“It seems the young man is highly born,” said Dr. Bessner. “I must confess he does not look it. His clothes are terrible. Not for a moment does he appear a well-bred man.”
“And what do you think, Mademoiselle?”
“I think he must be just plain crazy,” said Cornelia.
Poirot turned to the doctor. “How is your patient?”
“Ach, he is going on splendidly. I have just reassured the Fräulein de Bellefort. Would you believe it, I found her in despair. Just because the fellow had a bit of a temperature this afternoon! But what could be more natural? It is amazing that he is not in a high fever now. But no, he is like some of our peasants; he has a magnificent constitution, the constitution of an ox. I have seen them with deep wounds that they hardly notice. It is the same with Mr. Doyle. His pulse is steady, his temperature only slightly above normal. I was able to pooh-pooh the little lady’s fears. All the same, it is ridiculous, nicht wahr? One minute you shoot a man; the next you are in hysterics in case he may not be doing well.”
Cornelia said: “She loves him terribly, you see.”
“Ach! but it is not sensible, that. If you loved a man, would you try and shoot him? No, you are sensible.”
“I don’t like things that go off with bangs anyway,” said Cornelia.
“Naturally you do not. You are very feminine.”
Race interrupted this scene of heavy approval. “Since Doyle is all right there’s no reason I shouldn’t come along and resume our talk of this afternoon. He was just telling me about a telegram.”
Dr. Bessner’s bulk moved up and down appreciatively.
“Ho, ho, ho, it was very funny that! Doyle, he tells me about it. It was a telegram all about vegetables—potatoes, artichokes, leeks—Ach! pardon?”
With a stifled exclamation, Race had sat up in his chair.
“My God,” he said. “So that’s it! Richetti!”
He looked round on three uncomprehending faces.
“A new code—it was used in the South African rebellion. Potatoes mean machine guns, artichokes are high explosives—and so on. Richetti is no more an archæologist than I am! He’s a very dangerous agitator, a man who’s killed more than once, and I’ll swear that he’s killed once again. Mrs. Doyle opened that telegram by mistake, you see. If she were ever to repeat what was in it before me, he knew his goose would be cooked!”
He turned to Poirot. “Am I right?” he asked. “Is Richetti the man?”
“He is your man,” said Poirot. “I always thought there was something wrong about him. He was almost too word-perfect in his rôle; he was all archæologist, not enough human being.”
He paused and then said: “But it was not Richetti who killed Linnet Doyle. For some time now I have known what I may express as the ‘first half ’ of the murderer. Now I know the ‘second half ’ also. The picture is complete. But you understand that, although I know what must have happened, I have no proof that it happened. Intellectually the case is satisfying. Actually it is profoundly unsatisfactory. There is only one hope—a confession from the murderer.”
Dr. Bessner raised his shoulders sceptically. “Ah! but that—it would be a miracle.”
“I think not. Not under the circumstances.”
Cornelia cried out: “But who is it? Aren’t you going to tell us?”
Poirot’s eyes ranged quietly over the three of them. Race, smiling sardonically, Bessner, still looking sceptical, Cornelia, her mouth hanging a little open, gazing at him with eager eyes.
“Mais oui,” he said. “I like an audience, I must confess. I am vain, you see. I am puffed up with conceit. I like to say: ‘See how clever is Hercule Poirot!’”
Race shifted a little in his chair.
“Well,” he asked gently, “just how clever is Hercule Poirot?”
Shaking his head sadly from side to side Poirot said: “To begin with I was stupid—incredibly stupid. To me the stumbling block was the pistol—Jacqueline de Bellefort’s pistol. Why had that pistol not been left on the scene of the crime? The idea of the murderer was quite plainly to incriminate her. Why then did the murderer take it away? I was so stupid that I thought of all sorts of fantastic reasons. The real one was very simple. The murderer took it away because he had to take it away—because he had no choice in the matter.”
Twenty-Nine
“You and I, my friend,” Poirot leaned towards Race, “started our investigation with a preconceived idea. That idea was that the crime was committed on the spur of the moment, without any preliminary planning. Somebody wished to remove Linnet Doyle and had seized their opportunity to do so at a moment when the crime would almost certainly be attributed to Jacqueline de Bellefort. It therefore followed that the person in question had overheard the scene between Jacqueline and Simon Doyle and had obtained possession of the pistol after the others had left the saloon.
“But, my friends, if that preconceived idea was wrong, the whole aspect of the case altered. And it was wrong! This was no spontaneous crime committed on the spur of the moment. It was, on the contrary, very carefully planned and accurately timed, with all the details meticulously worked out beforehand, even to the drugging of Hercule Poirot’s bottle of wine on the night in question!