afterwards! Well, to begin with, I was hurt at your want of faith in me. And then, I wanted to see whether your—feelings would stand the test of time. In fact, whether it was love, or a flash in the pan, with you. I should not have left you long in your error.”
I nodded. His tone was too affectionate for me to bear resentment. I looked down on the sheets of the letter. Suddenly I picked them up from the floor, and pushed them across to him.
“Read that,” I said. “I’d like you to.”
He read it through in silence, then he looked up at me.
“What is it that worries you, Hastings.”
This was quite a new mood in Poirot. His mocking manner seemed laid quite aside. I was able to say what I wanted without too much difficulty.
“She doesn’t say—she doesn’t say—well, not whether she cares for me or not!”
Poirot turned back the pages.
“I think you are mistaken, Hastings.”
“Where?” I cried, leaning forward eagerly.
Poirot smiled.
“She tells you that in every line of the letter, mon ami.”
“But where am I to find her? There’s no address on the letter. There’s a French stamp, that’s all.”
“Excite yourself not! Leave it to Papa Poirot. I can find her for you as soon as I have five little minutes!”
27. Jack Renauld’s Story
“Congratulations, M. Jack,” said Poirot, wringing the lad warmly by the hand.
Young Renauld had come to us as soon as he was liberated—before starting for Merlinville to rejoin Marthe and his mother. Stonor accompanied him. His heartiness was in strong contrast to the lad’s wan looks. It was plain that the boy was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Although delivered from the immediate peril that was hanging over him, the circumstances of his release were too painful to let him feel full relief. He smiled mournfully at Poirot, and said in a low voice:
“I went through it to protect her, and now it’s all no use!”
“You could hardly expect the girl to accept the price of your life,” remarked Stonor dryly. “She was bound to come forward when she saw you heading straight for the guillotine.”
“Eh ma foi! and you were heading for it too!” added Poirot, with a slight twinkle. “You would have had Maître Grosíer’s death from rage on your conscience if you had gone on.”
“He was a well meaning ass, I suppose,” said Jack. “But he worried me horribly. You see, I couldn’t very well take him into my confidence. But, my God! what’s going to happen about Bella?”
“If I were you,” said Poirot frankly, “I should not distress myself unduly. The French Courts are very lenient to youth and beauty, and the crime passionnel. A clever lawyer will make out a great case of extenuating circumstances. It will not be pleasant for you—”
“I don’t care about that. You see, M. Poirot, in a way I do feel guilty of my father’s murder. But for me, and my entanglement with this girl, he would be alive and well today. And then my cursed carelessness in taking away the wrong overcoat. I can’t help feeling responsible for his death. It will haunt me for ever!”
“No, no,” I said soothingly.
“Of course it’s horrible to me to think that Bella killed my father,” resumed Jack, “but I’d treated her shamefully. After I met Marthe, and realized I’d made a mistake, I ought to have written and told her so honestly. But I was so terrified of a row, and of its coming to Marthe’s ears, and her thinking there was more in it than there ever had been, that—well, I was a coward, and went on hoping the thing would die down of itself. I just drifted, in fact—not realizing that I was driving the poor kid desperate. If she’d really knifed me, as she meant to, I should have got no more than my deserts. And the way she’s come forward now is downright plucky. I’d have stood the racket, you know—up to the end.”
He was silent for a moment or two, and then burst out on another tack:
“What gets me is why the Governor should be wandering about in underclothes and my overcoat at that time of night. I suppose he’d just given the foreign johnnies the slip, and my mother must have made a mistake about its being 2 o’clock when they came. Or—or, it wasn’t all a frame up, was it? I mean, my mother didn’t think—couldn’t think—that—that it was me?”
Poirot reassured him quickly.
“No, no, M. Jack. Have no fears on that score. As for the rest, I will explain it to you one of these days. It is rather curious. But will you recount to us exactly what did occur on that terrible evening?”
“There’s very little to tell. I came from Cherbourg, as I told you, in order to see Marthe before going to the other end of the world. The train was late, and I decided to take the short cut across the golf links. I could easily get into the grounds of the Villa Marguerite from there. I had nearly reached the place when—”
He paused and swallowed.
“Yes?”
“I heard a terrible cry. It wasn’t loud—a sort of choke and gasp—but it frightened me. For a moment I stood rooted to the spot. Then I came round the corner of a bush. There was moonlight. I saw the grave, and a figure lying face downwards, with a dagger sticking in the back. And then—and then—I looked up and saw her. She was looking at me as though she saw a ghost—it’s what she must have thought me at first—all expression seemed frozen out of her face by horror. And then she gave a cry, and turned and ran.”
He stopped, trying to master his emotion.
“And afterwards?” asked Poirot gently.
“I really don’t know. I stayed there for a time, dazed. And then I realized I’d better get away as fast as I could. It didn’t occur to me that they would suspect me, but I was afraid of being called upon to give evidence against her. I walked to St. Beauvais as I told you, and got a car from there back to Cherbourg.”
A knock came at the door, and a page entered with a telegram which he delivered to Stonor. He tore it open. Then he got up from his seat.
“Mrs. Renauld has regained consciousness,” he said.
“Ah!” Poirot sprang to his feet. “Let us all go to Merlinville at once!”
A hurried departure was made forthwith. Stonor, at Jack’s instance, agreed to stay behind and do all that could be done for Bella Duveen. Poirot, Jack Renauld and I set off in the Renauld car.
The run took just over forty minutes. As we approached the doorway of the Villa Marguerite, Jack Renauld shot a questioning glance at Poirot.
“How would it be if you went on first—to break the news to my mother that I am free—”
“While you break it in person to Mademoiselle Marthe, eh?” finished Poirot, with a twinkle. “But yes, by all means, I was about to propose such an arrangement myself.”
Jack Renauld did not wait for more. Stopping the car, he swung himself out, and ran up the path to the front door. We went on in the car to the Villa Geneviève.
“Poirot,” I said, “do you remember how we arrived here that first day? And were met by the news of M. Renauld’s murder?”
“Ah! yes, truly. Not so long ago, either. But what a lot of things have happened since then—especially for you, mon ami!”
“Poirot, what have you