“Have you, then, a case of suicide among your patients about which you are not satisfied?”
Peter Lord shook his head.
He sat down opposite Poirot.
He said:
“There’s a young woman. She’s been arrested and she’s going to be tried for murder! I want you to find evidence that will prove that she didn’t do it!”
Poirot’s eyebrows rose a little higher. Then he assumed a discreet and confidential manner.
He said:
“You and this young lady—you are affianced—yes? You are in love with each other?”
Peter Lord laughed—a sharp, bitter laugh.
He said:
“No, it’s not like that! She has the bad taste to prefer a long-nosed supercilious ass with a face like a melancholy horse! Stupid of her, but there it is!”
Poirot said:
“I see.”
Lord said bitterly:
“Oh, yes, you see all right! No need to be so tactful about it. I fell for her straightaway. And because of that I don’t want her hanged. See?”
Poirot said:
“What is the charge against her?”
“She’s accused of murdering a girl called Mary Gerrard, by poisoning her with morphine hydrochloride. You’ve probably read the account of the inquest in the papers.”
Poirot said:
“And the motive?”
“Jealousy!”
“And in your opinion she didn’t do it?”
“No, of course not.”
Hercule Poirot looked at him thoughtfully for a moment or two, then he said:
“What is it exactly that you want me to do? To investigate this matter?”
“I want you to get her off.”
“I am not a defending counsel, mon cher.”
“I’ll put it more clearly: I want you to find evidence that will enable her counsel to get her off.”
Hercule Poirot said:
“You put this a little curiously.”