The ABC Murders (19 page)

“
He—he himself—is the killer!
He remembers his headaches—his lapses of memory. He is quite sure of the truth—
he, Alexander Bonaparte Cust, is a homicidal lunatic
.

“His conduct after that is the conduct of a hunted animal. He gets back to his lodgings in London. He is safe there—known. They think he has been in Cheltenham. He has the knife with him still—a thoroughly stupid thing to do, of course. He hides it behind the hall stand.

“Then, one day, he is warned that the police are coming. It is the end! They
know!

“The hunted animal does his last run….

“I don't know why he went to Andover—a morbid desire, I think, to go and look at the place where the crime was committed—the crime
he
committed though he can remember nothing about it….

“He has no money left—he is worn out…his feet lead him of his own accord to the police station.

“But even a cornered beast will fight. Mr. Cust fully believes that he did the murders but he sticks strongly to his plea of inno
cence. And he holds with desperation to that alibi for the second murder. At least that cannot be laid to his door.

“As I say, when I saw him, I knew at once that he was
not
the murderer and that my name
meant
nothing to
him
. I knew, too, that he
thought
himself the murderer!

“After he had confessed his guilt to me, I knew more strongly than ever that my own theory was right.”

“Your theory,” said Franklin Clarke, “is absurd!”

Poirot shook his head.

“No, Mr. Clarke. You were safe enough
so long as no one suspected you
. Once you
were
suspected proofs were easy to obtain.”

“Proofs?”

“Yes. I found the stick that you used in the Andover and Churston murders in a cupboard at Combeside. An ordinary stick with a thick knob handle. A section of wood had been removed and melted lead poured in. Your photograph was picked out from half a dozen others by two people who saw you leaving the cinema when you were supposed to be on the race course at Doncaster. You were identified at Bexhill the other day by Milly Higley and a girl from the Scarlet Runner Roadhouse, where you took Betty Barnard to dine on the fatal evening. And finally—most damning of all—you
overlooked a most elementary precaution
. You left a fingerprint on Cust's typewriter—the typewriter that, if you are innocent, you
could never have handled
.”

Clarke sat quite still for a minute, then he said:

“
Rouge, impair, manque!
—you win, M. Poirot! But it was worth trying!”

With an incredibly rapid motion he whipped out a small automatic from his pocket and held it to his head.

I gave a cry and involuntarily flinched as I waited for the report.

But no report came—the hammer clicked harmlessly.

Clarke stared at it in astonishment and uttered an oath.

“No, Mr. Clarke,” said Poirot. “You may have noticed I had a new manservant today—a friend of mine—an expert sneak thief. He removed your pistol from your pocket, unloaded it, and returned it, all without you being aware of the fact.”

“You unutterable little jackanapes of a foreigner!” cried Clarke, purple with rage.

“Yes, yes, that is how you feel. No, Mr. Clarke, no easy death for you. You told Mr. Cust that you had had near escapes from drowning. You know what that means—that you were born for another fate.”

“You—”

Words failed him. His face was livid. His fists clenched menacingly.

Two detectives from Scotland Yard emerged from the next room. One of them was Crome. He advanced and uttered his time-honoured formula: “I warn you that anything you say may be used as evidence.”

“He has said quite enough,” said Poirot, and he added to Clarke: “You are very full of an insular superiority, but for myself I consider your crime not an English crime at all—not aboveboard—not
sporting
—”

I

I
am sorry to relate that as the door closed behind Franklin Clarke I laughed hysterically.

Poirot looked at me in mild surprise.

“It's because you told him his crime was not sporting,” I gasped.

“It was quite true. It was abominable—not so much the murder of his brother—but the cruelty that condemned an unfortunate man to a living death.
To catch a fox and put him in a box and never let him go!
That is not
le sport!
”

Megan Barnard gave a deep sigh.

“I can't believe it—I can't. Is it true?”

“Yes, mademoiselle. The nightmare is over.”

She looked at him and her colour deepened.

Poirot turned to Fraser.

“Mademoiselle Megan, all along, was haunted by a fear that it was you who had committed the second crime.”

Donald Fraser said quietly:

“I fancied so myself at one time.”

“Because of your dream?” He drew a little nearer to the young man and dropped his voice confidentially. “Your dream has a very natural explanation. It is that you find that already the image of one sister fades in your memory and that its place is taken by the other sister. Mademoiselle Megan replaces her sister in your heart, but since you cannot bear to think of yourself being unfaithful so soon to the dead, you strive to stifle the thought, to kill it! That is the explanation of the dream.”

Fraser's eyes went towards Megan.

“Do not be afraid to forget,” said Poirot gently. “She was not so well worth remembering. In Mademoiselle Megan you have one in a hundred—
un coeur magnifique!
”

Donald Fraser's eyes lit up.

“I believe you are right.”

We all crowded round Poirot asking questions, elucidating this point and that.

“Those questions, Poirot? That you asked of everybody. Was there any point in them?”

“Some of them were
simplement une blague
. But I learnt one thing that I wanted to know—
that Franklin Clarke was in London when the first letter was posted
—and also I wanted to see his face when I asked my question of Mademoiselle Thora. He was off his guard. I saw all the malice and anger in his eyes.”

“You hardly spared my feelings,” said Thora Grey.

“I do not fancy you returned me a truthful answer, mademoiselle,” said Poirot dryly. “And now your second expectation is disappointed. Franklin Clarke will not inherit his brother's money.”

She flung up her head.

“Is there any need for me to stay here and be insulted?”

“None whatever,” said Poirot and held the door open politely for her.

“That fingerprint clinched things, Poirot,” I said thoughtfully. “He went all to pieces when you mentioned that.”

“Yes, they are useful—fingerprints.”

He added thoughtfully:

“I put that in to please you, my friend.”

“But, Poirot,” I cried, “wasn't it
true?
”

“Not in the least,
mon ami,
” said Hercule Poirot.

II

I must mention a visit we had from Mr. Alexander Bonaparte Cust a few days later. After wringing Poirot's hand and endeavouring very incoherently and unsuccessfully to thank him, Mr. Cust drew himself up and said:

“Do you know, a newspaper has actually offered me a hundred pounds—
a hundred pounds
—for a brief account of my life and history—I—I really don't know what to do about it.”

“I should not accept a hundred,” said Poirot. “Be firm. Say five hundred is your price. And do not confine yourself to one newspaper.”

“Do you really think—that I might—”

“You must realize,” said Poirot, smiling, “that you are a very famous man. Practically the most famous man in England today.”

Mr. Cust drew himself up still further. A beam of delight irradiated his face.

“Do you know, I believe you're right! Famous! In all the papers. I shall take your advice, M. Poirot. The money will be most
agreeable—most agreeable. I shall have a little holiday…And then I want to give a nice wedding present to Lily Marbury—a dear girl—really a dear girl, M. Poirot.”

Poirot patted him encouragingly on the shoulder.

“You are quite right. Enjoy yourself. And—just a little word—what about a visit to an oculist? Those headaches, it is probably that you want new glasses.”

“You think that it may have been that all the time?”

“I do.”

Mr. Cust shook him warmly by the hand.

“You're a very great man, M. Poirot.”

Poirot, as usual, did not disdain the compliment. He did not even succeed in looking modest.

When Mr. Cust had strutted importantly out, my old friend smiled across at me.

“So, Hastings—we went hunting once more, did we not?
Vive le sport
.”

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, nineteen plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.

She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now legendary Hercule Poirot with her debut novel
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
. With
The Murder in the Vicarage,
published in 1930, she introduced another beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Additional series characters include the husband-and-wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.

Many of Christie's novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series.
The Mousetrap,
her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history. Among her best-known film adaptations are
Murder on the Orient Express
(1974) and
Death on the Nile
(1978), with Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot, respectively. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.

Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain's highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. Her one hundred and twentieth anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2010.

 

www.AgathaChristie.com

 

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