"Jinny?"
"My sister.
You haven't seen her.
She was going - well - queer. And Mother was making her worse. She didn't seem to realize.
We were afraid, Ray and I, that Jinny was going quite mad! And we saw [unreadable]
Poirot nodded his head slowly.
"Yes, it has seemed so, I know, to many.
That is, by history."
"That's how Ray and I felt that night..." She put her hand on the table. "But we didn't really do it. Of course we didn't do it! When daylight came the thing seemed absurd, melodramatic. Oh, yes, and wicked too!
Indeed, indeed, M. Poirot, Mother died naturally of heart failure.
Ray and I had nothing to do with it."
Poirot said quietly: "Will you swear to me, Mademoiselle, as your salvation after death, that Mrs. Boynton did not die as a result of any action of yours?"
She lifted her head.
Her voice came steadily "I swear," said Carol, "as I hope for salvation I never harmed her..."
Poirot leaned back in his chair.
"No," he said, "that is that."
There was silence.
Poirot thoughtfully caressed his moustache.
Then he said: "What exactly was your plan?"
"Plan?"
"Yes, you and your brother must have had a plan."
In his mind he ticked off the seconds before her answer came.
One, two, three.
"We had no plan," said Carol at last. "We never got as far as that."
Hercule Poirot got up.
"That is all, Mademoiselle.
Will you be so good as to send your brother to me."
Carol rose. She stood undecidedly for a minute.
"M. Poirot, you do - you do believe me?"
"Have I said," asked Poirot, "that I do not?"
"No, but - " She stopped.
He said: "You will ask your brother to come here?"
"Yes."
She went slowly towards the door. She stopped as she got to it, turning around passionately.
"I have told you the truth - I have!"
Hercule Poirot did not answer and Carol Boynton went slowly out of the room.
9
Poirot noted the likeness between brother and sister as Raymond Boynton came into the room.
His face was stern and set. He did not seem nervous or afraid.
He dropped into a chair, stared hard at Poirot and said:
"Well?"
Poirot said gently: "Your sister has spoken with you?"
Raymond nodded.
"Yes, when she told me to come here.
Of course I realize that your suspicions are quite justified.
If our conversation was overheard that night, the fact that my stepmother died rather suddenly certainly would seem suspicious!
I can only assure you that that conversation was the madness of an evening!
We were, at the time, under an intolerable strain.
This fantastic plan of killing my stepmother did - oh, how shall I put it? - it let off steam somehow!"
Hercule Poirot bent his head slowly.