“Now, as to the weapon?”
“Well, I can make a guess at it, Captain Hastings. A pair of
revolvers of my husband’s were mounted upon the wall. One of them
is missing. I pointed this out to the police, and they took the
other one away with them. When they have extracted the bullet, I
suppose they will know for certain.”
“May I go to the gun-room?”
“Certainly. The police have finished with it. But the body has been
removed.”
She accompanied me to the scene of the crime. At that moment Havering
entered the hall, and with a quick apology his wife ran to him. I
was left to undertake my investigations alone.
I may as well confess at once that they were rather disappointing.
In detective novels clues abound, but here I could find nothing
that struck me as out of the ordinary except a large bloodstain on
the carpet where I judged the dead man had fallen. I examined
everything with painstaking care and took a couple of pictures of
the room with my little camera which I had brought with me. I also
examined the ground outside the window, but it appeared to have
been so heavily trampled underfoot that I judged it was useless to
waste time over it. No, I had seen all that Hunter’s Lodge had to
show me. I must go back to Elmer’s Dale and get into touch with
Japp. Accordingly I took leave of the Haverings, and was driven
off in the car that had brought us up from the station.
I found Japp at the Matlock Arms and he took me forthwith to see
the body. Harrington Pace was a small, spare clean-shaven man,
typically American in appearance. He had been shot through the back
of the head, and the revolver had been discharged at close quarters.
“Turned away for a moment,” remarked Japp, “and the other fellow
snatched up a revolver and shot him. The one Mrs. Havering handed
over to us was fully loaded and I suppose the other one was also.
Curious what darn fool things people do. Fancy keeping two loaded
revolvers hanging up on your wall.”
“What do you think of the case?” I asked, as we left the gruesome
chamber behind us.
“Well, I’d got my eye on Havering to begin with. Oh, yes!” noting
my exclamation of astonishment. “Havering has one or two shady
incidents in his past. When he was a boy at Oxford there was some
funny business about the signature on one of his father’s cheques.
All hushed up of course. Then, he’s pretty heavily in debt now,
and they’re the kind of debts he wouldn’t like to go to his uncle
about, whereas you may be sure the uncle’s will would be in his
favour. Yes, I’d got my eye on him, and that’s why I wanted to
speak to him before he saw his wife, but their statements dovetail
all right, and I’ve been to the station and there’s no doubt
whatever that he left by the 6.15. That gets up to London about
10.30. He went straight to his club, he says, and if that’s
confirmed all right—why, he couldn’t have been shooting his uncle
here at nine o’clock in a black beard!”
“Ah, yes, I was going to ask you what you thought about that
beard?”
Japp winked.
“I think it grew pretty fast—grew in the five miles from Elmer’s
Dale to Hunter’s Lodge. Americans that I’ve met are mostly
clean-shaven. Yes, it’s amongst Mr. Pace’s American associates that
we’ll have to look for the murderer. I questioned the housekeeper
first, and then her mistress, and their stories agree all right,
but I’m sorry Mrs. Havering didn’t get a look at the fellow. She’s
a smart woman, and she might have noticed something that would set
us on the track.”
I sat down and wrote a minute and lengthy account to Poirot. I was
able to add various further items of information before I posted
the letter.
The bullet had been extracted and was proved to have been fired
from a revolver identical with the one held by the police.
Furthermore, Mr. Havering’s movements on the night in question had
been checked and verified, and it was proved beyond doubt that he
had actually arrived in London by the train in question. And,
thirdly, a sensational development had occurred. A city gentleman,
living at Ealing, on crossing Haven Green to get to the District
Railway Station that morning, had observed a brown-paper parcel
stuck between the railings. Opening it, he found that it contained
a revolver. He handed the parcel over to the local police station,
and before night it was proved to be the one we were in search of,
the fellow to that given us by Mrs. Havering. One bullet had been
fired from it.
All this I added to my report. A wire from Poirot arrived whilst
I was at breakfast the following morning:
“Of course black bearded man was not Havering only you or Japp
would have such an idea wire me description of housekeeper and what
clothes she wore this morning same of Mrs. Havering do not waste
time taking photographs of interiors they are underexposed and not
in the least artistic.”
It seemed to me that Poirot’s style was unnecessarily facetious.
I also fancied he was a shade jealous of my position on the spot
with full facilities for handling the case. His request for a
description of the clothes worn by the two women appeared to me to
be simply ridiculous, but I complied as well as I, a mere man, was
able to.
At eleven a reply wire came from Poirot:
“Advise Japp arrest housekeeper before it is too late.”
Dumbfounded, I took the wire to Japp. He swore softly under his
breath.
“He’s the goods, Monsieur Poirot! If he says so, there’s something
in it. And I hardly noticed the woman. I don’t know that I can go
so far as arresting her, but I’ll have her watched. We’ll go up
right away, and take another look at her.”
But it was too late. Mrs. Middleton, that quiet middle-aged woman,
who had appeared so normal and respectable, had vanished into thin
air. Her box had been left behind. It contained only ordinary
wearing apparel. There was no clue in it to her identity, or as to
her whereabouts.
From Mrs. Havering we elicited all the facts we could:
“I engaged her about three weeks ago when Mrs. Emery, our former
housekeeper, left. She came to me from Mrs. Selbourne’s Agency in
Mount Street—a very well-known place. I get all my servants from
there. They sent several women to see me, but this Mrs. Middleton
seemed much the nicest, and had splendid references. I engaged her
on the spot, and notified the Agency of the fact. I can’t believe
that there was anything wrong with her. She was such a nice quiet
woman.”
The thing was certainly a mystery. Whilst it was clear that the
woman herself could not have committed the crime, since at the
moment the shot was fired Mrs. Havering was with her in the hall,
nevertheless she must have some connection with the murder, or why
should she suddenly take to her heels and bolt?
I wired the latest development to Poirot and suggested returning
to London and making inquiries at Selbourne’s Agency.
Poirot’s reply was prompt:
“Useless to inquire at agency they will never have heard of her
find out what vehicle took her up to hunters lodge when she first
arrived there.”
Though mystified, I was obedient. The means of transport in Elmer’s
Dale were limited. The local garage had two battered Ford cars,
and there were two station flies. None of these had been
requisitioned on the date in question. Questioned, Mrs. Havering
explained that she had given the woman the money for her fare down
to Derbyshire and sufficient to hire a car or fly to take her up
to Hunter’s Lodge. There was usually one of the Fords at the
station on the chance of its being required. Taking into
consideration the further fact that nobody at the station had
noticed the arrival of a stranger, black-bearded or otherwise, on
the fatal evening, everything seemed to point to the conclusion
that the murderer had come to the spot in a car, which had been
waiting near at hand to aid his escape, and that the same car had
brought the mysterious housekeeper to her new post. I may mention
that inquiries at the Agency in London bore out Poirot’s
prognostication. No such woman as “Mrs. Middleton” had ever been
on their books. They had received the Hon. Mrs. Havering’s
application for a housekeeper, and had sent her various applicants
for the post. When she sent them the engagement fee, she omitted
to mention which woman she had selected.
Somewhat crestfallen, I returned to London. I found Poirot
established in an arm-chair by the fire in a garish, silk
dressing-gown. He greeted me with much affection.
“_Mon ami_ Hastings! But how glad I am to see you. Veritably I have
for you a great affection. And you have enjoyed yourself? You have
run to and fro with the good Japp? You have interrogated and
investigated to your heart’s content?”
“Poirot,” I cried, “the thing’s a dark mystery! It will never be
solved.”
“It is true that we are not likely to cover ourselves with glory
over it.”
“No, indeed. It’s a hard nut to crack.”
“Oh, as far as that goes, I am very good at cracking the nuts! A
veritable squirrel! It is not that which embarrasses me. I know
well enough who killed Mr. Harrington Pace.”
“You know? How did you find out?”
“Your illuminating answers to my wires supplied me with the truth.
See here, Hastings, let us examine the facts methodically and in
order. Mr. Harrington Pace is a man with a considerable fortune
which at his death will doubtless pass to his nephew. Point No. 1.
His nephew is known to be desperately hard up. Point No. 2. His
nephew is also known to be—shall we say a man of rather loose
moral fibre? Point No. 3.”
“But Roger Havering is proved to have journeyed straight up to
London.”
“_Précisément_—and therefore, as Mr. Havering left Elmer’s Dale at
6.15, and since Mr. Pace cannot have been killed before he left,
or the doctor would have spotted the time of the crime as being
given wrongly when he examined the body, we conclude quite rightly,
that Mr. Havering did not shoot his uncle. But there is a Mrs.
Havering, Hastings.”
“Impossible! The housekeeper was with her when the shot was fired.”
“Ah, yes, the housekeeper. But she has disappeared.”
“She will be found.”
“I think not. There is something peculiarly elusive about that
housekeeper, don’t you think so, Hastings? It struck me at once.”
“She played her part, I suppose, and then got out in the nick of
time.”
“And what was her part?”
“Well, presumably to admit her confederate, the black-bearded man.”
“Oh, no, that was not her part! Her part was what you have just
mentioned, to provide an alibi for Mrs. Havering at the moment the
shot was fired. And no one will ever find her, _mon ami_, because
she does not exist! ‘There’s no sech person,’ as your so great
Shakespeare says.”
“It was Dickens,” I murmured, unable to suppress a smile. “But what
do you mean, Poirot?”
“I mean that Zoe Havering was an actress before her marriage, that
you and Japp only saw the housekeeper in a dark hall, a dim
middle-aged figure in black with a faint subdued voice, and finally
that neither you nor Japp, nor the local police whom the housekeeper
fetched, ever saw Mrs. Middleton and her mistress at one and the
same time. It was child’s play for that clever and daring woman.
On the pretext of summoning her mistress, she runs upstairs, slips
on a bright jumper and a hat with black curls attached which she
jams down over the grey transformation. A few deft touches, and
the make-up is removed, a slight dusting of rouge, and the brilliant
Zoe Havering comes down with her clear ringing voice. Nobody looks
particularly at the housekeeper. Why should they? There is nothing
to connect her with the crime. She, too, has an alibi.”
“But the revolver that was found at Ealing? Mrs. Havering could
not have placed it there?”
“No, that was Roger Havering’s job—but it was a mistake on their
part. It put me on the right track. A man who has committed a
murder with a revolver which he found on the spot would fling it
away at once, he would not carry it up to London with him. No, the
motive was clear, the criminals wished to focus the interest of
the police on a spot far removed from Derbyshire they were anxious
to get the police away as soon as possible from the vicinity of
Hunter’s Lodge. Of course the revolver found at Ealing was not the
one with which Mr. Pace was shot. Roger Havering discharged one
shot from it, brought it up to London, went straight to his club
to establish his alibi, then went quickly out to Ealing by the
district, a matter of about twenty minutes only, placed the parcel
where it was found and so back to town. That charming creature,
his wife, quietly shoots Mr. Pace after dinner—you remember he was
shot from behind? Another significant point, that!—reloads the
revolver and puts it back in its place, and then starts off with
her desperate little comedy.”
“It’s incredible,” I murmured, fascinated, “and yet——”
“And yet it is true. _Bien sur_, my friend, it is true. But to
bring that precious pair to justice, that is another matter. Well,
Japp must do what he can—I have written him fully—but I very much
fear, Hastings, that we shall be obliged to leave them to Fate, or
_le bon Dieu_, whichever you prefer.”
“The wicked flourish like a green bay tree,” I reminded him.
“But at a price, Hastings, always at a price, _croyez-moi!_”
Poirot’s forebodings were confirmed. Japp, though convinced of the
truth of his theory, was unable to get together the necessary
evidence to ensure a conviction.
Mr. Pace’s huge fortune passed into the hands of his murderers.
Nevertheless, Nemesis did overtake them, and when I read in the
paper that the Hon. Roger and Mrs. Havering were amongst those
killed in the crashing of the Air Mail to Paris I knew that Justice
was satisfied.
V