Peril At End House Part 24

'The bullet grazed my shoulder-that is all.'

She put him aside with a gentle hand and bent down.

The man's eyes opened and he saw her looking down at him.

'I've done for you this time, I hope,' he said in a low vicious snarl, and then, his voice changing suddenly till it sounded like a child's, 'Oh! Freddie, I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it. You've always been so decent to me...'

'It's all right-'

She knelt down beside him.

'I didn't mean-'

His head dropped. The sentence was never finished.

Frederica looked up at Poirot.

'Yes, Madame, he is dead,' he said, gently.

She rose slowly from her knees and stood looking down at him. With one hand she touched his forehead-pitifully, it seemed. Then she sighed and turned to the rest of us.

'He was my husband,' she said, quietly.

'J.,' I murmured.

Poirot caught my remark, and nodded a quick a.s.sent.

'Yes,' he said softly. 'Always I felt that there was a J. I said so from the beginning, did I not?'

'He was my husband,' said Frederica again. Her voice was terribly tired. She sank into a chair that Lazarus brought for her. 'I might as well tell you everything-now.'

'He was-completely debased. He was a drug fiend. He taught me to take drugs. I have been fighting the habit ever since I left him. I think-at last-I am nearly cured. But it has been difficult. Oh! so horribly difficult. n.o.body knows how difficult!'

'I could never escape from him. He used to turn up and demand money-with threats. A kind of blackmail. If I did not give him money he would shoot himself. That was always his threat. Then he took to threatening to shoot me. He was not responsible. He was mad-crazy...'

'I suppose it was he who shot Maggie Buckley. He didn't mean to shoot her, of course. He must have thought it was me.

'I ought to have said, I suppose. But, after all, I wasn't sure. And those queer accidents Nick had-that made me feel that perhaps it wasn't him after all. It might have been someone quite different.

'And then-one day-I saw a bit of his handwriting on a torn piece of paper on M. Poirot's table. It was part of a letter he had sent me. I knew then that M. Poirot was on the track.

'Since then I have felt that it was only a matter of time...'

'But I don't understand about the sweets. He wouldn't have wanted to poison Nick. And anyway, I don't see how he could have had anything to do with that. I've puzzled and puzzled.'

She put both hands to her face, then took them away and said with a queer pathetic finality: 'That's all...'

Chapter 21 The Person-K.

Lazarus came quickly to her side. 'My dear,' he said. 'My dear.'

Poirot went to the sideboard, poured out a gla.s.s of wine and brought it to her, standing over her while she drank it.

She handed the gla.s.s back to him and smiled.

'I'm all right now,' she said. 'What-what had we better do next?'

She looked at j.a.pp, but the Inspector shook his head. 'I'm on a holiday, Mrs Rice. Just obliging an old friend-that's all I'm doing. The St Loo police are in charge of the case.'

She looked at Poirot.

'And M. Poirot is in charge of the St Loo Police?'

'Oh! Quelle idee, Madame! I am a mere humble adviser.'

'M. Poirot,' said Nick. 'Can't we hush it up?'

'You wish that, Mademoiselle?'

'Yes. After all-I'm the person most concerned. And there will be no more attacks on me-now.'

'No, that is true. There will be no more attacks on you now.'

'You're thinking of Maggie. But, M. Poirot, nothing will bring Maggie back to life again! If you make all this public, you'll only bring a terrible lot of suffering and publicity on Frederica-and she hasn't deserved it.'

'You say she has not deserved it?'

'Of course she hasn't! I told you right at the beginning that she had a brute of a husband. You've seen to-night-what he was. Well, he's dead. Let that be the end of things. Let the police go on looking for the man who shot Maggie. They just won't find him, that's all.'

'So that is what you say, Mademoiselle? Hush it all up.'

'Yes. Please. Oh! Please. Please, dear M. Poirot.'

Poirot looked slowly round.

'What do you all say?'

Each spoke in turn.

'I agree,' I said, as Poirot looked at me.

'I, too,' said Lazarus.

'Best thing to do,' from Challenger.

'Let's forget everything that's pa.s.sed in this room tonight.' This very determinedly from Croft.

'You would say that!' interpolated j.a.pp.

'Don't be hard on me, dearie,' his wife sniffed to Nick, who looked at her scornfully but made no reply.

'Ellen?'

'Me and William won't say a word, sir. Least said, soonest mended.'

'And you, M. Vyse?'

'A thing like this can't be hushed up,' said Charles Vyse. 'The facts must be made known in the proper quarter.'

'Charles!' cried Nick.

'I'm sorry, dear. I look at it from the legal aspect.' Poirot gave a sudden laugh. 'So you are seven to one. The good j.a.pp is neutral.' 'I'm on holiday,' said j.a.pp, with a grin. 'I don't count.'

'Seven to one. Only M. Vyse holds out-on the side of law and order! You know, M. Vyse, you are a man of character!'

Vyse shrugged his shoulders.

'The position is quite clear. There is only one thing to do.'

'Yes-you are an honest man. Eh bien -I, too, range myself on the side of the minority. I, too, am for the truth.'

'M. Poirot!' cried Nick.

'Mademoiselle-you dragged me into the case. I came into it at your wish. You cannot silence me now.'

He raised a threatening forefinger in a gesture that I knew well. 'Sit down-all of you, and I will tell you-the truth.'

Silenced by his imperious att.i.tude, we sat down meekly and turned attentive faces towards him.

'Ecoutez! I have a list here-a list of persons connected with the crime. I numbered them with the letters of the alphabet including the letter J. J. stood for a person unknown-linked to the crime by one of the others. I did not know who J. was until tonight, but I knew that there was such a person. The events of tonight have proved that I was right.'

'But yesterday, I suddenly realized that I had made a grave error. I had made an omission. I added another letter to my list. The letter K.'

'Another person unknown?' asked Vyse, with a slight sneer.

'Not exactly. I adopted J. as the symbol for a person unknown. Another person unknown would be merely another J. K. has a different significance. It stands for a person who should have been included in the original list, but who was overlooked.'

He bent over Frederica.

'Rea.s.sure yourself, Madame. Your husband was not guilty of murder. It was the person K. who shot Mademoiselle Maggie.'

She stared. 'But who is K.?'

Poirot nodded to j.a.pp. He stepped forward and spoke in tones reminiscent of the days when he had given evidence in police courts.

'Acting on information received, I took up a position here early in the evening, having been introduced secretly into the house by M. Poirot. I was concealed behind the curtains in the drawing-room. When everyone was a.s.sembled in this room, a young lady entered the drawing-room and switched on the light. She made her way to the fireplace and opened a small recess in the panelling that appeared to be operated with a spring. She took from the recess a pistol. With this in her hand she left the room. I followed her and opening the door a crack I was able to observe her further movements. Coats and wraps had been left in the hall by the visitors on arrival. The young lady carefully wiped the pistol with a handkerchief and then placed it in the pocket of a grey wrap, the property of Mrs Rice-'

A cry burst from Nick.

'This is untrue-every word of it!'

Poirot pointed a hand at her.

'Voila!' he said. 'The person K.! It was Mademoiselle Nick who shot her cousin, Maggie Buckley.'

'Are you mad?' cried Nick. 'Why should I kill Maggie?'

'In order to inherit the money left to her by Michael Seton! Her name too was Magdala Buckley-and it was to her he was engaged-not you.'

'You-you-'

She stood there trembling-unable to speak. Poirot turned to j.a.pp.

'You telephoned to the police?'

'Yes, they are waiting in the hall now. They've got the warrant.'

'You're all mad!' cried Nick, contemptuously. She moved swiftly to Frederica's side. 'Freddie, give me your wrist-watch as-as a souvenir, will you?'

Slowly Frederica unclasped the jewelled watch from her wrist and handed it to Nick.

'Thanks. And now-I suppose we must go through with this perfectly ridiculous comedy.'

'The comedy you planned and produced in End House. Yes-but you should not have given the star part to Hercule Poirot. That, Mademoiselle, was your mistake-your very grave mistake.'

Chapter 22 The End of the Story.

'You want me to explain?'

Poirot looked round with a gratified smile and the air of mock humility I knew so well.

We had moved into the drawing-room and our numbers had lessened. The domestics had withdrawn tactfully, and the Crofts had been asked to accompany the police. Frederica, Lazarus, Challenger, Vyse and I remained.

'Eh bien-I confess it-I was fooled-fooled completely and absolutely. The little Nick, she had me where she wanted me, as your idiom so well expresses it. Ah! Madame, when you said that your friend was a clever little liar-how right you were! How right!'

'Nick always told lies,' said Frederica, composedly. 'That's why I didn't really believe in these marvellous escapes of hers.'