"Now before Mrs Upward died, three women received telephone calls. Mrs Carpenter, Mrs Rendell, and Mrs Henderson. All three calls were a message from Mrs Upward asking the person in question to come and see her that evening. It was her servant's night out and her son and Mrs Oliver were going into Cullenquay. It would seem, therefore, that she wanted a private conversation with each of these three women.
"Now why three women? Did Mrs Upward know where she had seen the photograph of Eva Kane? Or did she know she had seen it but could not remember where? Had these three women anything in common? Nothing, it would seem, but their age. They were all, roughly, in the neighbourhood of thirty.
"You have, perhaps, read the article of the Sunday Companion. There is a truly sentimental picture in it of Eva Kane's daughter in years to come. The women asked by Mrs Upward to come and see her were all of the right age to be Eva Kane's daughter.
"So it would seem that living in Broadhinny was a young woman who was the daughter of the celebrated murderer Craig and of his mistress Eva Kane, and it would also seem that that young woman would go to any lengths to prevent that fact being known. Would go, indeed, to the length of twice committing murder. For when Mrs Upward was found dead, there were two coffee cups on the table, both used, and on the visitor's cup faint traces of lipstick.
"Now let us go back to the three women who received telephone messages. Mrs Carpenter got the message but says she did not go to Laburnums that night. Mrs Rendell meant to go, but fell asleep in her chair. Miss Henderson did go to Laburnums but the house was dark and she could not make anyone hear and she came away again.
"That is the story these three women tell - but there is conflicting evidence. There is that second coffee cup with lipstick on it, and an outside witness, the girl Edna, states positively that she saw a fair-haired woman go in to the house. There is also the evidence of scent - an expensive and exotic scent which Mrs Carpenter uses alone of those concerned."
There was an interruption. Eve Carpenter cried out:
"It's a lie. It's a wicked cruel lie. It wasn't me! I never went there! I never went near the place. Guy, can't you do something about these lies?"
Guy Carpenter was white with anger.
"Let me inform you, M. Poirot, that there is a law of slander and all these people present are witnesses."
"Is it slander to say that your wife uses a certain scent - and also, let me tell you, a certain lipstick?"
"It's ridiculous," cried Eve. "Absolutely ridiculous! Anyone could go splashing my scent about."
Unexpectedly Poirot beamed on her.
"Mais oui, exactly! Anyone could. An obvious, not very subtle thing to do. Clumsy and crude. So clumsy that, as far as I was concerned, it defeated its object. It did more. It gave me, as the phrase goes, ideas. Yes, it gave me ideas.
"Scent - and traces of lipstick on a cup. But it is so easy to remove lipstick from a cup - I assure you every trace can be wiped off quite easily. Or the cups themselves could be removed and washed. Why not? There was no one in the house. But that was not done. I asked myself why? And the answer seemed to be a deliberate stress on femininity, an underlining of the fact that it was a woman's murder. I reflected on the telephone calls to those three women - all of them had been messages. In no case had the recipient herself spoken to Mrs Upward. So perhaps it was not Mrs Upward who had telephoned. It was someone who was anxious to involve a woman - any woman - in the crime. Again I asked why? And there can be only one answer - that it was not a woman who killed Mrs Upward - but a man."
He looked round on his audience. They were all very still. Only two people responded.
Eve Carpenter said with a sigh: "Now you're talking sense!"
Mrs Oliver, nodding her head vigorously, said: "Of course."
"So I have arrived at this point - a man killed Mrs Upward and a man killed Mrs McGinty! What man? The reason for the murder must still be the same - it all hinges on a photograph. In whose posession was that photograph? That is the first question. And why was it kept?
"Well, that is perhaps not o difficult. Say that it was kept originally for sentimental reasons. Once Mrs McGinty is - removed, the photograph need not be destroyed. But after the second murder, it is different. This time the photograph has definitely been connected with the murder. The photograph is now a dangerous thing to keep. Therefore you will all agree, it is sure to be destroyed."
He looked round at the heads that nodded agreement.
"But, for all that, the photograph was not destroyed! No, it was not destroyed! I know that - because I found it. I found it a few days ago. I found it in this house. In the drawer of the bureau that you see standing against the wall. I have it here."
He held out the faded photograph of a simpering girl with roses.
"Yes," said Poirot. "It is Eva Kane. And on the back of it are written two words in pencil. Shall I tell you what they are? 'My mother'..."
His eyes, grave and accusing, rested on Maureen Summerhayes. She pushed back the hair from her face and stared at him with wide bewildered eyes.
"I don't understand. I never -"
"No, Mrs Summerhayes, you do not understand. There can be only two reasons for keeping this photograph after the second murder. The first of them is an innocent sentimentality. You had no feeling of guilt and so you could keep the photograph. You told us yourself, at Mrs Carpenter's house one day, that you were an adopted child. I doubt whether you have ever known what your real mother's name was. But somebody else knew. Somebody who has all the pride of family - a pride that makes him cling to his ancestral home, a pride in his ancestors and his lineage. That man would rather die than have the world - and his children - know that Maureen Summerhayes is the daughter of the murderer Craig and of Eva Kane. That man, I have said, would rather die. But that would not help, would it? So instead let us say that we have here a man who is prepared to kill."
Johnnie Summerhayes got up from his seat. His voice, when he spoke, was quiet, almost friendly.
"Rather a lot of nonsense you're talkin', aren't you? Enjoying yourself spouting out a lot of theories? Theories that's all they are! Saying things about my wife -"
His anger broke suddenly in a furious tide.
"You damned filthy swine -"
The swiftness of his rush across the floor took the room unawares. Poirot skipped back nimbly and Superintendent Spence was suddenly between Poirot and Summerhayes.
"Now, now, Major Summerhayes, take it easy - take it easy -"
Summerhayes recovered himself, shrugged, said:
"Sorry. Ridiculous really! After all - anyone can stick a photograph in a drawer."
"Precisely," said Poirot. "And the interesting thing about this photograph is that it has no fingerprints on it. He paused, then nodded his head gently.
"But it should have had," he said. "If Mrs Summerhayes kept it, she would have kept it innocently, and so her fingerprints should have been on it."
Maureen exclaimed:
"I think you're mad. I've never seen that photograph in my life - except at Mrs Upward's that day."
"It is fortunate for you," said Poirot, "that I know that you are speaking the truth. The photograph was put into that drawer only a few minutes before I found it there. Twice that morning the contents of that drawer were tumbled on to the ground, twice I replaced them; the first time the photograph was not in the drawer, the second time it was. It had been placed there during that interval - and I know by whom."
A new note crept into his voice. He was no longer a ridiculous little man with an absurd moustache and dyed hair, he was a hunter very close to his quarry.
"The crimes were committed by a man - they were commited for the simplest of all reasons - for money. In Mrs Upward's house there was a book found and on the flyleaf of that book is written Evelyn Hope. Hope was the name Eva Kane took when she left England. If her real name was Evelyn then in all probability she gave the name of Evelyn to her child when it was born. But Evelyn is a man's name as well as a woman's. Why had we assumed that Eva Kane's child was a girl? Roughly because the Sunday Companion said so! But actually the Sunday Companion had not said so in so many words, it had assumed it because of a to romantic interview with Eva Kane. But Eva Kane left England before her child was born - so nobody could say what the sex of the child would be.
"That is where I let myself be misled. By the romantic inaccuracy of the Press.
"Evelyn Hope, Eva Kane's son, comes to England. He is talented and he attracts the attention of a very rich woman who knows nothing about his origin - only the romantic story he chooses to tell her. (A very pretty little story it was - all about a tragic young ballerina dying of tuberculosis in Paris!)
"She is a lonely woman who has recently lost her own son. The talented young playwright takes her name by deed poll.
"But your real name is Evelyn Hope, isn't it, Mr Upward?"
Robin Upward cried out shrilly:
"Of course it isn't! I don't know what you're talking about."
"You really cannot hope to deny it. There are people who know you under that name. The name Evelyn Hope, written in the book, is in your handwriting - the same handwriting as the words 'my mother' on the back of this photograph. Mrs McGinty saw the photograph and the writing on it when she was tidying your things away. She spoke to you about it after reading the Sunday Companion. Mrs McGinty assumed that it was a photograph of Mrs Upward when young, since she had no idea Mrs Upward was not your real mother. But you knew that if once she mentioned the matter so that it came to Mrs Upward's ears, it would be the end. Mrs Upward had quite fanatical views on the subject of heredity. She would not tolerate for a moment an adopted son who was the son of a famous murderer. Nor would she forgive your lies on the subject.
"So Mrs McGinty had at all costs to be silenced. You promised her a little present, perhaps, for being discreet. You called on her the next evening on your way to broadcast - and you killed her! Like this..."
With a sudden movement, Poirot seized the sugar hammer from the shelf and whirled it round and down as though to bring it crashing down on Robin's head.
So menacing was the gesture that several of the circle cried out.
Robin Upward screamed. A high terrified scream.
He yelled: "Don't... don't... It was an accident. I swear it was an accident. I didn't mean to kill her. I lost my head. I swear I did."
"You washed off the blood and put the sugar hammer back in this room where you had found it. But there are new scientific methods of determining blood stains - and of bringing up latent fingerprints."
"I tell you I never meant to kill her... It was all a mistake... And anyway it isn't my fault... I'm not responsible. It's in my blood. I can t help it. You can't hang me for something that isn't my fault..."
Under his breath Spence muttered: "Can't we? You see if we don't!"
Aloud he spoke in a grave official voice:
"I must warn you, Mr Upward, that anything you say..."
Chapter 26
"I really don't see, M. Poirot, how ever you came to suspect Robin Upward."
Poirot looked complacently at the faces turned towards him.
He always enjoyed explanations.
"I ought to have suspected him much sooner. The clue, such a simple clue, was the sentence uttered by Mrs Summerhayes at the cocktail party that day. She said to Robin Upward: 'I don't like being adopted, do you? Those were the revealing two words. Do you? They meant - they could only mean - that Mrs Upward was not Robin's own mother.
"Mrs Upward was morbidly anxious herself that no one should know that Robin was not her own son. She had probably heard too many ribald comments on brilliant young men who live with and upon elderly women. And very few people did know - only the small theatrical coterie where she had first come across Robin. She had few intimate friends in this country, having lived abroad so long, and she chose in any case to come and settle down here far away from her own Yorkshire. Even when she met friends of the old days, she did not enlighten them when they assumed that this Robin was the same Robin they had known as a little boy.
"But from the very first something had struck me as not quite natural in the household at Laburnums. Robin's attitude to Mrs Upward was not that of either a spoiled child, or of a devoted son. It was the attitude of a protégé to a patron. The rather fanciful title of Madre had a theatrical touch. And Mrs Upward, though she was clearly very fond of Robin, nevertheless unconsciously treated him as a prized possession that she had bought and paid for.
"So there is Robin Upward, comfortably established, with 'Madre's' purse to back his ventures, and then into his assured world comes Mrs McGinty who has recognised the photograph that he keeps in a drawer - the photograph with 'my mother' written on the back of it. His mother, whom he has told Mrs Upward was a talented young ballet dancer who died of tuberculosis! Mrs McGinty, of course, thinks that the photograph is of Mrs Upward when young, since she assumes as a matter of course that Mrs Upward is Robin's own mother. I do not think that actual blackmail ever entered Mrs McGinty's mind, but she did hope, perhaps, for a 'nice little present,' as a reward for holding her tongue about a piece of bygone gossip which would not have been pleasant for a 'proud' woman like Mrs Upward.
"But Robin Upward was taking no chances. He purloins the sugar hammer, laughingly referred to as a perfect weapon for murder by Mrs Summerhayes, and on the following evening, he stops at Mrs McGinty's cottage on his way to broadcast. She takes him into the parlour, quite unsuspicious, and he kills her. He knows where she keeps her savings - everyone in Broadhinny seems to know - and he fakes a burglary, hiding the money outside the house. Bentley is suspected and arrested. Everything is now safe for clever Robin Upward.
"But then, suddenly, I produce four photographs, and Mrs Upward recognises the one of Eva Kane as being identical with a photograph of Robin's ballerina mother! She needs a little time to think things out. Murder is involved. Can it be possible that Robin -? No, she refuses to believe it.
