‘But Miss Ackroyd said - Miss Ackroyd said ‘
‘Miss Ackroyd has admitted that she was lying.
She was never in the study at all that evening.’ Then-’ ‘Then it would seem that in this Charles Kent we have the man we are looking for.
He came to Fernly, can give no account of what he was doing there ‘
‘I can tell you what he was doing there.
He never touched a hair of old Ackroyd’s head - he never went near the study.
He didn’t do it, I tell you.’
She was leaning forward. That iron self-control was broken through at last.
Terror and desperation was in her face.
‘M. Poirot! M. Poirot! Oh, do believe me.’ Poirot got up and came to her. He patted her reassuringly on the shoulder.
‘But yes - but yes, I will believe.
I had to make you speak, you know.’ For an instant suspicion flared up in her.
‘Is what you said true?’
‘That Charles Kent is suspected of the crime?
Yes, that is true.
You alone can save him, by telling the reason for his being at Fernly.’
‘He came to see me.’ She spoke in a low, hurried voice.
‘I went out to meet him ‘
‘In the summer-house, yes, I know.’ ‘How do you know?’
‘Mademoiselle, it is the business of Hercule Poirot to know things.
I know that you went out earlier in the evening, that you left a message in the summer-house to say what time you would be there.’
‘Yes, I did.
I had heard from him - saying he was coming. I dared not let him come to the house. I wrote to the address he gave me and said I would meet him in the summerhouse, and described it to him so that he would be able to find it.
Then I was afraid he might not wait there patiently, and I ran out and left a piece of paper to say I would be there about ten minutes past nine.
I didn’t want the servants to see me, so I slipped out through the drawing-room window. As I came back, I met Dr Sheppard, and I fancied that he would think it queer. I was out of breath, for I had been running. I had no idea that he was expected to dinner that night.’ She paused.
‘Go on,’ said Poirot.
‘You went out to meet him at ten minutes past nine.
What did you say to each other?’
‘It’s difficult. You see-’
‘Mademoiselle,’ said Poirot, interrupting her, ‘in this matter I must have the whole truth.
What you tell us need never go beyond these four walls.
Dr Sheppard will be discreet, and so shall I.
See, I will help you. This Charles Kent, he is your son, is he not?’
She nodded.
The colour had flamed into her cheeks.
‘No one has ever known.
It was long ago - long ago - down “i Kent.
I was not married...’
‘So you took the name of the county as a surname for him.
I understand.’
‘I got work.
I managed to pay for his board and lodging.
I never told him that I was his mother.
But he turned out badly, he drank, then took to drugs.
I managed to pay his passage out to Canada.
I didn’t hear of him for a year or two.
Then, somehow or other, he found out that I was his mother.
He wrote asking me for money.
Finally, I heard from him back in this country again. He was coming to see me at Fernly, he said.
I dared not let him come to the house. I have always been considered so - so very respectable.