‘And then comes the inquest. And the girls all go to it. Miss Martindale repeats her story of the telephone call and Edna knows definitely now that the evidence Miss Martindale gives so clearly, with such precision as to the exact time, is untrue. It was then that she asked the constable if she could speak to the inspector. I think probably that Miss Martindale, leaving the Cornmarket in a crowd of people, overheard her asking that. Perhaps by then she had heard the girls chaffing Edna about her shoe accident without realizing what it involved. Anyway, she followed the girl to Wilbraham Crescent. Why did Edna go there, I wonder?’
‘Just to stare at the place where it happened, I expect,’ said Hardcastle with a sigh. ‘People do.’
‘Yes, that is true enough. Perhaps Miss Martindale speaks to her there, walks with her down the road and Edna plumps out her question. Miss Martindale acts quickly. They are just by the telephone box. She says, “This is very important. You must ring up the police at once. The number of the police station is so and so. Ring up and tell them we are both coming there now.” It is second nature for Edna to do what she is told. She goes in, picks up the receiver and Miss Martindale comes in behind her, pulls the scarf round her neck and strangles her.’
‘And nobody saw this?’
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
‘They might have done, but they didn’t! It was just on one o’clock. Lunch time. And what people there were in the Crescent were busy staring at 19. It was a chance boldly taken by a bold and unscrupulous woman.’
Hardcastle was shaking his head doubtfully.
‘Miss Martindale? I don’t see how she can possibly come into it.’
‘No. One does not see at first. But since Miss Martindale undoubtedly killed Edna-oh, yes-only she could have killed Edna, then shemust come into it. And I begin to suspect that in Miss Martindale we have the Lady Macbeth of this crime, a woman who is ruthless and unimaginative.’
‘Unimaginative?’ queried Hardcastle.
‘Oh, yes, quite unimaginative. But very efficient. A good planner.’
‘But why? Where’s the motive?’
Hercule Poirot looked at me. He wagged a finger.
‘So the neighbours’ conversation was no use to you, eh? I found one most illuminating sentence. Do you remember that after talking of living abroad, Mrs Bland remarked that she liked living in Crowdeanbecause she had a sister here. But Mrs Bland was not supposed to have a sister. She had inherited a large fortune a year ago from a Canadian great-uncle because she was the only surviving member of his family.’
Hardcastle sat up alertly.
‘So you think-’
Poirot leaned back in his chair and put his fingertips together. He half closed his eyes and spoke dreamily.
‘Say you are a man, a very ordinary and not too scrupulous man, in bad financial difficulties. A letter comes one day from a firm of lawyers to say that your wife has inherited a big fortune from a great-uncle in Canada. The letter is addressed to Mrs Bland and the only difficulty is that the Mrs Bland who receives it is the wrong Mrs Bland-she is the second wife-not the first one-Imagine the chagrin! The fury! And then an idea comes. Who is to know that it is the wrong Mrs Bland? Nobody in Crowdean knows that Bland was married before. His first marriage, years ago, took place during the war when he was overseas. Presumably his first wife died soon afterwards, and he almost immediately remarried. He has the original marriage certificate, various family papers, photographs of Canadian relations now dead-It will be all plain sailing. Anyway, it is worth risking. They risk it, and it comes off. The legal formalities go through. And there the Blands are, rich and prosperous, all their financial troubles over-
‘And then-a year later-something happens. What happens? I suggest that someone was coming over from Canada to this country-and that this someone had known the first Mrs Bland well enough not to be deceived by an impersonation. He may have been an elderly member of the family attorneys, or a close friend of the family-but whoever he was, he willknow. Perhaps they thought of ways of avoiding a meeting. Mrs Bland could feign illness, she could go abroad-but anything of that kind would only arouse suspicion. The visitor would insist on seeing the woman he had come over to see-’
‘And so-to murder?’
‘Yes. And here, I fancy, Mrs Bland’s sister may have been the ruling spirit. She thought up and planned the whole thing.’
‘You are taking it that Miss Martindale and Mrs Blandare sisters?’
‘It is the only way things make sense.’
‘Mrs Bland did remind me of someone when I saw her,’ said Hardcastle. ‘They’re very different in manner-but it’s true-thereis a likeness. But how could they hope to get away with it?’ The man would be missed. Inquiries would be made-’
‘If this man were travelling abroad-perhaps for pleasure, not for business, his schedule would be vague. A letter from one place-a postcard from another-it would be a little time before people wondered why they had not heard from him. By that time who would connect a man identified and buried as Harry Castleton, with a rich Canadian visitor to the country who has not even been seen in this part of the world? If I had been the murderer, I would have slipped over on a day trip to France or Belgium and discarded the dead man’s passport in a train or a tram so that the inquiry would take place from another country.’
I moved involuntarily, and Poirot’s eyes came round to me.
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘Bland mentioned to me that he had recently taken a day trip to Boulogne-with a blonde, I understand-’
‘Which would make it quite a natural thing to do. Doubtless it is a habit of his.’
‘This is still conjecture,’ Hardcastle objected.
‘But inquiries can be made,’ said Poirot.
He took a sheet of hotel notepaper from the rack in front of him and handed it to Hardcastle.
‘If you will write to Mr Enderby at 10, Ennismore Gardens, S.W.7 he has promised to make certain inquiries for me in Canada. He is a well-known international lawyer.’
‘And what about the business of the clocks?’
‘Oh! The clocks. Those famous clocks!’ Poirot smiled. ‘I think you will find that Miss Martindale was responsible for them. Since the crime, as I said, was a simple crime, it was disguised by making it a fantastic one. That Rosemary clock that Sheila Webb took to be repaired. Did she lose it in the Bureau of Secretarial Studies? Did Miss Martindale take it as the foundation of her rigmarole, and was it partly because of that clock that she chose Sheila as the person to discover the body-?’
Hardcastle burst out:
‘And you say this woman is unimaginative? When she concocted all this?’
‘But she did not concoct it. That is what is so interesting. It was all there-waiting for her. From the very first I detected a pattern-a pattern I knew. A pattern familiar because I had just been reading such patterns. I have been very fortunate. As Colin here will tell you, I attended this week asale of authors’ manuscripts. Among them were some of Garry Gregson’s. I hardly dared hope. But luck was with me.Here -’ Like a conjuror he whipped from a drawer in the desk two shabby exercise books ‘-it is allhere! Among the many plots of books he planned to write. He did not live to write this one-but Miss Martindale, who was his secretary, knew all about it. She just lifted it bodily to suit her purpose.’
‘But the clocks must have meant something originally-in Gregson’s plot, I mean.’
‘Oh, yes. His clocks were set at one minute past five, four minutes past five and seven minutes past five. That was the combination number of a safe, 515457. The safe was concealed behind a reproduction of the Mona Lisa. Inside the safe,’ continued Poirot, with distaste, ‘were the Crown jewels of the Russian Royal Family.Un tas de betises, the whole thing! And of course there was a story of kinds-a persecuted girl. Oh, yes, it came in very handy for la Martindale. She just chose her local characters and adapted the story to fit in. All these flamboyant clues would lead-where? Exactly nowhere! Ah, yes, an efficient woman. One wonders-he left her a legacy-did he not? How and of what did he die, I wonder?’