APOLOGIA
Five a.m. I am very tired—but I have finished my task. My arm aches
from writing.
A strange end to my manuscript. I meant it to be published some day as
the history of one of Poirot’s failures! Odd, how things pan out.
All along I’ve had a premonition of disaster, from the moment I saw
Ralph Paton and Mrs. Ferrars with their heads together. I thought then
that she was confiding in him; as it happened I was quite wrong there,
but the idea persisted even after I went into the study with Ackroyd
that night, until he told me the truth.
Poor old Ackroyd. I’m always glad that I gave him a chance. I urged him
to read that letter before it was too late. Or let me be honest—didn’t
I subconsciously realize that with a pig-headed chap like him, it was
my best chance of getting him _not_ to read it? His nervousness that
night was interesting psychologically. He knew danger was close at
hand. And yet he never suspected _me_.
The dagger was an afterthought. I’d brought up a very handy little
weapon of my own, but when I saw the dagger lying in the silver table,
it occurred to me at once how much better it would be to use a weapon
that couldn’t be traced to me.
I suppose I must have meant to murder him all along. As soon as I heard
of Mrs. Ferrars’s death, I felt convinced that she would have told him
everything before she died. When I met him and he seemed so agitated,
I thought that perhaps he knew the truth, but that he couldn’t bring
himself to believe it, and was going to give me the chance of refuting
it.
So I went home and took my precautions. If the trouble were after all
only something to do with Ralph—well, no harm would have been done. The
dictaphone he had given me two days before to adjust. Something had
gone a little wrong with it, and I persuaded him to let me have a go at
it, instead of sending it back. I did what I wanted to it, and took it
up with me in my bag that evening.
I am rather pleased with myself as a writer. What could be neater, for
instance, than the following:—
“_The letters were brought in at twenty minutes to nine. It was just
on ten minutes to nine when I left him, the letter still unread. I
hesitated with my hand on the door handle, looking back and wondering
if there was anything I had left undone._”
All true, you see. But suppose I had put a row of stars after the first
sentence! Would somebody then have wondered what exactly happened in
that blank ten minutes?
When I looked round the room from the door, I was quite satisfied.
Nothing had been left undone. The dictaphone was on the table by the
window, timed to go off at nine-thirty (the mechanism of that little
device was rather clever—based on the principle of an alarm clock), and
the arm-chair was pulled out so as to hide it from the door.
I must admit that it gave me rather a shock to run into Parker just
outside the door. I have faithfully recorded that fact.
Then later, when the body was discovered, and I had sent Parker to
telephone for the police, what a judicious use of words: “_I did
what little had to be done!_” It was quite little—just to shove the
dictaphone into my bag and push back the chair against the wall in
its proper place. I never dreamed that Parker would have noticed
that chair. Logically, he ought to have been so agog over the body
as to be blind to everything else. But I hadn’t reckoned with the
trained-servant complex.
I wish I could have known beforehand that Flora was going to say she’d
seen her uncle alive at a quarter to ten. That puzzled me more than
I can say. In fact, all through the case there have been things that
puzzled me hopelessly. Every one seems to have taken a hand.
My greatest fear all through has been Caroline. I have fancied she
might guess. Curious the way she spoke that day of my “strain of
weakness.”
Well, she will never know the truth. There is, as Poirot said, one way
out....
I can trust him. He and Inspector Raglan will manage it between them. I
should not like Caroline to know. She is fond of me, and then, too, she
is proud.... My death will be a grief to her, but grief passes....
When I have finished writing, I shall enclose this whole manuscript in
an envelope and address it to Poirot.
And then—what shall it be? Veronal? There would be a kind of poetic
justice. Not that I take any responsibility for Mrs. Ferrars’s death.
It was the direct consequence of her own actions. I feel no pity for
her.
I have no pity for myself either.
So let it be veronal.
But I wish Hercule Poirot had never retired from work and come here to
grow vegetable marrows.
THE END
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The story of a girl who thought love more powerful than
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A story in which Nancy Gage found after trials and tribulations
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SONIA
Sonia Marsh goes to San Francisco to seek a new life and a happy
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SEQUEL TO SONIA
It continues the life story of Sonia Marsh, who left her small
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Jesi a diminutive city of the Italian Marches, was the birthplace of
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UNDER THE TONTO RIM
TAPPAN’S BURRO
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Transcriber’s Notes:
- Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
- Blank pages have been removed.
- Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
- In the line "On this particular night our guests were Miss Ganett,
and Colonel Carter who lives near the church." it is unclear who
"who lives" refers to, so a comma was added as the simplest change.