Poirot looked merely bewildered. ‘In Cranchester? But why in Cranchester?’
I enlightened him with a touch of malice.
‘One of our ample staff of private detectives happened to see you in a car on the Cranchester road yesterday,’ I explained.
Poirot’s bewilderment vanished. He laughed heartily.
‘Ah, that!
A simple visit to the dentist, c’est tout.
My tooth, it aches.
I go there.
My tooth, it is at once better.
I think to return quickly.
The dentist, he says No. Better to have it out.
I argue. He insists.
He has his way!
That particular tooth, it will never ache again.’
Caroline collapsed rather like a pricked balloon.
We fell to discussing Ralph Paton.
‘A weak nature,’ I insisted. ‘But not a vicious one.’
‘Ah!’ said Poirot. ‘But weakness, where does it end?’
‘Exactly,’ said Caroline.
‘Take James here - weak as water, if I weren’t about to look after him.’
‘My dear Caroline,’ I said irritably, ‘can’t you talk without dragging in personalities?’
‘You are weak, James,’ said Caroline, quite unmoved. ‘I’m eight years older than you are - oh!
I don’t mind M. Poirot knowing that ‘
‘I should never have guessed it, mademoiselle,’ said Poirot, with a gallant little bow.
‘Eight years older. And I’ve always considered it my duty to look after you.
With a bad bringing up. Heaven knows what mischief you might have got into by now.’
‘I might have married a beautiful adventuress,’ I murmured, gazing at the ceiling, and blowing smoke rings.
‘Adventuress!’ said Caroline, with a snort. ‘If we’re talking of adventuresses ‘ She left the sentence unfinished.
‘Well?’ I said, with some curiosity.
‘Nothing. But I can think of someone not a hundred miles away.’
Then she turned to Poirot suddenly. ‘James sticks to it that you believe someone in the house committed the murder.
All I can say is, you’re wrong.’ ‘I should not like to be wrong,’ said Poirot. ‘It is not how do you say - my metier?’ ‘I’ve got the facts pretty clearly,’ continued Caroline, taking no notice ofPoirot’s remark, ‘from James and others.
As far as I can see, of the people in the house, only two could have had the chance of doing it. Ralph Paton and Flora Ackroyd.’
‘My dear Caroline-’
‘Now, James, don’t interrupt me.
I know what I’m talking about.
Parker met her outside the door, didn’t he?
He didn’t hear her uncle saying goodnight to her. She could have killed him then and there.’
‘Caroline!’
‘I’m not saying she did, James. I’m saying she could have done. As a matter of fact, though.
Flora is like all these young girls nowadays, with no veneration for their betters and thinking they know best on every subject under the sun, I don’t for a minute believe she’d kill even a chicken.
But there it is. Mr Raymond and Major Blunt have alibis. Mrs Ackroyd’s got an alibi. Even that Russell woman seems to have one - and a good job for her it is she has.
Who is left? Only Ralph and Flora!
And say what you will, I don’t believe Ralph Paton is a murderer.
A boy we’ve known all our lives.’
Poirot was silent for a minute, watching the curling smoke rise from his cigarette.
When at last he spoke, it was in a gentle far-away voice that produced a curious impression. It was totally unlike his usual manner.
‘Let us take a man - a very ordinary man. A man with no idea of murder in his heart.
There is in him somewhere a strain of weakness - deep down.
It has so far never been called into play. Perhaps it never will be - and if so he will go to his grave honoured and respected by everyone.