle Cynthia's room.""But that door was bolted on the inside!" I cried."When I examined the room, yes. But in the first place we haveonly her word for it, since it was she who tried that particulardoor and reported it fastened. In the ensuing confusion shewould have had ample opportunity to shoot the bolt across. Itook an early opportunity of verifying my conjectures. To beginwith, the fragment corresponds exactly with a tear in Mrs.Cavendish's armlet. Also, at the inquest, Mrs. Cavendishdeclared that she had heard, from her own room, the fall of thetable by the bed. I took an early opportunity of testing thatstatement by stationing my friend Monsieur Hastings in the leftwing of the building, just outside Mrs. Cavendish's door. Imyself, in company with the police, went to the deceased's room,and whilst there I, apparently accidentally, knocked over thetable in question, but found that, as I had expected, MonsieurHastings had heard no sound at all. This confirmed my beliefthat Mrs. Cavendish was not speaking the truth when she declaredthat she had been dressing in her room at the time of thetragedy. In fact, I was convinced that, far from having been inher own room, Mrs. Cavendish was actually in the deceased's roomwhen the alarm was given."I shot a quick glance at Mary. She was very pale, but smiling."I proceeded to reason on that assumption. Mrs. Cavendish is inher mother-in-law's room. We will say that she is seeking forsomething and has not yet found it. Suddenly Mrs. Inglethorpawakens and is seized with an alarming paroxysm. She flings outher arm, overturning the bed table, and then pulls desperately atthe bell. Mrs. Cavendish, startled, drops her candle, scatteringthe grease on the carpet. She picks it up, and retreats quicklyto Mademoiselle Cynthia's room, closing the door behind her. Shehurries out into the passage, for the servants must not find herwhere she is. But it is too late! Already footsteps are echoingalong the gallery which connects the two wings. What can she do?Quick as thought, she hurries back to the young girl's room, andstarts shaking her awake. The hastily aroused household cometrooping down the passage. They are all busily battering at Mrs.Inglethorp's door. It occurs to nobody that Mrs. Cavendish hasnot arrived with the rest, but--and this is significant--I canfind no one who saw her come from the other wing." He looked atMary Cavendish. "Am I right, madame?"She bowed her head."Quite right, monsieur. You understand that, if I had thought Iwould do my husband any good by revealing these facts, I wouldhave done so. But it did not seem to me to bear upon thequestion of his guilt or innocence.""In a sense, that is correct, madame. But it cleared my mind ofmany misconceptions, and left me free to see other facts in theirtrue significance.""The will!" cried Lawrence. "Then it was you, Mary, whodestroyed the will?"She shook her head, and Poirot shook his also."No," he said quietly. "There is only one person who couldpossibly have destroyed that will--Mrs. Inglethorp herself!""Impossible!" I exclaimed. "She had only made it out that veryafternoon!""Nevertheless, mon ami, it was Mrs. Inglethorp. Because, in noother way can you account for the fact that, on one of thehottest days of the year, Mrs. Inglethorp ordered a fire to belighted in her room."I gave a gasp. What idiots we had been never to think of thatfire as being incongruous! Poirot was continuing:"The temperature on that day, messieurs, was 80 degrees in theshade. Yet Mrs. Inglethorp ordered a fire! Why? Because shewished to destroy something, and could think of no other way.You will remember that, in consequence of the War economicspracticed at Styles, no waste paper was thrown away. There wastherefore no means of destroying a thick document such as a will.The moment I heard of a fire being lighted in Mrs. Inglethorp'sroom, I leaped to the conclusion that it was to destroy someimportant document--possibly a will. So the discovery of thecharred fragment in the grate was no surprise to me. I did not,of course, know at the time that the will in question had onlybeen made this afternoon, and I will admit that, when I learntthat fact, I fell into a grievous error. I came to theconclusion that Mrs. Inglethorp's determination to destroy herwill arose as a direct consequence of the quarrel she had thatafternoon, and that therefore the quarrel took place after, andnot before the making of the will."Here, as we know, I was wrong, and I was forced to abandon thatidea. I faced the problem from a new standpoint. Now, at 4o'clock, Dorcas overheard her mistress saying angrily: 'You neednot think that any fear of publicity, or scandal between husbandand wife will deter me." I conjectured, and conjectured rightly,that these words were addressed, not to her husband, but to Mr.John Cavendish. At 5 o'clock, an hour later, she uses almost thesame words, but the standpoint is different. She admits toDorcas, 'I don't know what to do; scandal between husband andwife is a dreadful thing.' At 4 o'clock she has been angry, butcompletely mistress of herself. At 5 o'clock she is in violentdistress, and speaks of having had a great shock."Looking at the matter psychologically, I drew one deductionwhich I was convinced was correct. The second 'scandal' shespoke of was not the same as the first--and it concerned herself!"Let us reconstruct. At 4 o'clock, Mrs. Inglethorp quarrels withher son, and threatens to denounce him to his wife-- who, by theway, overheard the greater part of the conversation. At 4.30,Mrs. Inglethorp, in consequence of a conversation on the validityof wills, makes a will in favour of her husband, which the twogardeners witness. At 5 o'clock, Dorcas finds her mistress in astate of considerable agitation, with a slip of paper--'aletter,' Dorcas thinks--in her hand, and it is then that sheorders the fire in her room to be lighted. Presumably, then,between 4.30 and 5 o'clock, something has occurred to occasion acomplete revolution of feeling, since she is now as anxious todestroy the will, as she was before to make it. What was thatsomething?"As far as we know, she was quite alone during that half-hour.Nobody entered or left that boudoir. What then occasioned thissudden change of sentiment?"One can only guess, but I believe my guess to be correct. Mrs.Inglethorp had no stamps in her desk. We know this, becauselater she asked Dorcas to bring her some. Now in the oppositecorner of the room stood her husband's desk--locked. She wasanxious to find some stamps, and, according to my theory, shetried her own keys in the desk. That one of them fitted I know.She therefore opened the desk, and in searching for the stampsshe came across something else--that slip of paper which Dorcassaw in her hand, and which assuredly was never meant for Mrs.Inglethorp's eyes. On the other hand, Mrs. Cavendish believedthat the slip of paper to which her mother-in-law clung sotenaciously was a written proof of her own husband's infidelity.She demanded it from Mrs. Inglethorp who assured her, quitetruly, that it had nothing to do with that matter. Mrs.Cavendish did not believe her. She thought that Mrs. Inglethorpwas shielding her stepson. Now Mrs. Cavendish is a very resolutewoman, and, behind her mask of reserve, she was madly jealous ofher husband. She determined to get hold of that paper at allcosts, and in this resolution chance came to her aid. Shehappened to pick up the key of Mrs. Inglethorp's despatch-case,which had been lost that morning. She knew that hermother-in-law invariably kept all important papers in thisparticular case."Mrs. Cavendish, therefore, made her plans as only a woman drivendesperate through jealousy could have done. Some time in theevening she unbolted the door leading into Mademoiselle Cynthia'sroom. Possibly she applied oil to the hinges, for I found thatit opened quite noiselessly when I tried it. She put off herproject until the early hours of the morning as being safer,since the servants were accustomed to hearing her move about herroom at that time. She dressed completely in her land kit, andmade her way quietly through Mademoiselle Cynthia's room intothat of Mrs. Inglethorp."He paused a moment, and Cynthia interrupted:"But I should have woken up if anyone had come through my room?""Not if you were drugged, mademoiselle.""Drugged?""Mais, oui!""You remember"--he addressed us collectively again--"that throughall the tumult and noise next door Mademoiselle Cynthia slept.That admitted of two possibilities. Either her sleep wasfeigned--which I did not believe--or her unconsciousness wasindeed by artificial means."With this latter idea in my mind, I examined all the coffee-cupsmost carefully, remembering that it was Mrs. Cavendish who hadbrought Mademoiselle Cynthia her coffee the night before. I tooka sample from each cup, and had them analysed--with no result. Ihad counted the cups carefully, in the event of one having beenremoved. Six persons had taken coffee, and six cups were dulyfound. I had to confess myself mistaken."Then I discovered that I had been guilty of a very graveoversight. Coffee had been brought in for seven persons, notsix, for Dr. Bauerstein had been there that evening. Thischanged the face of the whole affair, for there was now one cupmissing. The servants noticed nothing, since Annie, thehousemaid, who took in the coffee, brought in seven cups, notknowing that Mr. Inglethorp never drank it, whereas Dorcas, whocleared them away the following morning, found six as usual--orstrictly speaking she found five, the sixth being the one foundbroken in Mrs. Inglethorp's room."I was confident that the missing cup was that of MademoiselleCynthia. I had an additional reason for that belief in the factthat all the cups found contained sugar, which MademoiselleCynthia never took in her coffee. My attention was attracted bythe story of Annie about some 'salt' on the tray of coco whichshe took every night to Mrs. Inglethorp's room. I accordinglysecured a sample of that coco, and sent it to be analysed.""But that had already been done by Dr. Bauerstein," said Lawrencequickly."Not exactly. The analyst was asked by him to report whetherstrychnine was, or was not, present. He did not have it tested,as I did, for a narcotic.""For a narcotic?""Yes. Here is the analyst's report. Mrs. Cavendish administereda safe, but effectual, narcotic to both Mrs. Inglethorp andMademoiselle Cynthia. And it is possible that she had a mauvaisquart d'heure in consequence! Imagine her feelings when hermother-in-law is suddenly taken ill and dies, and immediatelyafter she hears the word 'Poison'! She has believed that thesleeping draught she administered was perfectly harmless, butthere is no doubt that for one terrible moment she must havefeared that Mrs. Inglethorp's death lay at her door. She isseized with panic, and under its influence she hurriesdownstairs, and quickly drops the coffee-cup and saucer used byMademoiselle Cynthia into a large brass vase, where it isdiscovered later by Monsieur Lawrence. The remains of the cocoshe dare not touch. Too many eyes are upon her. Guess at herrelief when strychnine is mentioned, and she discovers that afterall the tragedy is not her doing."We are now able to account for the symptoms of strychninepoisoning being so long in making their appearance. A narcotictaken with strychnine will delay the action of the poison forsome hours."Poirot paused. Mary looked up at him, the colour slowly risingin her face."All you have said is quite true, Monsieur Poirot. It was themost awful hour of my life. I shall never forget it. But youare wonderful. I understand now----""What I meant when I told you that you could safely confess toPapa Poirot, eh? But you would not trust me.""I see everything now," said Lawrence. "The drugged coco, takenon top of the poisoned coffee, amply accounts for the delay.""Exactly. But was the coffee poisoned, or was it not? We come toa little difficulty here, since Mrs. Inglethorp never drank it.""What?" The cry of surprise was universal."No. You will remember my speaking of a stain on the carpet inMrs. Inglethorp's room? There were some peculiar points aboutthat stain. It was still damp, it exhaled a strong odour ofcoffee, and imbedded in the nap of the carpet I found some littlesplinters of china. What had happened was plain to me, for nottwo minutes before I had placed my little case on the table nearthe window, and the table, tilting up, had deposited it upon thefloor on precisely the identical spot. In exactly the same way,Mrs. Inglethorp had laid down her cup of coffee on reaching herroom the night before, and the treacherous table had played herthe same trick."What happened next is mere guess work on my part, but I shouldsay that Mrs. Inglethorp picked up the broken cup and placed iton the table by the bed. Feeling in need of a stimulant of somekind, she heated up her coco, and drank it off then and there.Now we are faced with a new problem. We know the coco containedno strychnine. The coffee was never drunk. Yet the strychninemust have been administered between seven and nine o'clock thatevening. What third medium was there--a medium so suitable fordisguising the taste of strychnine that it is extraordinary noone has thought of it?" Poirot looked round the room, and thenanswered himself impressively. "Her medicine!""Do you mean that the murderer introduced the strychnine into hertonic?" I cried."There was no need to introduce it. It was already there-- inthe mixture. The strychnine that killed Mrs. Inglethorp was theidentical strychnine prescribed by Dr. Wilkins. To make thatclear to you, I will read you an extract from a book ondispensing which I found in the Dispensary of the Red CrossHospital at Tadminster:" 'The following prescription has become famous in text books:Strychninae Sulph . . . . . . gr.IPotass Bromide . . . . . . . 3vi Aquaad . . . . . . . . . . . 3viii FiatMisturaThis solution deposits in a few hours the greater part of thestrychnine salt as an insoluble bromide in transparent crystals.A lady in England lost her life by taking a similar mixture: theprecipitated strychnine collected at the bottom, and in takingthe last dose she swallowed nearly all of it!""Now there was, of course, no bromide in Dr. Wilkins'prescription, but you will remember that I mentioned an empty boxof bromide powders. One or two of those powders introduced intothe full bottle of medicine would effectually precipitate thestrychnine, as the book describes, and cause it to be taken inthe last dose. You will learn later that the person who usuallypoured out Mrs. Inglethorp's medicine was always extremelycareful not to shake the bottle, but to leave the sediment at thebottom of it undisturbed."Throughout the case, there have been evidences that the tragedywas intended to take place on Monday evening. On that day, Mrs.Inglethorp's bell wire was neatly cut, and on Monday eveningMademoiselle Cynthia was spending the night with friends, so thatMrs. Inglethorp would have been quite alone in the right wing,completely shut off from help of any kind, and would have died,in all probability, before medical aid could have been summoned.But in her hurry to be in time for the village entertainment Mrs.Inglethorp forgot to take her medicine, and the next day shelunched away from home, so that the last--and fatal--dose wasactually taken twenty-four hours later than had been anticipatedby the murderer; and it is owing to that delay that the finalproof-- the last link of the chain--is now in my hands."Amid breathless excitement, he held out three thin strips ofpaper."A letter in the murderer's own hand-writing, mes amis! Had itbeen a little clearer in its terms, it is possible that Mrs.Inglethorp, warned in time, would have escaped. As it was, sherealized her danger, but not the manner of it."In the deathly silence, Poirot pieced together the slips of paperand, clearing his throat, read:" 'Dearest Evelyn:'You will be anxious at hearing nothing. It is all right--onlyit will be to-night instead of last night. You understand.There's a good time coming once the old woman is dead and out ofthe way. No one can possibly bring home the crime to me. Thatidea of yours about the bromides was a stroke of genius! But wemust be very circumspect. A false step----'"Here, my friends, the letter breaks off. Doubtless the writerwas interrupted; but there can be no question as to his identity.We all know this hand-writing and----"A howl that was almost a scream broke the silence."You devil! How did you get it?"A chair was overturned. Poirot skipped nimbly aside. A quickmovement on his part, and his assailant fell with a crash."Messieurs, mesdames," said Poirot, with a flourish, "let meintroduce you to the murderer, Mr. Alfred Inglethorp!"