فصل هجدهم

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

There was a moment of great tension. Poirot said, with a little bow, ‘You have great insight. Madame.’

‘No,’ said Rosamund. ‘I saw you once in a restaurant. A friend told me who you were.’

‘But you have not mentioned it - until now?’

‘I thought it would be more fun not to,’ said Rosamund.

Michael said, ‘My - dear girl.’

Poirot looked at him. Michael was angry. Angry and something else - worried?

Poirot’s eyes went slowly round all the faces. Susan’s, angry and watchful; Gregory’s, closed; Miss Gilchrist’s, foolish, her mouth wide open; George’s, suspicious; Helen’s, upset and nervous.

He wished he could have seen their faces a second earlier, when the words ‘a detective’ fell from Rosamund’s lips. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am a detective. I was asked to investigate Richard Abernethie’s death. It would be good, would it not, if you could be certain that Richard Abernethie died a natural death?’

‘Of course he died a natural death. Who says anything else?’ Susan asked.

‘Cora Lansquenet said so. And Cora Lansquenet is dead herself,’ said Poirot.

‘She said it in this room,’ said Susan. ‘But I didn’t really think.’

‘Didn’t you, Susan?’ George Crossfield said. ‘Why pretend any more? You won’t fool Monsieur Pontarlier!’

‘We all thought so really,’ said Rosamund. ‘And his name is Hercules something.’

Poirot bowed. ‘Hercule Poirot - at your service,’ he said, but his name seemed to mean nothing at all to them.

‘May I ask what conclusions you have come to?’ asked George.

‘He won’t tell you, darling,’ said Rosamund. ‘Or if he does tell you, what he says won’t be true.’

She was the only person in the room who appeared to be amused. Hercule Poirot looked at her thoughtfully.

Hercule Poirot did not sleep well that night. He was anxious, and he was not really sure why he was anxious. In his mind he heard bits of conversation, saw various glances, strange movements. Helen dropping the wax flowers when he had said - what was it he had said? He couldn’t remember.

He slept then, and as he slept he dreamed of the green marble table. On it were the glass-covered wax flowers - only the whole thing had been painted over with thick, red oil paint. Paint the colour of blood and Timothy was saying, ‘I’m dying - dying. this is the end.’

The end - a deathbed, with candles round it and a nun praying. If he could just see the nun’s face, he would know.

Hercule Poirot woke up - and he did know!

Yes, it was the end.

Though there was still a long way to go.

Sitting in front of her dressing table, Helen Abernethie stared at herself in the mirror. What was it George had said? About seeing yourself? That day after the funeral. How had they all looked to Cora? How had Helen herself looked?

Her right - no, her left eyebrow was arched a little higher than the right. The shape of the mouth was the same on both sides. If she met herself, she would surely not see much difference from this mirror image. Not like Cora.

Cora, on the day of the funeral, her head tilted sideways - asking her question - looking at Helen.

Suddenly Helen raised her hands to her face. She said to herself, ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

‘I’m terribly sorry to get you out of bed like this,’ Helen said into the phone, ‘but you did tell me once to ring you up immediately if I remembered what it was that made me uneasy when Cora said that Richard had been murdered.’

‘Ah! And you have remembered?’ Mr Entwhistle said, no longer surprised at being woken at seven in the morning.

‘Yes, but it doesn’t make sense.’

‘Was it something you noticed about one of the people?’

‘Yes. It came to me when I was looking at myself in the mirror. Oh.’

Helen’s little half cry was followed by a sound that Mr Entwhistle couldn’t place at all. He said urgently, ‘Hello - hello - are you there? Helen, are you there?’