“When did you first begin to suspect Marthe Daubreuil, Poirot? When she
told us she had overheard the quarrel in the garden?”
Poirot smiled.
“My friend, do you remember when we drove into Merlinville that first
day? And the beautiful girl we saw standing at the gate? You asked me
if I had not noticed a young goddess, and I replied to you that I had
seen only a girl with anxious eyes. That is how I have thought of
Marthe Daubreuil from the beginning. _The girl with the anxious
eyes!___ Why was she anxious? Not on Jack Renauld’s behalf, for she did
not know then that he had been in Merlinville the previous evening.”
“By the way,” I exclaimed, “how is Jack Renauld?”
“Much better. He is still at the Villa Marguerite. But Madame Daubreuil
has disappeared. The police are looking for her.”
“Was she in with her daughter, do you think?”
“We shall never know. Madame is a lady who can keep her secrets. And I
doubt very much if the police will ever find her.”
“Has Jack Renauld been—told?”
“Not yet.”
“It will be a terrible shock to him.”
“Naturally. And yet, do you know, Hastings, I doubt if his heart was
ever seriously engaged. So far we have looked upon Bella Duveen as a
siren, and Marthe Daubreuil as the girl he really loved. But I think
that if we reversed the terms we should come nearer to the truth.
Marthe Daubreuil was very beautiful. She set herself to fascinate Jack,
and she succeeded, but remember his curious reluctance to break with
the other girl. And see how he was willing to go to the guillotine
rather than implicate her. I have a little idea that when he learns the
truth he will be horrified—revolted, and his false love will wither
away.”
“What about Giraud?”
“He has a _crise___ of the nerves, that one! He has been obliged to
return to Paris.”
We both smiled.
Poirot proved a fairly true prophet. When at length the doctor
pronounced Jack Renauld strong enough to hear the truth, it was Poirot
who broke it to him. The shock was indeed terrific. Yet Jack rallied
better than I could have supposed possible. His mother’s devotion
helped him to live through those difficult days. The mother and son
were inseparable now.
There was a further revelation to come. Poirot had acquainted Mrs.
Renauld with the fact that he knew her secret, and had represented to
her that Jack should not be left in ignorance of his father’s past.
“To hide the truth, never does it avail, madame! Be brave and tell him
everything.”
With a heavy heart Mrs. Renauld consented, and her son learned that the
father he had loved had been in actual fact a fugitive from justice. A
halting question was promptly answered by Poirot.
“Reassure yourself, M. Jack. The world knows nothing. As far as I can
see, there is no obligation for me to take the police into my
confidence. Throughout the case I have acted, not for them, but for
your father. Justice overtook him at last, but no one need ever know
that he and Georges Conneau were one and the same.”
There were, of course, various points in the case that remained
puzzling to the police, but Poirot explained things in so plausible a
fashion that all query about them was gradually stilled.
Shortly after we got back to London, I noticed a magnificent model of a
foxhound adorning Poirot’s mantelpiece. In answer to my inquiring
glance, Poirot nodded.
“_Mais, oui!___ I got my 500 francs! Is he not a splendid fellow? I
call him Giraud!”
A few days later Jack Renauld came to see us with a resolute expression
on his face.
“M. Poirot, I’ve come to say good-bye. I’m sailing for South America
almost immediately. My father had large interests over the continent,
and I mean to start a new life out there.”
“You go alone, M. Jack?”
“My mother comes with me—and I shall keep Stonor on as my secretary. He
likes out of-the-way parts of the world.”
“No one else goes with you?”
Jack flushed.
“You mean—?”
“A girl who loves you very dearly—who has been willing to lay down her
life for you.”
“How could I ask her?” muttered the boy. “After all that has happened,
could I go to her and—oh, what sort of a lame story could I tell?”
“_Les femmes___—they have a wonderful genius for manufacturing crutches
for stories like that.”
“Yes, but—I’ve been such a damned fool!”
“So have all of us, at one time and another,” observed Poirot
philosophically.
But Jack’s face had hardened.
“There’s something else. I’m my father’s son. Would any one marry me,
knowing that?”
“You are your father’s son, you say. Hastings here will tell you that I
believe in heredity—”
“Well, then—”
“Wait. I know a woman, a woman of courage and endurance, capable of
great love, of supreme self-sacrifice—”
The boy looked up. His eyes softened.
“My mother!”
“Yes. You are your mother’s son as well as your father’s. Go then to
Mademoiselle Bella. Tell her everything. Keep nothing back—and see what
she will say!”
Jack looked irresolute.
“Go to her as a boy no longer, but a man—a man bowed by the fate of the
Past, and the fate of Today, but looking forward to a new and wonderful
life. Ask her to share it with you. You may not realize it, but your
love for each other has been tested in the fire and not found wanting.
You have both been willing to lay down your lives for each other.”
And what of Captain Arthur Hastings, humble chronicler of these pages?
There is some talk of his joining the Renaulds on a ranch across the
seas, but for the end of this story I prefer to go back to a morning in
the garden of the Villa Geneviève.
“I can’t call you Bella,” I said, “since it isn’t your name. And Dulcie
seems so unfamiliar. So it’s got to be Cinderella. Cinderella married
the Prince, you remember. I’m not a Prince, but—”
She interrupted me.
“Cinderella warned him, I’m sure! You see, she couldn’t promise to turn
into a princess. She was only a little scullion after all—”
“It’s the Prince’s turn to interrupt,” I interpolated. “Do you know
what he said?”
“No?”
“‘Hell!’ said the Prince—and kissed her!”
And I suited the action to the word.