Sad Cypress

by Agatha Christie

Four

  Closing speech for the Defence.

  “Gentlemen of the jury, the responsibility now rests with you. It is for you to say if Elinor Carlisle is to go forth free from the court. If, after the evidence you have heard, you are satisfied that Elinor Carlisle poisoned Mary Gerrard, then it is your duty to pronounce her guilty.

  “But if it should seem to you that there is equally strong evidence, and perhaps far stronger evidence against another person, then it is your duty to free the accused without more ado.

  “You will have realized by now that the facts of the case are very different from what they originally appeared to be.

  “Yesterday, after the dramatic evidence given by M. Hercule Poirot, I called other witnesses to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the girl Mary Gerrard was the illegitimate daughter of Laura Welman. That being true, it follows, as his lordship will doubtless instruct you, that Mrs. Welman’s next of kin was not her niece, Elinor Carlisle, but her illegitimate daughter who went by the name of Mary Gerrard. And therefore Mary Gerrard at Mrs. Welman’s death inherited a vast fortune. That, gentlemen, is the crux of the situation. A sum in the neighbourhood of two hundred thousand pounds was inherited by Mary Gerrard. But she herself was unaware of the fact. She was also unaware of the true identity of the woman Hopkins. You may think, gentlemen, that Mary Riley or Draper may have had some perfectly legitimate reason for changing her name to Hopkins. If so, why has she not come forward to state what the reason was?

  “All that we do know is this: That at Nurse Hopkins’ instigation, Mary Gerrard made a will leaving everything she had to ‘Mary Riley, sister of Eliza Riley.’ We know that Nurse Hopkins, by reason of her profession, had access to morphine and to apomorphine and was well acquainted with their properties. Furthermore, it has been proved that Nurse Hopkins was not speaking the truth when she said that her wrist had been pricked by a thorn from a thornless rose tree. Why did she lie, if it were not that she wanted hurriedly to account for the mark just made by the hypodermic needle? Remember, too, that the accused has stated on oath that Nurse Hopkins, when she joined her in the pantry, was looking ill, and her face was of a greenish colour—comprehensible enough if she had just been violently sick.

  “I will underline yet another point: If Mrs. Welman had lived twenty-four hours longer, she would have made a will; and in all probability that will would have made a suitable provision for Mary Gerrard, but would not have left her the bulk of her fortune, since it was Mrs. Welman’s belief that her unacknowledged daughter would be happier if she remained in another sphere of life.

  “It is not for me to pronounce on the evidence against another person, except to show that this other person had equal opportunities and a far stronger motive for the murder.

  “Looked at from that point of view, gentlemen of the jury, I submit to you that the case against Elinor Carlisle falls to the ground….”

  II

  From Mr. Justice Beddingfield’s summing-up:

  “…You must be perfectly satisfied that this woman did, in fact, administer a dangerous dose of morphia to Mary Gerrard on July 27th. If you are not satisfied, you must acquit the prisoner.

  “The Prosecution has stated that the only person who had the opportunity to administer poison to Mary Gerrard was the accused. The Defence has sought to prove that there were other alternatives. There is the theory that Mary Gerrard committed suicide, but the only evidence in support of that theory is the fact that Mary Gerrard made a will shortly before she died. There is not the slightest proof that she was depressed or unhappy or in a state of mind likely to lead her to take her own life. It has also been suggested that the morphine might have been introduced into the sandwiches by someone entering the pantry during the time that Elinor Carlisle was at the Lodge. In that case, the poison was intended for Elinor Carlisle, and Mary Gerrard’s death was a mistake. The third alternative suggested by the Defence is that another person had an equal opportunity to administer morphine, and that in the latter case the poison was introduced into the tea and not into the sandwiches. In support of that theory the Defence has called the witness Littledale, who has sworn that the scrap of paper found in the pantry was part of a label on a tube containing tablets of apomorphine hydrochloride, a very powerful emetic. You have had an example of both types of labels submitted to you. In my view, the police were guilty of gross carelessness in not checking the original fragment more closely and in jumping to the conclusion that it was a morphine label.

  “The witness Hopkins has stated that she pricked her wrist on a rose tree at the Lodge. The witness Wargrave has examined that tree, and it has no thorns on it. You have to decide what caused the mark on Nurse Hopkins’ wrist and why she should tell a lie about it….

  “If the Prosecution has convinced you that the accused and no other committed the crime, then you must find the accused guilty.

  “If the alternative theory suggested by the Defence is possible and consistent with the evidence, the accused must be acquitted.

  “I will ask you to consider the verdict with courage and diligence, weighing only the evidence that has been put before you.”

  III

  Elinor was brought back into the court.

  The jury filed in.

  “Gentlemen of the jury, are you agreed upon your verdict?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look upon the prisoner at the bar, and say whether she is guilty or not guilty.”

  “Not guilty….”

  Five

  They had brought her out by a side door.

  She had been aware of faces welcoming her… Roddy…the detective with the big moustaches….

  But it was to Peter Lord that she turned.

  “I want to get away….”

  She was with him now in the smooth Daimler, driving rapidly out of London.

  He had said nothing to her. She had sat in the blessed silence.

  Every minute taking her farther and farther away.

  A new life….

  That was what she wanted….

  A new life.

  She said suddenly:

  “I—I want to go somewhere quiet…where there won’t be any faces….”

  Peter Lord said quietly:

  “That’s all arranged. You’re going to a sanatorium. Quiet place. Lovely gardens. No one will bother you—or get at you.”

  She said with a sigh:

  “Yes—that’s what I want….”

  It was being a doctor, she supposed, that made him understand. He knew—and didn’t bother her. So blessedly peaceful to be here with him, going away from it all, out of London…to a place that was safe….

  She wanted to forget—forget everything… None of it was real any longer. It was all gone, vanished, finished with—the old life and the old emotions. She was a new, strange, defenceless creature, very crude and raw, beginning all over again. Very strange and very afraid….

  But it was comforting to be with Peter Lord….

  They were out of London now, passing through suburbs.

  She said at last:

  “It was all you—all you….”

  Peter Lord said:

  “It was Hercule Poirot. The fellow’s a kind of magician!”

  But Elinor shook her head. She said obstinately:

  “It was you. You got hold of him and made him do it!”

  Peter grinned.

  “I made him do it all right….”

  Elinor said:

  “Did you know I hadn’t done it, or weren’t you sure?”

  Peter said simply:

  “I was never quite sure.”

  Elinor said:

  “That’s why I nearly said: ‘guilty’ right at the beginning…because, you see, I had thought of it… I thought of it that day when I laughed outside the cottage.”

  Peter said:

  “Yes, I knew.”

  She said wonderingly:

  “It seems so queer now…like a kind of possession. That day I bought the paste an
d cut the sandwiches I was pretending to myself, I was thinking: ‘I’ve mixed poison with this, and when she eats she will die—and then Roddy will come back to me.’”

  Peter Lord said:

  “It helps some people to pretend that sort of thing to themselves. It isn’t a bad thing, really. You take it out of yourself in a fantasy. Like sweating a thing out of your system.”

  Elinor said:

  “Yes, that’s true. Because it went—suddenly! The blackness, I mean! When that woman mentioned the rose tree outside the Lodge—it all swung back into—into being normal again….”

  Then with a shiver she said:

  “Afterwards when we went into the morning room and she was dead—dying, at least—I felt then: Is there much difference between thinking and doing murder?”

  Peter Lord said:

  “All the difference in the world!”

  “Yes, but is there?”

  “Of course there is! Thinking murder doesn’t really do any harm. People have silly ideas about that; they think it’s the same as planning murder! It isn’t. If you think murder long enough, you suddenly come through the blackness and feel that it’s all rather silly!”

  Elinor cried:

  “Oh! you are a comforting person….”

  Peter Lord said rather incoherently:

  “Not at all. Just common sense.”

  Elinor said, and there were suddenly tears in her eyes:

  “Every now and then—in court—I looked at you. It gave me courage. You looked so—so ordinary.”

  Then she laughed. “That’s rude!”

  He said:

  “I understand. When you’re in the middle of a nightmare something ordinary is the only hope. Anyway, ordinary things are the best, I’ve always thought so.”

  For the first time since she had entered the car she turned her head and looked at him.

  The sight of his face didn’t hurt her as Roddy’s face always hurt her; it gave her no sharp pang of pain and pleasure mixed; instead, it made her feel warm and comforted.

  She thought:

  “How nice his face is…nice and funny—and, yes, comforting….”

  They drove on.

  They came at last to a gateway and a drive that wound upwards till it reached a quiet white house on the side of a hill.

  He said:

  “You’ll be quite safe here. No one will bother you.”

  Impulsively she laid her hand on his arm.

  She said:

  “You—you’ll come and see me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Often?”

  Peter Lord said:

  “As often as you want me.”

  She said:

  “Please come—very often….”

  Six

  Hercule Poirot said:

  “So you see, my friend, the lies people tell are just as useful as the truth?”

  Peter Lord said:

  “Did everyone tell you lies?”

  Hercule Poirot nodded.

  “Oh, yes! For one reason or another, you comprehend. The one person to whom truth was an obligation and who was sensitive and scrupulous concerning it—that person was the one who puzzled me most!”

  Peter Lord murmured:

  “Elinor herself!”

  “Precisely. The evidence pointed to her as the guilty party. And she herself, with her sensitive and fastidious conscience, did nothing to dispel that assumption. Accusing herself of the will, if not the deed, she came very near to abandoning a distasteful and sordid fight and pleading guilty in court to a crime she had not committed.”

  Peter Lord breathed a sigh of exasperation.

  “Incredible.”

  Poirot shook his head.

  “Not at all. She condemned herself—because she judged herself by a more exacting standard than ordinary humanity applies!”

  Peter Lord said thoughtfully:

  “Yes, she’s like that.”

  Hercule Poirot went on:

  “From the moment that I started my investigations there was always the strong possibility that Elinor Carlisle was guilty of the crime of which she was accused. But I fulfilled my obligations towards you and I discovered that a fairly strong case could be made out against another person.”

  “Nurse Hopkins?”

  “Not to begin with. Roderick Welman was the first person to attract my attention. In his case, again, we start with a lie. He told me that he left England on July 9th and returned on August 1st. But Nurse Hopkins had mentioned casually that Mary Gerrard had rebuffed Roderick. Welman’s advances both in Maidensford ‘and again when she saw him in London.’ Mary Gerrard, you informed me, went to London on July 10th—a day after Roderick Welman had left England. When then did Mary Gerrard have an interview with Roderick Welman in London? I set my burglarious friend to work, and by an examination of Welman’s passport I discovered that he had been in England from July 25th to the 27th. And he had deliberately lied about it.

  “There had always been that period of time in my mind when the sandwiches were on a plate in the pantry and Elinor Carlisle was down at the Lodge. But all along I realized that in that case Elinor must have been the intended victim, not Mary. Had Roderick Welman any motive for killing Elinor Carlisle? Yes, a very good one. She had made a will leaving him her entire fortune; and by adroit questioning I discovered that Roderick Welman could have made himself acquainted with that fact.”

  Peter Lord said:

  “And why did you decide that he was innocent?”

  “Because of one more lie. Such a silly stupid negligible little lie, too. Nurse Hopkins said that she had scratched her wrist on a rose tree, that she had got a thorn in it. And I went and saw the rose tree, and it had no thorns… So clearly Nurse Hopkins had told a lie—and the lie was so silly and so seemingly pointless that it focused my attention upon her.

  “I began to wonder about Nurse Hopkins. Up till then she had struck me as a perfectly credible witness, consistent throughout, with a strong bias against the accused arising naturally enough out of her affection for the dead girl. But now, with that silly pointless little lie in my mind, I considered Nurse Hopkins and her evidence very carefully, and I realized something that I had not been clever enough to see before. Nurse Hopkins knew something about Mary Gerrard which she was very anxious should come out.”

  Peter Lord said in surprise:

  “I thought it was the other way round?”

  “Ostensibly, yes. She gave a very fine performance of someone who knows something and isn’t going to tell! But when I thought it over carefully I realized that every word she had said on the subject had been uttered with diametrically the opposite end in view. My conversation with Nurse O’Brien confirmed that belief. Hopkins had used her very cleverly without Nurse O’Brien being conscious of the fact.

  “It was clear then that Nurse Hopkins had a game of her own to play. I contrasted the two lies, her and Roderick Welman’s. Was either of them capable of an innocent explanation?

  “In Roderick’s case, I answered immediately: Yes. Roderick Welman is a very sensitive creature. To admit that he had been unable to keep to his plan of staying abroad, and had been compelled to slink back and hang round the girl, who would have nothing to do with him, would have been most hurtful to his pride. Since there was no question of his having been near the scene of the murder or of knowing anything about it, he took the line of least resistance and avoided unpleasantness (a most characteristic trait!) by ignoring that hurried visit to England and simply stating that he returned on August 1st when the news of the murder reached him.

  “Now as to Nurse Hopkins, could there be an innocent explanation of her lie? The more I thought of it, the more extraordinary it seemed to me. Why should Nurse Hopkins find it necessary to lie because she had a mark on her wrist? What was the significance of that mark?

  “I began to ask myself certain questions. Who did the morphine that was stolen belong to? Nurse Hopkins. Who could have administered that morphin
e to old Mrs. Welman? Nurse Hopkins. Yes, but why call attention to its disappearance? There could be only one answer to that if Nurse Hopkins was guilty: because the other murder, the murder of Mary Gerrard, was already planned, and a scapegoat had been selected, but that scapegoat must be shown to have had a chance of obtaining morphine.

  “Certain other things fitted in. The anonymous letter written to Elinor. That was to create bad feeling between Elinor and Mary. The idea doubtless was that Elinor would come down and object to Mary’s influence over Mrs. Welman. The fact that Roderick Welman fell violently in love with Mary was, of course, a totally unforeseen circumstance—but one that Nurse Hopkins was quick to appreciate. Here was a perfect motive for the scapegoat, Elinor.

  “But what was the reason for the two crimes? What motive could there be for Nurse Hopkins to do away with Mary Gerrard? I began to see a light—oh, very dim as yet. Nurse Hopkins had a good deal of influence over Mary, and one of the ways she had used that influence was to induce the girl to make a will. But the will did not benefit Nurse Hopkins. It benefited an aunt of Mary’s who lived in New Zealand. And then I remembered a chance remark that someone in the village had made to me. That aunt had been a hospital nurse.

  “The light was not quite so dim now. The pattern—the design of the crime—was becoming apparent. The next step was easy. I visited Nurse Hopkins once more. We both played the comedy very prettily. In the end she allowed herself to be persuaded to tell what she had been aiming to tell all along! Only she tells it, perhaps, just a little sooner than she meant to do! But the opportunity is so good that she cannot resist. And, after all, the truth has got to be known some time. So, with well-feigned reluctance, she produces the letter. And then, my friend, it is no longer conjecture. I know! The letter gives her away.”

  Peter Lord frowned and said:

  “How?”

  “Mon cher! The superscription on that letter was as follows: ‘For Mary, to be sent to her after my death.’ But the gist of the contents made it perfectly plain that Mary Gerrard was not to know the truth. Also, the word sent (not given) on the envelope was illuminating. It was not Mary Gerrard to whom that letter was written, but another Mary. It was to her sister, Mary Riley, in New Zealand, that Eliza Riley wrote the truth.