The Mysterious Affair at Styles Read online

  CHAPTER XII. THE LAST LINK

  POIROT'S abrupt departure had intrigued us all greatly. Sunday morningwore away, and still he did not reappear. But about three o'clock aferocious and prolonged hooting outside drove us to the window, to seePoirot alighting from a car, accompanied by Japp and Summerhaye. Thelittle man was transformed. He radiated an absurd complacency. He bowedwith exaggerated respect to Mary Cavendish.

  "Madame, I have your permission to hold a little _réunion_ in the_salon_? It is necessary for every one to attend."

  Mary smiled sadly.

  "You know, Monsieur Poirot, that you have _carte blanche_ in every way."

  "You are too amiable, madame."

  Still beaming, Poirot marshalled us all into the drawing-room, bringingforward chairs as he did so.

  "Miss Howard--here. Mademoiselle Cynthia. Monsieur Lawrence. The goodDorcas. And Annie. _Bien!_ We must delay our proceedings a few minutesuntil Mr. Inglethorp arrives. I have sent him a note."

  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 few minuteslater Alfred Inglethorp entered the room.

  The company once assembled, Poirot rose from his seat with the air of apopular lecturer, and bowed politely to his audience.

  "_Messieurs, mesdames_, as you all know, I was called in by MonsieurJohn Cavendish to investigate this case. I at once examined the bedroomof the deceased which, by the advice of the doctors, had been keptlocked, and was consequently exactly as it had been when the tragedyoccurred. I found: first, a fragment of green material; second, a stainon the carpet near the window, still damp; thirdly, an empty box ofbromide powders.

  "To take the fragment of green material first, I found it caught in thebolt of the communicating door between that room and the adjoining oneoccupied by Mademoiselle Cynthia. I handed the fragment over tothe police who did not consider it of much importance. Nor did theyrecognize it for what it was--a piece torn from a green land armlet."

  There was a little stir of excitement.

  "Now there was only one person at Styles who worked on the land--Mrs.Cavendish. Therefore it must have been Mrs. Cavendish who enteredthe deceased's room through the door communicating with MademoiselleCynthia's room."

  "But that door was bolted on the inside!" I cried.

  "When I examined the room, yes. But in the first place we have onlyher word for it, since it was she who tried that particular door andreported it fastened. In the ensuing confusion she would have had ampleopportunity to shoot the bolt across. I took an early opportunityof verifying my conjectures. To begin with, the fragment correspondsexactly with a tear in Mrs. Cavendish's armlet. Also, at the inquest,Mrs. Cavendish declared that she had heard, from her own room, the fallof the table by the bed. I took an early opportunity of testing thatstatement by stationing my friend Monsieur Hastings in the left wing ofthe building, just outside Mrs. Cavendish's door. I myself, in companywith the police, went to the deceased's room, and whilst there I,apparently accidentally, knocked over the table in question, but foundthat, as I had expected, Monsieur Hastings had heard no sound at all.This confirmed my belief that Mrs. Cavendish was not speaking the truthwhen she declared that she had been dressing in her room at the time ofthe tragedy. In fact, I was convinced that, far from having been in herown room, Mrs. Cavendish was actually in the deceased's room when thealarm 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 in hermother-in-law's room. We will say that she is seeking for something andhas not yet found it. Suddenly Mrs. Inglethorp awakens and is seizedwith an alarming paroxysm. She flings out her arm, overturning the bedtable, and then pulls desperately at the bell. Mrs. Cavendish, startled,drops her candle, scattering the grease on the carpet. She picks it up,and retreats quickly to Mademoiselle Cynthia's room, closing the doorbehind her. She hurries out into the passage, for the servants must notfind her where she is. But it is too late! Already footsteps are echoingalong the gallery which connects the two wings. What can she do? Quickas thought, she hurries back to the young girl's room, and startsshaking her awake. The hastily aroused household come trooping down thepassage. They are all busily battering at Mrs. Inglethorp's door. Itoccurs to nobody that Mrs. Cavendish has not arrived with the rest,but--and this is significant--I can find no one who saw her come fromthe other wing." He looked at Mary Cavendish. "Am I right, madame?"

  She bowed her head.

  "Quite right, monsieur. You understand that, if I had thought I would domy husband any good by revealing these facts, I would have done so.But it did not seem to me to bear upon the question of his guilt orinnocence."

  "In a sense, that is correct, madame. But it cleared my mind of manymisconceptions, and left me free to see other facts in their truesignificance."

  "The will!" cried Lawrence. "Then it was you, Mary, who destroyed thewill?"

  She shook her head, and Poirot shook his also.

  "No," he said quietly. "There is only one person who could possibly havedestroyed 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 no otherway can you account for the fact that, on one of the hottest days of theyear, Mrs. Inglethorp ordered a fire to be lighted in her room."

  I gave a gasp. What idiots we had been never to think of that fire asbeing incongruous! Poirot was continuing:

  "The temperature on that day, messieurs, was 80 degrees in the shade.Yet Mrs. Inglethorp ordered a fire! Why? Because she wished to destroysomething, and could think of no other way. You will remember that, inconsequence of the War economics practiced at Styles, no waste paper wasthrown away. There was therefore no means of destroying a thick documentsuch as a will. The moment I heard of a fire being lighted in Mrs.Inglethorp's room, I leaped to the conclusion that it was to destroysome important document--possibly a will. So the discovery of thecharred fragment in the grate was no surprise to me. I did not, ofcourse, know at the time that the will in question had only been madethis afternoon, and I will admit that, when I learnt that fact, I fellinto a grievous error. I came to the conclusion that Mrs. Inglethorp'sdetermination to destroy her will arose as a direct consequence of thequarrel she had that afternoon, and that therefore the quarrel tookplace after, and not before the making of the will.

  "Here, as we know, I was wrong, and I was forced to abandon that idea.I faced the problem from a new standpoint. Now, at 4 o'clock, Dorcasoverheard her mistress saying angrily: 'You need not think that anyfear of publicity, or scandal between husband and 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 hourlater, she uses almost the same words, but the standpoint is different.She admits to Dorcas, 'I don't know what to do; scandal between husbandand wife is a dreadful thing.' At 4 o'clock she has been angry, butcompletely mistress of herself. At 5 o'clock she is in violent distress,and speaks of having had a great shock.

  "Looking at the matter psychologically, I drew one deduction which Iwas convinced was correct. The second 'scandal' she spoke of was not thesame 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 validity of wills,makes a will in favour of her husband, which the two gardeners witness.At 5 o'clock, Dorcas finds her mistress in a state of considerableagitation, with a slip of paper--'a letter,' Dorcas thinks--in herhand, and it is then that she orders the fire in her room to be lighted.Presumably, then, between 4.30 and 5 o'clock, something has occurred tooccasion
a complete revolution of feeling, since she is now as anxiousto destroy 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. Nobodyentered or left that boudoir. What then occasioned this sudden change ofsentiment?

  "One can only guess, but I believe my guess to be correct. Mrs.Inglethorp had no stamps in her desk. We know this, because later sheasked Dorcas to bring her some. Now in the opposite corner of the roomstood her husband's desk--locked. She was anxious to find some stamps,and, according to my theory, she tried her own keys in the desk.That one of them fitted I know. She therefore opened the desk, and insearching for the stamps she came across something else--that slip ofpaper which Dorcas saw in her hand, and which assuredly was never meantfor Mrs. Inglethorp's eyes. On the other hand, Mrs. Cavendish believedthat the slip of paper to which her mother-in-law clung so tenaciouslywas a written proof of her own husband's infidelity. She demanded itfrom Mrs. Inglethorp who assured her, quite truly, that it had nothingto do with that matter. Mrs. Cavendish did not believe her. She thoughtthat Mrs. Inglethorp was shielding her stepson. Now Mrs. Cavendish isa very resolute woman, and, behind her mask of reserve, she was madlyjealous of her husband. She determined to get hold of that paper at allcosts, and in this resolution chance came to her aid. She happened topick up the key of Mrs. Inglethorp's despatch-case, which had beenlost that morning. She knew that her mother-in-law invariably kept allimportant papers in this particular case.

  "Mrs. Cavendish, therefore, made her plans as only a woman drivendesperate through jealousy could have done. Some time in the evening sheunbolted the door leading into Mademoiselle Cynthia's room. Possibly sheapplied oil to the hinges, for I found that it opened quite noiselesslywhen I tried it. She put off her project until the early hours of themorning as being safer, since the servants were accustomed to hearingher move about her room at that time. She dressed completely in her landkit, and made 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 through allthe tumult and noise next door Mademoiselle Cynthia slept. That admittedof two possibilities. Either her sleep was feigned--which I did notbelieve--or her unconsciousness was indeed by artificial means.

  "With this latter idea in my mind, I examined all the coffee-cupsmost carefully, remembering that it was Mrs. Cavendish who had broughtMademoiselle Cynthia her coffee the night before. I took a sample fromeach cup, and had them analysed--with no result. I had counted the cupscarefully, in the event of one having been removed. Six persons hadtaken coffee, and six cups were duly found. I had to confess myselfmistaken.

  "Then I discovered that I had been guilty of a very grave oversight.Coffee had been brought in for seven persons, not six, for Dr.Bauerstein had been there that evening. This changed the face of thewhole affair, for there was now one cup missing. The servants noticednothing, since Annie, the housemaid, who took in the coffee, broughtin seven cups, not knowing that Mr. Inglethorp never drank it, whereasDorcas, who cleared them away the following morning, found six asusual--or strictly speaking she found five, the sixth being the onefound broken in Mrs. Inglethorp's room.

  "I was confident that the missing cup was that of Mademoiselle Cynthia.I had an additional reason for that belief in the fact that all thecups found contained sugar, which Mademoiselle Cynthia never took inher coffee. My attention was attracted by the story of Annie aboutsome 'salt' on the tray of cocoa which she took every night to Mrs.Inglethorp's room. I accordingly secured a sample of that cocoa, andsent 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 whether strychninewas, or was not, present. He did not have it tested, as I did, for anarcotic."

  "For a narcotic?"

  "Yes. Here is the analyst's report. Mrs. Cavendish administered asafe, but effectual, narcotic to both Mrs. Inglethorp and MademoiselleCynthia. And it is possible that she had a _mauvais quart d'heure_ inconsequence! Imagine her feelings when her mother-in-law is suddenlytaken ill and dies, and immediately after she hears the word 'Poison'!She has believed that the sleeping draught she administered wasperfectly harmless, but there is no doubt that for one terrible momentshe must have feared that Mrs. Inglethorp's death lay at her door. Sheis seized with panic, and under its influence she hurries downstairs,and quickly drops the coffee-cup and saucer used by Mademoiselle Cynthiainto a large brass vase, where it is discovered later by MonsieurLawrence. The remains of the cocoa she dare not touch. Too many eyesare upon her. Guess at her relief when strychnine is mentioned, and shediscovers that after all the tragedy is not her doing.

  "We are now able to account for the symptoms of strychnine poisoningbeing so long in making their appearance. A narcotic taken withstrychnine will delay the action of the poison for some hours."

  Poirot paused. Mary looked up at him, the colour slowly rising in herface.

  "All you have said is quite true, Monsieur Poirot. It was the mostawful hour of my life. I shall never forget it. But you are wonderful. Iunderstand now----"

  "What I meant when I told you that you could safely confess to PapaPoirot, eh? But you would not trust me."

  "I see everything now," said Lawrence. "The drugged cocoa, taken on topof the poisoned coffee, amply accounts for the delay."

  "Exactly. But was the coffee poisoned, or was it not? We come to alittle 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 in Mrs.Inglethorp's room? There were some peculiar points about that stain. Itwas still damp, it exhaled a strong odour of coffee, and imbedded inthe nap of the carpet I found some little splinters of china. What hadhappened was plain to me, for not two minutes before I had placed mylittle case on the table near the window, and the table, tilting up, haddeposited it upon the floor on precisely the identical spot. In exactlythe same way, Mrs. Inglethorp had laid down her cup of coffee onreaching her room the night before, and the treacherous table had playedher the same trick.

  "What happened next is mere guess work on my part, but I should say thatMrs. Inglethorp picked up the broken cup and placed it on the table bythe bed. Feeling in need of a stimulant of some kind, she heated upher cocoa, and drank it off then and there. Now we are faced with a newproblem. We know the cocoa contained no strychnine. The coffee was neverdrunk. Yet the strychnine must have been administered between sevenand nine o'clock that evening. What third medium was there--a medium sosuitable for disguising the taste of strychnine that it is extraordinaryno one 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--in themixture. The strychnine that killed Mrs. Inglethorp was the identicalstrychnine prescribed by Dr. Wilkins. To make that clear to you, Iwill read you an extract from a book on dispensing which I found in theDispensary of the Red Cross Hospital at Tadminster:

  "'The following prescription has become famous in text books:

  Strychninae Sulph. . . . . . gr.I Potass Bromide . . . . . . . 3vi Aqua ad. . . . . . . . . . . 3viii Fiat Mistura

  This solution deposits in a few hours the greater part of the strychninesalt as an insoluble bromide in transparent crystals. A lady in Englandlost her life by taking a similar mixture: the precipitated strychninecollected at the bottom, and in taking the last dose she swallowednearly all of it!"

  "Now there was, of course, no bromide in Dr. Wilkins' prescription, butyou will
remember that I mentioned an empty box of bromide powders.One or two of those powders introduced into the full bottle of medicinewould effectually precipitate the strychnine, as the book describes,and cause it to be taken in the last dose. You will learn later thatthe person who usually poured out Mrs. Inglethorp's medicine was alwaysextremely careful not to shake the bottle, but to leave the sediment atthe bottom of it undisturbed.

  "Throughout the case, there have been evidences that the tragedy wasintended to take place on Monday evening. On that day, Mrs. Inglethorp'sbell wire was neatly cut, and on Monday evening Mademoiselle Cynthia wasspending the night with friends, so that Mrs. Inglethorp would havebeen quite alone in the right wing, completely shut off from help of anykind, and would have died, in all probability, before medical aid couldhave been summoned. But in her hurry to be in time for the villageentertainment Mrs. Inglethorp forgot to take her medicine, and the nextday she lunched away from home, so that the last--and fatal--dose wasactually taken twenty-four hours later than had been anticipated by themurderer; and it is owing to that delay that the final proof--the lastlink of the chain--is now in my hands."

  Amid breathless excitement, he held out three thin strips of paper.

  "A letter in the murderer's own hand-writing, mes amis! Had it been alittle clearer in its terms, it is possible that Mrs. Inglethorp, warnedin time, would have escaped. As it was, she realized her danger, but notthe manner of it."

  In the deathly silence, Poirot pieced together the slips of paper and,clearing his throat, read:

  _"'Dearest Evelyn:_

  "_'You will be anxious at hearing nothing. It is all right--only it willbe to-night instead of last night. You understand. There's a goodtime coming once the old woman is dead and out of the way. No onecan possibly bring home the crime to me. That idea of yours about thebromides was a stroke of genius! But we must be very circumspect. Afalse step----'_

  "Here, my friends, the letter breaks off. Doubtless the writer wasinterrupted; but there can be no question as to his identity. We allknow 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 quick movement onhis part, and his assailant fell with a crash.

  "_Messieurs, mesdames_," said Poirot, with a flourish, "let me introduceyou to the murderer, Mr. Alfred Inglethorp!"