“Aha!” said M. Hautet. “An accomplice. An accomplice within the house!”
“Or outside it,” said Giraud with a peculiar smile.
“But some one must have admitted them? We cannot allow that, by an unparalleled piece of good fortune, they found the door ajar for them to walk in?”
“D’accord, M. le juge. The door was opened for them, but it could just as easily be opened from outside—by some one who possessed a key.”
“But who did possess a key?”
Giraud shrugged his shoulders.
“As for that, no one who possesses one is going to admit the fact if they can help it. But several people might have had one. M. Jack Renauld, the son, for instance. It is true that he is on his way to South America, but he might have lost the key or had it stolen from him. Then there is the gardener—he has been here many years. One of the younger servants may have a lover. It is easy to take an impression of a key and have one cut. There are many possibilities. Then there is another person who, I should judge, is exceedingly likely to have such a thing in her keeping.”
“Who is that?”
“Madame Daubreuil,” said the detective dryly.
“Eh, eh!” said the magistrate, his face falling a little, “so you have heard about that, have you?”
“I hear everything,” said Giraud imperturbably.
“There is one thing I could swear you have not heard,” said M. Hautet, delighted to be able to show superior knowledge, and without more ado, he retailed the story of the mysterious visitor the night before. He also touched on the cheque made out to “Duveen,” and finally handed Giraud the letter signed “Bella.”
Giraud listened in silence, studied the letter attentively, and then handed it back.
“All very interesting, M. le juge. But my theory remains unaffected.”
“And your theory is?”
“For the moment I prefer not to say. Remember, I am only just beginning my investigations.”
“Tell me one thing, M. Giraud,” said Poirot suddenly. “Your theory allows for the door being opened. It does not explain why it was left open. When they departed, would it not have been natural for them to close it behind them. If a sergent de ville had chanced to come up to the house, as is sometimes done to see that all is well, they might have been discovered and overtaken almost at once.”
“Bah! They forgot it. A mistake, I grant you.”
Then, to my surprise, Poirot uttered almost the same words as he had uttered to Bex the previous evening:
“I do not agree with you. The door being left open was the result of either design or necessity, and any theory that does not admit that fact is bound to prove vain.”
We all regarded the little man with a good deal of astonishment. The confession of ignorance drawn from him over the match end had, I thought, been bound to humiliate him, but here he was self satisfied as ever, laying down the law to the great Giraud without a tremor.
The detective twisted his moustache, eyeing my friend in a somewhat bantering fashion.
“You don’t agree with me, eh? Well, what strikes you particularly about the case. Let’s hear your views.”
“One thing presents itself to me as being significant. Tell me, M. Giraud, does nothing strike you as familiar about this case? Is there nothing it reminds you of?”
“Familiar? Reminds me of? I can’t say off-hand. I don’t think so, though.”
“You are wrong,” said Poirot quietly. “A crime almost precisely similar has been committed before.”
“When? And where?”
“Ah, that, unfortunately, I cannot for the moment remember—but I shall do so. I had hoped you might be able to assist me.”
Giraud snorted incredulously.
“There have been many affairs of masked men! I cannot remember the details of them all. These crimes all resemble each other more or less.”
“There is such a thing as the individual touch.” Poirot suddenly assumed his lecturing manner, and addressed us collectively. “I am speaking to you now of the psychology of crime. M. Giraud knows quite well that each criminal has his particular method, and that the police, when called in to investigate—say a case of burglary—can often make a shrewd guess at the offender, simply by the peculiar method he has employed. (Japp would tell you the same, Hastings.) Man is an unoriginal animal. Unoriginal within the law in his daily respectable life, equally unoriginal outside the law. If a man commits a crime, any other crime he commits will resemble it closely. The English murderer who disposed of his wives in succession by drowning them in their baths was a case in point. Had he varied his methods, he might have escaped detection to this day. But he obeyed the common dictates of human nature, arguing that what had once succeeded would succeed again, and he paid the penalty of his lack of originality.”
“And the point of all this?” sneered Giraud.
“That when you have two crimes precisely similar in design and execution, you find the same brain behind them both. I am looking for that brain, M. Giraud—and I shall find it. Here we have a true clue—a psychological clue. You may know all about cigarettes and match ends, M. Giraud, but I, Hercule Poirot, know the mind of man!” And the ridiculous little fellow tapped his forehead with emphasis.
Giraud remained singularly unimpressed.
“For your guidance,” continued Poirot, “I will also advise you of one fact which might fail to be brought to your notice. The wrist watch of Madame Renauld, on the day following the tragedy, had gained two hours. It might interest you to examine it.”
Giraud stared.
“Perhaps it was in the habit of gaining?”
“As a matter of fact, I am told it did.”
“Eh bien, then!”
“All the same, two hours is a good deal,” said Poirot softly. “Then there is the matter of the footprints in the flower-bed.”
He nodded his head towards the open window. Giraud took two eager strides, and looked out.
“This bed here?”
“Yes.”
“But I see no footprints?”
“No,” said Poirot, straightening a little pile of books on a table. “There are none.”
For a moment an almost murderous rage obscured Giraud’s face. He took two strides towards his tormentor, but at that moment the salon door was opened, and Marchaud announced.
“M. Stonor, the secretary, has just arrived from England. May he enter?”
10. Gabriel Stonor
The man who entered the room was a striking figure. Very tall, with a well knit athletic frame, and a deeply bronzed face and neck, he dominated the assembly. Even Giraud seemed anaemic beside him. When I knew him better I realized that Gabriel Stonor was quite an unusual personality. English by birth, he had knocked about all over the world. He had shot big game in Africa, travelled in Korea, ranched in California, and traded in the South Sea Islands. He had been secretary to a New York railway magnate, and had spent a year encamped in the desert with a friendly tribe of Arabs.
His unerring eye picked out M. Hautet.
“The examining magistrate in charge