Murder on the Links

'Yes. The whole fortune would then pass to her son. But it would have been suicide, mon ami. On the floor by Marthe Daubreuil's body, I found a pad and a little bottle of chloroform and a hypodermic syringe containing a fatal dose of morphine. You understand? The chloroform first-then when the victim is unconscious the prick of the needle. By the morning the smell of the chloroform has quite disappeared and the syringe lies where it has fallen from Madame Renauld's hand. What would he say, the excellent Monsieur Hautet? "Poor woman! What did I tell you? The shock of joy, it was too much on top of the rest! Did I not say that I should not be surprised if her brain became unhinged. Altogether a most tragic case, the Renauld Case!"'

'However, Hastings, things did not go quite as Mademoiselle Marthe had planned. To begin with, Madame Renauld was awake and waiting for her. There is a struggle. But Madame Renauld is terribly weak still. There is a last chance for Marthe Daubreuil. The idea of suicide is at an end, but if she can silence Madame Renauld with her strong hands, make a getaway with her little silk ladder while we are still battering on the inside of the farther door, and be back at the Villa Marguerite before we return there, it will be hard to prove anything against her. But she was checkmated, not by Hercule Poirot, but by la petite acrobate with her wrists of steel.'

I mused over the whole story. 'When did you first begin to suspect Marthe Daubreuil, Poirot? When she told us she had overheard the quarrel in the garden?'

Poirot smiled. 'My friend, do you remember when we drove into Merlinville that first day? And the beautiful girl we saw standing at the gate? You asked me if I had not noticed a young goddess, and I replied to you that I had seen only a girl with anxious eyes. That is how I have thought of Marthe Daubreuil from the beginning. The girl with the anxious eyes. Why was she anxious? Not on Jack Renauld's behalf, for she did not know then that he had been in Merlinville the previous evening.'

'By the way,' I exclaimed, 'how is Jack Renauld?'

'Much better. He is still at the Villa Marguerite. But Madame Daubreuil has disappeared. The police are looking for her.'

'Was she in with her daughter, do you think?'

'We shall never know. Madame is a lady who can keep her secrets. And I doubt very much if the police will ever find her.'

'Has Jack Renauld been-told?'

'Not yet.'

'It will be a terrible shock to him.'

'Naturally. And yet, do you know, Hastings, I doubt if his heart was ever seriously engaged. So far we have looked upon Bella Duven as a siren, and Marthe Daubreuil as the girl he really loved. But I think that if we reversed the terms we should come nearer to the truth. Marthe Daubreuil was very beautiful. She set herself to fascinate Jack, and she succeeded, but remember his curious reluctance to break with the other girl. And see how he was willing to go to the guillotine rather than implicate her. I have a little idea that when he learns the truth, he will be horrified-revolted, and his false love will wither away.'

'What about Giraud?'

'He has a case of the nerves, that one! He has been obliged to return to Paris.'

We both smiled.

Poirot proved a fairly true prophet. When at length the doctor pronounced Jack Renauld strong enough to hear the truth, it was Poirot who broke it to him. The shock was indeed terrific. Yet Jack rallied better than I could have supposed possible. His mother's devotion helped him to live through those difficult days. The mother and son were inseparable now.

There was a further revelation to come. Poirot had acquainted Mrs. Renauld with the fact that he knew her secret, and had represented to her that Jack should not be left in ignorance of his father's past.

'To hide the truth, never does it avail, madame! Be brave and tell him everything.'

With a heavy heart Mrs. Renauld consented, and her son learned that the father he had loved had been in actual fact a fugitive from justice. A halting question was promptly answered by Poirot.

'Reassure yourself, Monsieur Jack. The world knows nothing. As far as I can see, there is no obligation for me to take the police into my confidence. Throughout the case I have acted, not for them, but for your father. Justice overtook him at last, but no one need ever know that he and Georges Conneau were one and the same.'

There were, of course, various points in the case that remained puzzling to the police, but Poirot explained things in so plausible a fashion that all query about them was gradually stilled.

Shortly after we got back to London, I noticed a magnificent model of a foxhound adorning Poirot's mantelpiece.

In answer to my inquiring glance, Poirot nodded.

'Mais oui. I got my five hundred francs! Is he not a splendid fellow? I call him Giraud!'

A few days later Jack Renauld came to see us with a resolute expression on his face.