Agatha Christie - Murder in the mews

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?’

She stared at him. Her eyes darkened. Suddenly she muttered:

‘No. You’re right. I don’t.’

Then, turning on her heel, she went swiftly from the room. The outer door banged…

Japp gave a long—a very prolonged—whistle.

‘Well, I’m damned!’ he said.

Poirot sat down and smiled at him amiably. It was quite a long time before the silence was broken. Then Japp said:

‘Not murder disguised as suicide, but suicide made to look like murder!’

‘Yes, and very cleverly done, too. Nothing overemphasized.’

Japp said suddenly:

‘But the attaché-case? Where did that come in?’

‘But, my dear, my very dear friend, I have already told you that it did not come in .’

‘Then why—’

‘The golf clubs. The golf clubs, Japp. They were the golf clubs of a left-handed person . Jane Plenderleith kept her clubs at Wentworth. Those were Barbara Allen’s clubs. No wonder the girl got, as you say, the wind up when we opened that cupboard. Her whole plan might have been ruined. But she is quick, she realized that she had, for one short moment, given herself away. She saw that we saw. So she does the best thing she can think of on the spur of the moment. She tries to focus our attention on the wrong object . She says of the attaché-case “That’s mine. I—it came back with me this morning. So there can’t be anything there.” And, as she hoped, away you go on the false trail. For the same reason, when she sets out the following day to get rid of the golf clubs, she continues to use the attaché-case as a—what is it—kippered herring?’

‘Red herring. Do you mean that her real object was—?’

‘Consider, my friend. Where is the best place to get rid of a bag of golf clubs? One cannot burn them or put them in a dustbin. If one leaves them somewhere they may be returned to you. Miss Plenderleith took them to a golf course. She leaves them in the clubhouse while she gets a couple of irons from her own bag, and then she goes round without a caddy. Doubtless at judicious intervals she breaks a club in half and throws it into some deep undergrowth, and ends by throwing the empty bag away. If anyone should find a broken golf club here and there it will not create surprise. People have been known to break and throw away all their clubs in a mood of intense exasperation over the game! It is, in fact, that kind of game!