Peril At End House by Agatha Christie

Author:Agatha Christie [Christie, Agatha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1933-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Twelve

ELLEN

Poirot said no word till we had emerged from the nursing home into the outer air. Then he caught me by the arm.

“You see, Hastings? You see? Ah! Sacré tonnerre! I was right! I was right! Always I knew there was something lacking—some piece of the puzzle that was not there. And without that missing piece the whole thing was meaningless.”

His almost despairing triumph was double Dutch to me. I could not see that anything very epoch-making had occurred.

“It was there all the time. And I could not see it. But how should I? To know there is something—that, yes—but to know what that something is. Ah! Ça c’est bien plus difficile.”

“Do you mean that this has some direct bearing on the crime?”

“Ma foi, do you not see?”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t.”

“Is it possible? Why, it gives us what we have been looking for—the motive—the hidden obscure motive!”

“I may be very dense, but I can’t see it. Do you mean jealousy of some kind?”

“Jealousy? No, no, my friend. The usual motive—the inevitable motive. Money, my friend, money!”

“I stared. He went on, speaking more calmly.

“Listen, mon ami. Just over a week ago Sir Matthew Seton dies. And Sir Matthew Seton was a millionaire—one of the richest men in England.”

“Yes, but—”

“Attendez. One step at a time. He has a nephew whom he idolizes and to whom, we may safely assume, he has left his vast fortune.”

“But—”

“Mais oui—legacies, yes, an endowment to do with his hobby, yes, but the bulk of the money would go to Michael Seton. Last Tuesday, Michael Seton is reported missing—and on Wednesday the attacks on Mademoiselle’s life begin. Supposing, Hastings, that Michael Seton made a will before he started on his flight, and that in that will he left all he had to his fiancée.”

“That’s pure supposition.”

“It is supposition—yes. But it must be so. Because, if it is not so, there is no meaning in anything that has happened. It is no paltry inheritance that is at stake. It is an enormous fortune.”

I was silent for some minutes, turning the matter over in my mind. It seemed to me that Poirot was leaping to conclusions in a most reckless manner, and yet I was secretly convinced that he was right. It was his extraordinary flair for being right that influenced me. Yet it seemed to me that there was a good deal to be proved still.

“But if nobody knew of the engagement,” I argued.

“Pah! Somebody did know. For the matter of that, somebody always does know. If they do not know, they guess. Madame Rice suspected. Mademoiselle Nick admitted as much. She may have had means of turning those suspicions into certainties.”

“How?”

“Well, for one thing, there must have been letters from Michael Seton to Mademoiselle Nick. They had been engaged some time. And her best friend could not call that young lady anything but careless. She leaves things here and there, and everywhere. I doubt if she has ever locked up anything in her life. Oh, yes, there would be means of making sure.

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