"Yes?" said Hercule Poirot, and his voice was still urgent – compelling - Carter's voice croaked uncertainly.
"And he was lying there – dead.
It's true!
I swear it's true!
Lying just as they said at the inquest. I couldn't believe it at first.
I stooped over him. But he was dead all right.
His hand was stone cold and I saw the bullet hole in his head with a crust of blood round it."
At the memory of it, sweat broke out on his forehead again.
"I saw then I was in a jam.
They'd go and say I'd done it.
I hadn't touched anything except his hand and the door-handle.
I wiped that with my handkerchief, both sides, as I went out, and I stole down stairs as quickly as I could. There was nobody in the hall and I let myself out and legged it away as fast as I could.
No wonder I felt queer." He paused.
His scared eyes went to Poirot.
"That's the truth, I swear that's the truth.
He was dead already.
You've got to believe me!"
Poirot got up.
He said – and his voice was tired and sad –
"I believe you."
He moved towards the door.
Frank Carter cried out: "They'll hang me – they'll hang me for sure if they know that I was in there."
Poirot said: "By telling the truth you have saved yourself from being hanged."
"I don't see it. They'll say -"
Poirot interrupted him.
"Your story has confirmed what I knew to be the truth. You can leave it now to me."
He went out. He was not at all happy.
IV He reached Mr. Barnes' house at Ealing at 6:45. He remembered that Mr. Barnes had called that a good time of day. Mr. Barnes was at work in his garden.
He said by way of greeting: "We need rain, M. Poirot – need it badly." He looked thoughtfully at his guest.
He said: "You don't look very well, M. Poirot?"
"Sometimes," said Hercule Poirot, "I do not like the things I have to do." Mr. Barnes nodded his head sympathetically.
He said: "I know."
Hercule Poirot looked vaguely round at the neat arrangement of the small beds.
He murmured: "It is well-planned, this garden.
Everything is to scale. It is small but exact."
Mr. Barnes said: "When you have only a small place you've got to make the most of it.
You can't afford to make mistakes in the planning."
Hercule Poirot nodded.
Barnes went on: "I see you've got your man?"
"Frank Carter?"
"Yes.
I'm rather surprised, really."
"You did not think that it was, so to speak, a private murder?"
"No. Frankly I didn't.
What with Amberiotis and Alistair Blunt – I was sure that it was of Espionage or Counter-Espionage mix-ups."
"That is the view you expounded to me at our first meeting."
"I know.
I was quite sure of it at the time."
Poirot said slowly: "But you were wrong."
"Yes.