‘So that’s what you were getting at!’ Japp sighed. ‘Always have to get at things in such a tortuous way.’
‘Your Sherlock Holmes did the same. He drew attention, remember, to the curious incident of the dog in the night-time—and the answer to that was there was no curious incident. The dog did nothing in the night-time. To proceed:
‘The next thing that attracted my attention was a wrist-watch worn by the dead woman.’
‘What about it?’
‘Nothing particular about it, but it was worn on the right wrist. Now in my experience it is more usual for a watch to be worn on the left wrist.’
Japp shrugged his shoulders. Before he could speak, Poirot hurried on:
‘But as you say, there is nothing very definite about that. Some people prefer to wear one on the right hand. And now I come to something really interesting—I come, my friends, to the writing-bureau.’
‘Yes, I guessed that,’ said Japp.
‘That was really very odd—very remarkable! For two reasons. The first reason was that something was missing from that writing-table.’
Jane Plenderleith spoke.
‘What was missing?’
Poirot turned to her.
‘A sheet of blotting-paper, mademoiselle. The blotting-book had on top a clean, untouched piece of blotting-paper.’
Jane shrugged her shoulders.
‘Really, M. Poirot. People do occasionally tear off a very much used sheet!’
‘Yes, but what do they do with it? Throw it into the waste-paper basket, do they not? But it was not in the waste-paper basket. I looked.’
Jane Plenderleith seemed impatient.
‘Because it had probably been already thrown away the day before. The sheet was clean because Barbara hadn’t written any letters that day.’
‘That could hardly be the case, mademoiselle. For Mrs Allen was seen going to the post-box that evening. Therefore she must have been writing letters. She could not write downstairs—there were no writing materials. She would be hardly likely to go to your room to write. So, then, what had happened to the sheet of paper on which she had blotted her letters? It is true that people sometimes throw things in the fire instead of the waste-paper basket, but there was only a gas fire in the room. And the fire downstairs had not been alight the previous day, since you told me it was all laid ready when you put a match to it.’
He paused.
‘A curious little problem. I looked everywhere, in the waste-paper baskets, in the dustbin, but I could not find a sheet of used blotting-paper—and that seemed to me very important. It looked as though someone had deliberately taken that sheet of blotting paper away. Why? Because there was writing on it that could easily have been read by holding it up to a mirror.
‘But there was a second curious point about the writing-table. Perhaps, Japp, you remember roughly the arrangement of it? Blotter and inkstand in the centre, pen tray to the left, calendar and quill pen to the right. Eh bien? You do not see? The quill pen, remember, I examined, it was for show only—it had not been used. Ah! still you do not see? I will say it again. Blotter in the centre, pen tray to the left—to the left, Japp. But is it not usual to find a pen tray on the right, convenient to the right hand?
‘Ah, now it comes to you, does it not? The pen tray on the left—the wrist-watch on the right wrist—the blotting-paper removed—and something else brought into the room—the ashtray with the cigarette ends!
‘That room was fresh and pure smelling, Japp, a room in which the window had been open, not closed all night…And I made myself a picture.’
He spun round and faced Jane.
‘A picture of you, mademoiselle, driving up in your taxi, paying it off, running up the stairs, calling perhaps, “Barbara”—and you open the door and you find your friend there lying dead with the pistol clasped in her hand—the left hand, naturally, since she is left-handed and therefore, too, the bullet has entered on the left side of the head. There is a note there addressed to you. It tells you what it is that has driven her to take her own life. It was, I fancy, a very moving letter…A young, gentle, unhappy woman driven by blackmail to take her life…
‘I think that, almost at once, the idea flashed into your head. This was a certain man’s doing. Let him be punished—fully and adequately punished! You take the pistol, wipe it and place it in the right hand. You take the note and you tear off the top sheet of the blotting-paper on which the note has been blotted. You go down, light the fire and put them both on the flames. Then you carry up the ashtray—to further the illusion that two people sat there talking—and you also take up a fragment of enamel cuff link that is on the floor. That is a lucky find and you expect it to clinch matters. Then you close the window and lock the door. There must be no suspicion that you have tampered with the room. The police must see it exactly as it is—so you do not seek help in the mews but ring up the police straightaway.
‘And so it goes on. You play your chosen rôle with judgment and coolness. You refuse at first to say anything but cleverly you suggest doubts of suicide. Later you are quite ready to set us on the trail of Major Eustace…
‘Yes, mademoiselle, it was clever—a very clever murder—for that is what it is. The attempted murder of Major Eustace.’
Jane Plenderleith sprang to her feet.
‘It wasn’t murder—it was justice. That man hounded poor Barbara to her death! She was so sweet and helpless. You see, poor kid, she got involved with a man in India when she first went out. She was only seventeen and he was a married man years older than her. Then she had a baby. She could have put it in a home but she wouldn’t hear of that. She went off to some out of the way spot and came back calling herself Mrs Allen. Later the child died. She came back here and she fell in love with Charles—that pompous, stuffed owl; she adored him—and he took her adoration very complacently. If he had been a different kind of man I’d have advised her to tell him everything. But as it was, I urged her to hold her tongue. After all, nobody knew anything about that business except me.
‘And then that devil Eustace turned up! You know the rest. He began to bleed her systematically, but it wasn’t till that last evening that she realised that she was exposing Charles too, to the risk of scandal. Once married to Charles, Eustace had got her where he wanted her—married to a rich man with a horror of any scandal! When Eustace had gone with the money she had got for him she sat thinking it over. Then she came up and wrote a letter to me. She said she loved Charles and couldn’t live without him, but that for his own sake she mustn’t marry him. She was taking the best way out, she said.’
Jane flung her head back.
‘Do you wonder I did what I did? And you stand there calling it murder!’
‘Because it is murder,’ Poirot’s voice was stern. ‘Murder can sometimes seem justified, but it is murder all the same. You are truthful and clear-minded—face the truth, mademoiselle! Your friend died, in the last resort, because she had not the courage to live. We may sympathize with her. We may pity her. But the fact remains—the act was hers—not another.’
He paused.
‘And you? That man is now in prison, he will serve a long sentence for other matters. Do you really wish, of your own volition, to destroy the life—the life, mind—of any human being?’