Agatha Christie - Hickory Dickory Dock

I firmly believe that once a killer, always a killer. There might be, in the future, other victims. I made a bargain with my son, and whether I did right or wrong, I do not know. He was to write out a confession of his crime which I should keep. He was comto leave my house and never return, but make a new are for hijnself. I would give him a second chance. Money belonging to his mother would come to him automatically. He had had a good education. He had every chance of making good.

But-if he were convicted of any criminal activity whatsoever the confession he had left with me should go to the police. I safeguarded myself by explaining that my own death would not solve the probleM. "You are my oldest friend. I am placing a bur den on your shoulders, but I ask it in the name of a dead woman who was also your friend. Find Nigel. If his record is clean destroy this letter and the enclosed confession. If not-then justice must be done.

Your affectionate friend, Arthur Stanley

"Ah!" Poirot breathed a long sigh. He unfolded the enclosure.

I hereby confess that I murdered my mother by giving her an overdose of medinal on Novem her 18, 195-.

Nigel Stanley.

"YOU QUITE UNDERSTAND your position, Miss Hobhouse. I have already warned you" Valerie Hobhouse cut him short.

"I know what I'm doing. You've warned me that what I say will be used in evidence. I'm prepared for that. You've got me on the smuggling charge. I haven't got a hope. That means a long term of imprisonment. This other means that I'll be charged as an accessory to murder."

"Your being willing to make a statement may help you, but I can't make any promise or hold out any inducement."

"I don't know that I care. Just as well end it all as languish in prison for years. I want to make a statement. I may be what you call an accessory, but I'm not a killer. I never intended murder or wanted it. I'm not such a fool. What I do want is that there should be a clear case against Nigel.

"Celia knew far too much, but I could have dealt with that somehow. Nigel didn't give me time. He got her to come out and meet him, told her that he was going to own up to the rucksack and the ink business and then slipped her the morphia in a cup of coffee. He'd got hold of her letter to Mrs. Hubbard earlier on and had torn out a useful "suicide" phrase. He put that and the empty morphia phial (which he had retrieved after pretending to throw it away) by her bed. I see now that he'd been contemplating murder for quite a little time. Then he came and told me what he'd done.

For my own sake I had to stand in with him. The same thing must have happened with Mrs. Nick.

He'd found out that she drank, that she was getting unreliable-he managed to meet her somewhere on her way home, and poisoned her drink. He denied it to but I know that that's what he did. Then came Pat. He came up to my room and told me what had happened. He told me what I'd got to do-so that both he and I would have an unbreakable alibi. I was in the net by then, there was no way out… I suppose, if you hadn't caught me, I'd have gone abroad somewhere, and made a new life for myself. But you did catch me… And now I only care about one thing-to make sure that that cruel smiling devil gets hanged." Inspector Sharpe drew a deep breath. All this was eminently satisfactory, it was an unbelievable piece of luck; but he was puzzled.

The Constable licked his pencil.

"I'm not sure that I quite understand," began Sharpe.

She cut him short.

"You don't need to understand. I've got my reasons." Hercule Poirot spoke very gently.

"Mrs. Nicoletis?" he asked.

He heard the sharp intake of her breath.

"She was-your mother, was she not?"

"Yes," said Valerie Hobhouse. "She was my mother…

"I DO NOT UNDERSTAND," said Mr. Akibombo plaintively.

He looked anxiously from one red head to the other.

Sally Finch and Len Bateson were conducting a conversation which Mr. Akibombo found it hard to follow.

"Do you think," asked Sally, "that Nigel meant me to be suspected, or you?"

"Either, I should say," replied Len. "I believe he actually took the hairs from my brush"

"I do not understand, please," said Mr. Akibombo. "Was it then Mr. Nigel who jumped the balcony?"

"Nigel can jump like a cat. I couldn't have jumped across that space. I'm far too heavy.".

"I want to apologise very deeply and humbly for wholly unjustifiable suspicions."

"That's all right," said Len.

"Actually, you helped a lot," said Sally.

"All your thinking-about the boracie." Mr. Akibombo brightened up.

"One ought to have realised all along," said Len, "that Nigel was a thoroughly maladjusted type and-"

"Oh, for heaven's sake-you sound just like Colin.

Frankly, Nigel always gave me the creeps-and at last I see why. Do you realise, Len, that if poor Sir Arthur Stanley hadn't been sentimental and had turned Nigel straight over to the police, three other people would be alive today? It's a solemn thought."

"Still, one can understand what he felt about it"

"Please, Miss Sally."

"Yes, Akibombo?"

"If you meet my Professor at University party tonight will you tell him, please, that I have done some good thinking? My Professor he says often that I have a muddled thought process."

"I'll tell him," said Sally.

Len Bateson was looking the picture of gloom. "In a week's time you'll be back in America," he said.

There was a momentary silence.

"I shall come back," said Sally. "Or you might come and do a course over there."

"What's the use?"

"Akibombo," said Sally, "would you like, one day, to be Best Man at a wedding?"

"What is Best Man, please?"

"The bridegroom, Len here for instance, gives you a ring to keep for him, and he and you go to church very smartly dressed and at the right moment he asks you for the ring and you give it to him, and he puts it on my finger, and the organ plays the wedding march and everybody cries. And there we are."

"You mean that you and Mr. Len are to be married?"

"That's the idea."

"Sally!"

"Unless, of course, Len doesn't care for the idea."

"Sally! But you don't know of my father-"

"So what? Of course I know. So your father's nuts. All right, so are lots of people's fathers."

"It isn't a hereditary type of mania. I can assure you of that, Sally, if you only knew how desperately unhappy I've been about you."

"I did just have a tiny suspicion."

"In Africa," said Mr. Akibombo, "in old days, before Atomic Age and scientific thought had come, marriage customs were very curious and interesting. I tell you-"

"You'd better not," said Sally. "I have an idea they might make both Len and me blush, and when you've got red hair it's very noticeable when you blush."

Hercule Poirot signed the last of the letters that Miss Lemon had laid before him. "Trés bien," he said gravely. "Not a single mistake." Miss Lemon looked slightly affronted.

"I don't often make mistakes, I hope," she said.

"Not often. But it has happened. How is your sister, by the way?"

"She is thinking of going on a cruise, Mr.Poirot. To the Northern capitals."

"Ah," said Hercule Poirot.

He wondered if-possibly-on a cruise-his.

Not that he himself would undertake a sea voyage for any inducement.

The clock behind him struck one.

declared Hercule Poirot.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Poirot?"

"Nothing," said Hercule Poirot.