Your insistence on the figure you had seen, your insistence on Carlile's innocence, your disinclination to have me summoned.
'One thing did puzzle me - the motive. You were, I was convinced, an honest man, a man of integrity. That showed in your anxiety that no innocent person should be suspected. It was also obvious that the theft of the plans might easily affect your career unfavourably. Why, then, this wholly unreason-able theft? And at last the answer came to me. The crisis in your career, some years ago, the assurances given to the world by the prime Minister that you had had no negotiations with the power in question. Suppose that that was not strictly true, that there remained some record - a letter, perhaps - showing that in actual fact you had done what you had publicly denied. Such a denial was necessary in the interests of public policy. But it is doubtful if the man in the street would see it that way. It might mean that at the moment when supreme power might be given into your hands, some stupid echo from the past would undo everything.
'I suspect that that letter has been preserved in the hands of a certain government, that that government offered to trade with you - the letter in exchange for the plans of the new bomber. Some men would have refused. You - did not! You agreed. Mrs Vanderlyn was the agent in the matter. She came here by arrangement to make the exchange. You gave yourself iaway when you admitted that you had formed no definite stratagem for entrapping her. That admission made your 'Sreason for inviting her here incredibly weak.
'You arranged the robbery. Pretended to see the thief on the terrace - thereby clearing Carlile of suspicion. Even if he had not left the room, the desk was so near the window that a thief might have taken the plans while Carlile was busy at the safe with his back turned. You walked over to the desk, took the plans and kept them on your own person until the moment when, by prearranged plan, you slipped them into Mrs Vanderlyn's dressing-case. In return she handed you the fatal letter disguised as an unposted letter of her own.'
Poirot stopped.
Lord Mayfield said:
'Your knowledge is very complete, M. Poirot. You must think me an unutterable skunk.'
Poirot made a quick gesture.
'No, no, Lord Mayfield. I think, as I said, that you are a very clever man. It came to me suddenly as we talked here last night.
You are a first-class engineer. There will be, I think, some subtle alterations in the specifications of that bomber, altera-tions done so skilfully that it will be difficult to grasp why the machine is not the success it ought to be. A certain foreign power will find the type a failure... It will be a disappointment to them, I am sure...'
Again there was a silence - then Lord Mayfield said:
'You are much too clever, M. Poirot. I will only ask you to believe one thing. I have faith in myself. I believe that I am the man to guide England through the days of crisis that I see coming. If I did not honestly believe that I am needed by my country to steer the ship of state, I would not have done what I have done - made the best of both worlds - saved myself from disaster by a clever trick.'
'My lord,' said Poirot, 'if you could not make the best of both worlds, you could not be a politician!'
MURDER IN THE MEWS
CHAPTER I
'Penny for the guy, sir?'
A small boy with a grimy face grinned ingratiatingly.
'Certainly not!' said Chief Inspector Japp. 'And, look here, my lad '
A short homily followed. The dismayed urchin beat a precipitate retreat, remarking briefly and succinctly to his youthful friends:
'Blimey, if it ain't a cop all togged up!'
The band took to its .heels, chanting the incantation:
The chief inspector's companion, a small, elderly man with an egg-shaped head and large, military-looking moustaches, was smiling to himself.
'Très bien, Japp,' he observed. 'You preach the sermon very well! I congratulate you!'
'Rank excuse for begging, that's what Guy Fawkes' Day is!' said Japp.
'An interesting survival,' mused Hercule Poirot 'The fireworks go up - crack - crack - long after the man they commemorate and his deed are forgotten.'
The Scotland Yard man agreed.
'Don't suppose many of those kids really know who Guy Fawkes Was.'
'And soon, doubtless, there will be confusion of thought Is it in honour or in execration that on the fifth of November the feu d'artifice are sent up. To blow up an English Parliament, was it a sin or a noble deed?'
Japp chuckled.
'Some people would say undoubtedly the latter.'
Turning off the main road, the two men passed into the comparative quiet of a mews. They had been dining together and were now taking a short cut to Hercule Poirot's flat As they walked along the sound of squibs was still heard periodically. An occasional shower of golden rain illuminated the sky.
'Good night for a murder,' remarked Japp with professional interest. 'Nobody would hear a shot, for instance, on a night like this.'
'It has always seemed odd to me that more criminals do not take advantage of the fact,' said Hercule Poirot.
'Do you know, Poirot, I almost wish sometimes that you would commit a murder.'
‘Mon cher!’
'Yes, I'd like to see just how you'd set about it.'
'My dear Japp, if I committed a murder you would not have the least chance of seeing - how I set about it! You would not even be aware, probably, that a murder had been committed.'
Japp laughed good-humouredly and affectionately.
'Cocky little devil, aren't you?' he said indulgently.
At half-past eleven the following morning, Hercule Poirot's telephone rang.
"Allo? 'Allo?'
'Hallo, that you, Poirot?'
'Oui, c' est mot'.'
'Japp speaking here. Remember we came home last night through Bardsley Gardens Mews?'
'Yes?'
'And that we talked about how easy it would be to shoot a person with all those squibs and crackers and the rest of it going off?.'
'Well, there was a suicide in that mews. No. 14. A young widow - Mrs Allen. I'm going round there now. Like to come?'
'Excuse me, but does someone of your eminence, my dear friend, usually get sent to a case of suicide?'
'Sharp fellow. No - he doesn't. As a matter of fact our doctor seems to think there's something funny about this. Will you come? I kind of feel you ought to be in on it.'
'Certainly I will come. No. 14, you say?'
'That's right.'
Poirot arrived at No. 14 Bardsley Gardens Mews almost at the same moment as a car drew up containing Japp and three other No. 14 was clearly marked out as the centre of interest. A big circle of people, chauffeurs, their wives, errand boys, loafers, : well-dressed passers-by and innumerable children were drawn up all staring at No. 14 with open mouths and a fascinated stare.