In another minute he had risen and switched them off. The whole thing had been rushed on the company before they had had the energy to protest had they wanted to do so. As a matter of fact they were, I think, still dazed with astonishment over the will.
The room was not quite dark. The curtains were drawn back and the window was open for it was a hot night, and through those windows came a faint light. After a minute or two, as we sat in silence, I began to be able to make out the faint outlines of the furniture. I wondered very much what I was supposed to do and cursed Poirot heartily for not having given me my instructions beforehand.
However, I closed my eyes and breathed in a rather stertorous manner
Presently Poirot rose and tiptoed to my chair. Then returning to his own, he murmured.
‘Yes, he is already in a trance. Soon—things will begin to happen.’
There is something about sitting in the dark, waiting, that fills one with unbearable apprehension. I know that I myself was a prey to nerves and so, I was sure, was everyone else. And yet I had at least an idea of what was about to happen. I knew the one vital fact that no one else knew.
And yet, in spite of all that, my heart leapt into my mouth as I saw the dining-room door slowly opening.
It did so quite soundlessly (it must have been oiled) and the effect was horribly grisly. It swung slowly open and for a minute or two that was all. With its opening a cold blast of air seemed to enter the room. It was, I suppose, a common or garden draught owing to the open window, but it felt like the icy chill mentioned in all the ghost stories I have ever read.
And then we all saw it! Framed in the doorway was a white shadowy figure. Nick Buckley…
She advanced slowly and noiselessly—with a kind of floating ethereal motion that certainly conveyed the impression of nothing human…
I realized then what an actress the world had missed. Nick had wanted to play a part at End House. Now she was playing it, and I felt convinced that she was enjoying herself to the core. She did it perfectly.
She floated forward into the room—and the silence was broken.
There was a gasping cry from the invalid chair beside me. A kind of gurgle from Mr Croft. A startled oath from Challenger. Charles Vyse drew back his chair, I think. Lazarus leaned forward. Frederica alone made no sound or movement.
And then a scream rent the room. Ellen sprang up from her chair.
‘It’s her!’ she shrieked. ‘She’s come back. She’s walking! Them that’s murdered always walks. It’s her! It’s her!’
And then, with a click the lights went on.
I saw Poirot standing by them, the smile of the ringmaster on his face. Nick stood in the middle of the room in her white draperies.
It was Frederica who spoke first. She stretched out an unbelieving hand—touched her friend.
‘Nick,’ she said. ‘You’re—you’re real!’
It was almost a whisper.
Nick laughed. She advanced.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m real enough. Thank you so much for what you did for my father, Mrs Croft. But I’m afraid you won’t be able to enjoy the benefit of that will just yet.’
‘Oh, my God,’ gasped Mrs Croft. ‘Oh, my God.’ She twisted to and fro in her chair. ‘Take me away, Bert. Take me away. It was all a joke, my dear—all a joke, that’s all it was. Honest.’
‘A queer sort of joke,’ said Nick.
The door had opened again and a man had entered so quietly that I had not heard him. To my surprise I saw that it was Japp. He exchanged a quick nod with Poirot as though satisfying him of something. Then his face suddenly lit up and he took a step forward towards the squirming figure in the invalid chair.
‘Hello-ello-ello,’ he said. ‘What’s this? An old friend! Milly Merton, I declare! And at your old tricks again, my dear.’
He turned round in an explanatory way to the company disregarding Mrs Croft’s shrill protests.
‘Cleverest forger we’ve ever had, Milly Merton. We knew there had been an accident to the car they made their last getaway in. But there! Even an injury to the spine wouldn’t keep Milly from her tricks. She’s an artist, she is!’
‘Was that will a forgery?’ said Vyse.
He spoke in tones of amazement.
‘Of course it was a forgery,’ said Nick scornfully. ‘You don’t think I’d make a silly will like that, do you? I left you End House, Charles, and everything else to Frederica.’
She crossed as she spoke and stood by her friend, and just at that moment it happened!
A spurt of flame from the window and the hiss of a bullet. Then another and the sound of a groan and a fall outside…
And Frederica on her feet with a thin trickle of blood running down her arm…
Chapter 20
J.
It was all so sudden that for a moment no one knew what had happened.
Then, with a violent exclamation, Poirot ran to the window. Challenger was with him.
A moment later they reappeared, carrying with them the limp body of a man. As they lowered him carefully into a big leather armchair and his face came into view, I uttered a cry.
‘The face—the face at the window…’
It was the man I had seen looking in on us the previous evening. I recognized him at once. I realized that when I had said he was hardly human I had exaggerated as Poirot had accused me of doing.
Yet there was something about his face that justified my impression. It was a lost face—the face of one removed from ordinary humanity.
White, weak, depraved—it seemed a mere mask—as though the spirit within had fled long ago.
Down the side of it there trickled a stream of blood.
Frederica came slowly forward till she stood by the chair.
Poirot intercepted her.
‘You are hurt, Madame?’
She shook her head.
‘The bullet grazed my shoulder—that is all.’
She put him aside with a gentle hand and bent down.
The man’s eyes opened and he saw her looking down at him.
‘I’ve done for you this time, I hope,’ he said in a low vicious snarl, and then, his voice changing suddenly till it sounded like a child’s, ‘Oh! Freddie, I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. You’ve always been so decent to me…’
‘It’s all right—’
She knelt down beside him.
‘I didn’t mean—’
His head dropped. The sentence was never finished.
Frederica looked up at Poirot.
‘Yes, Madame, he is dead,’ he said, gently.
She rose slowly from her knees and stood looking down at him. With one hand she touched his forehead—pitifully, it seemed. Then she sighed and turned to the rest of us.
‘He was my husband,’ she said, quietly.
‘J.,’ I murmured.
Poirot caught my remark, and nodded a quick assent.
‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘Always I felt that there was a J. I said so from the beginning, did I not?’
‘He was my husband,’ said Frederica again. Her voice was terribly tired. She sank into a chair that Lazarus brought for her. ‘I might as well tell you everything—now.’
‘He was—completely debased. He was a drug fiend. He taught me to take drugs. I have been fighting the habit ever since I left him. I think—at last—I am nearly cured. But it has been difficult. Oh! so horribly difficult. Nobody knows how difficult!
‘I could never escape from him. He used to turn up and demand money—with threats. A kind of blackmail. If I did not give him money he would shoot himself. That was always his threat. Then he took to threatening to shoot me. He was not responsible. He was mad—crazy…’
‘I suppose it was he who shot Maggie Buckley. He didn’t mean to shoot her, of course. He must have thought it was me.
‘I ought to have said, I suppose. But, after all, I wasn’t sure. And those queer accidents Nick had—that made me feel that perhaps it wasn’t him
after all. It might have been someone quite different.
‘And then—one day—I saw a bit of his handwriting on a torn piece of paper on M. Poirot’s table. It was part of a letter he had sent me. I knew then that M. Poirot was on the track.
‘Since then I have felt that it was only a matter of time…’
‘But I don’t understand about the sweets. He wouldn’t have wanted to poison Nick. And anyway, I don’t see how he could have had anything to do with that. I’ve puzzled and puzzled.’
She put both hands to her face, then took them away and said with a queer pathetic finality:
‘That’s all…’
Chapter 21
The Person—K.
Lazarus came quickly to her side.
‘My dear,’ he said. ‘My dear.’
Poirot went to the sideboard, poured out a glass of wine and brought it to her, standing over her while she drank it.
She handed the glass back to him and smiled.
‘I’m all right now,’ she said. ‘What—what had we better do next?’
She looked at Japp, but the Inspector shook his head. ‘I’m on a holiday, Mrs Rice. Just obliging an old friend—that’s all I’m doing. The St Loo police are in charge of the case.’
She looked at Poirot.
‘And M. Poirot is in charge of the St Loo Police?’
‘Oh! quelle idée, Madame! I am a mere humble adviser.’
‘M. Poirot,’ said Nick. ‘Can’t we hush it up?’
‘You wish that, Mademoiselle?’
‘Yes. After all—I’m the person most concerned. And there will be no more attacks on me—now.’
‘No, that is true. There will be no more attacks on you now.’
‘You’re thinking of Maggie. But, M. Poirot, nothing will bring Maggie back to life again! If you make all this public, you’ll only bring a terrible lot of suffering and publicity on Frederica—and she hasn’t deserved it.’
‘You say she has not deserved it?’
‘Of course she hasn’t! I told you right at the beginning that she had a brute of a husband. You’ve seen to-night—what he was. Well, he’s dead. Let that be the end of things. Let the police go on looking for the man who shot Maggie. They just won’t find him, that’s all.’
‘So that is what you say, Mademoiselle? Hush it all up.’
‘Yes. Please. Oh! Please. Please, dear M. Poirot.’
Poirot looked slowly round.
‘What do you all say?’
Each spoke in turn.
‘I agree,’ I said, as Poirot looked at me.
‘I, too,’ said Lazarus.
‘Best thing to do,’ from Challenger.
‘Let’s forget everything that’s passed in this room tonight.’ This very determinedly from Croft.
‘You would say that!’ interpolated Japp.
‘Don’t be hard on me, dearie,’ his wife sniffed to Nick, who looked at her scornfully but made no reply.
‘Ellen?’
‘Me and William won’t say a word, sir. Least said, soonest mended.’
‘And you, M. Vyse?’
‘A thing like this can’t be hushed up,’ said Charles Vyse. ‘The facts must be made known in the proper quarter.’
‘Charles!’ cried Nick.
‘I’m sorry, dear. I look at it from the legal aspect.’
Poirot gave a sudden laugh.
‘So you are seven to one. The good Japp is neutral.’
‘I’m on holiday,’ said Japp, with a grin. ‘I don’t count.’
‘Seven to one. Only M. Vyse holds out—on the side of law and order! You know, M. Vyse, you are a man of character!’
Vyse shrugged his shoulders.
‘The position is quite clear. There is only one thing to do.’
‘Yes—you are an honest man. Eh bien—I, too, range myself on the side of the minority. I, too, am for the truth.’
‘M. Poirot!’ cried Nick.
‘Mademoiselle—you dragged me into the case. I came into it at your wish. You cannot silence me now.’
He raised a threatening forefinger in a gesture that I knew well.
‘Sit down—all of you, and I will tell you—the truth.’
Silenced by his imperious attitude, we sat down meekly and turned attentive faces towards him.
‘Ecoutez! I have a list here—a list of persons connected with the crime. I numbered them with the letters of the alphabet including the letter J. J. stood for a person unknown—linked to the crime by one of the others. I did not know who J. was until tonight, but I knew that there was such a person. The events of tonight have proved that I was right.
‘But yesterday, I suddenly realized that I had made a grave error. I had made an omission. I added another letter to my list. The letter K.’
‘Another person unknown?’ asked Vyse, with a slight sneer.
‘Not exactly. I adopted J. as the symbol for a person unknown. Another person unknown would be merely another J. K. has a different significance. It stands for a person who should have been included in the original list, but who was overlooked.’
He bent over Frederica.
‘Reassure yourself, Madame. Your husband was not guilty of murder. Itwas the person K. who shot Mademoiselle Maggie.’
She stared.
‘But who is K.?’
Poirot nodded to Japp. He stepped forward and spoke in tones reminiscent of the days when he had given evidence in police courts.
‘Acting on information received, I took up a position here early in the evening, having been introduced secretly into the house by M. Poirot. I was concealed behind the curtains in the drawing-room. When everyone was assembled in this room, a young lady entered the drawing-room and switched on the light. She made her way to the fireplace and opened a small recess in the panelling that appeared to be operated with a spring. She took from the recess a pistol. With this in her hand she left the room. I followed her and opening the door a crack I was able to observe her further movements. Coats and wraps had been left in the hall by the visitors on arrival. The young lady carefully wiped the pistol with a handkerchief and then placed it in the pocket of a grey wrap, the property of Mrs Rice—’
A cry burst from Nick.
‘This is untrue—every word of it!’
Poirot pointed a hand at her.
‘Voilà!’he said. ‘The person K.! It was Mademoiselle Nick who shot her cousin, Maggie Buckley.’
‘Are you mad?’ cried Nick. ‘Why should I kill Maggie?’
‘In order to inherit the money left to her by Michael Seton! Her name too was Magdala Buckley—and it was to her he was engaged—not you.’
‘You—you—’
She stood there trembling—unable to speak. Poirot turned to Japp.
‘You telephoned to the police?’
‘Yes, they are waiting in the hall now. They’ve got the warrant.’
‘You’re all mad!’ cried Nick, contemptuously. She moved swiftly to Frederica’s side. ‘Freddie, give me your wrist-watch as—as a souvenir, will you?’
Slowly Frederica unclasped the jewelled watch from her wrist and handed it to Nick.
‘Thanks. And now—I suppose we must go through with this perfectly ridiculous comedy.’
‘The comedy you planned and produced in End House. Yes—but you should not have given the star part to Hercule Poirot. That, Mademoiselle, was your mistake—your very grave mistake.’
Chapter 22
The End of the Story
‘You want me to explain?’
Poirot looked round with a gratified smile and the air of mock humility I knew so well.
We had moved into the drawing-room and our numbers had lessened. The domestics had withdrawn tactfully, and the Crofts had been asked to accompany the police. Frederica, Lazarus, Challenger, Vyse and I remained.
‘Eh bien—I confess it—I was fooled—fooled completely and absolutely. The little Nick, she had me where she wanted me, as your idiom so well expresses it. Ah! Mad
ame, when you said that your friend was a clever little liar—how right you were! How right!’
‘Nick always told lies,’ said Frederica, composedly. ‘That’s why I didn’t really believe in these marvellous escapes of hers.’
‘And I—imbecile that I was—did!’
‘Didn’t they really happen?’ I asked. I was, I admit, still hopelessly confused.
‘They were invented—very cleverly—to give just the impression they did.’
‘What was that?’
‘They gave the impression that Mademoiselle Nick’s life was in danger. But I will begin earlier than that. I will tell you the story as I have pieced it out—not as it came to me imperfectly and in flashes.
‘At the beginning of the business then, we have this girl, this Nick Buckley, young and beautiful, unscrupulous, and passionately and fanatically devoted to her home.’
Charles Vyse nodded.
‘I told you that.’
‘And you were right. Mademoiselle Nick loved End House. But she had no money. The house was mortgaged. She wanted money—she wanted it feverishly—and she could not get it. She meets this young Seton at Le Touquet, he is attracted by her. She knows that in all probability he is his uncle’s heir and that that uncle is worth millions. Good, her star is in the ascendant, she thinks. But he is not really seriously attracted. He thinks her good fun, that is all. They meet at Scarborough, he takes her up in his machine and then—the catastrophe occurs. He meets Maggie and falls in love with her at first sight.
‘Mademoiselle Nick is dumbfounded. Her cousin Maggie whom she has never considered pretty! But to young Seton she is “different”. The one girl in the world for him. They become secretly engaged. Only one person knows—has to know. That person is Mademoiselle Nick. The poor Maggie—she is glad that there is one person she can talk to. Doubtless she reads to her cousin parts of her fiancé’s letters. So it is that Mademoiselle gets to hear of the will. She pays no attention to it at the time. But it remains in her mind.
‘Then comes the sudden and unexpected death of Sir Matthew Seton, and hard upon that the rumours of Michael Seton’s being missing. And straightaway an outrageous plan comes into our young lady’s head. Seton does not know that her name is Magdala also. He only knows her as Nick. His will is clearly quite informal—a mere mention of a name. But in the eyes of the world Seton is her friend! It is with her that his name has been coupled. If she were to claim to be engaged to him, no one would be surprised. But to do that successfully Maggie must be out of the way.
Peril at End House: A Hercule Poirot Mystery Page 20