I was bewildered, incredulous, disgusted, and finally immeasurably and overwhelmingly relieved.
Who was it who wrote: "The darkest day (Live till tomorrow) will have pass'd away"? And how true it is. I saw now, clearly and sanely, how overwrought and wrong-headed I had been. Melodramatic, lost to all sense of proportion. I had actually made up my mind to kill another human being.
At this moment my eyes fell on the glass of whisky in front of me. With a shudder I got up, drew the curtains and poured it out of the window. I must have been mad last night!
I shaved, had a bath and dressed. Then, feeling very much better, I went across to Poirot. He always woke very early, I knew. I sat down and made a clean breast of the whole thing to him.
I may say it was a great relief.
He shook his head gently at me.
"Ah, but what follies it is you contemplate. I am glad you came to confess your sins to me. But why, my dear friend, did you not come to me last night and tell me what was in your mind?"
I said shamefacedly:
"I was afraid, I suppose, that you would have tried to stop me."
"Assuredly I would have stopped you. Ah, that, certainly. Do you think I want to see you hanged by the neck, all on account of a very unpleasant scoundrel called Major Allerton?"
"I shouldn't have been caught," I said. "I'd taken every precaution."
"That is what all murderers think. You had the true mentality! But let me tell you, mon ami, you were not as clever as you thought yourself."
"I took every precaution. I wiped my fingerprints off the bottle."
"Exactly. You also wiped Allerton's fingerprints off. And when he is found dead - what happens? They perform the autopsy and it is established that he died of an overdose of Slumberyl. Did he take it by accident or intention? Tiens, his fingerprints are not on the bottle. But why not? Whether accident or suicide, he would have no reason to wipe them off. And then they analyze the remaining tablets and find nearly half of them have been replaced by aspirin."
"Well, practically everyone has aspirin tablets," I murmured weakly.
"Yes, but it is not everyone who has a daughter whom Allerton is pursuing with dishonourable intentions - to use an old-fashioned melodramatic phrase. And you have had a quarrel with your daughter on the subject the day before. Two people, Boyd Carrington and Norton, can swear to your violent feeling against the man. No, Hastings, it would not have looked too good. Attention would immediately have been focussed upon you, and by that time you would probably have been in such a state of fear - or even remorse, that some good solid inspector of police would have made up his mind quite definitely that you were the guilty party. It is quite possible, even, that someone may have seen you tampering with the tablets."
"They couldn't. There was no one about."
"There is a balcony outside the window. Somebody might have been there, peeping in. Or, who knows, someone might have been looking through the keyhole."
"You've got keyholes on the brain, Poirot. People don't really spend their time looking through keyholes as much as you seem to think."
Poirot half closed his eyes and remarked that I had always had too trusting a nature.
"And let me tell you, very funny things happen with keys in this house. Me, I like to feel that my door is locked on the inside, even if the good Curtiss is in the adjoining room. Soon after I am here, my key disappears - but entirely! I have to have another one made."
"Well, anyway," I said with a deep breath of relief, my mind still laden up with my own troubles, "it didn't come off. It's awful to think one can get worked up like that." I lowered my voice. "Poirot, you don't think that because - because of that murder long ago there's a sort of infection in the air?"
"A virus of murder, you mean? Well, it is an interesting suggestion."
"Houses do have an atmosphere," I said thoughtfully. "This house has a bad history."
Poirot nodded.
"Yes. There have been people here - several of them - who desired deeply that someone else should die. That is true enough,"
"I believe it gets hold of one in some way. But now, Poirot, tell me, what am I to do about all this - Judith and Allerton, I mean? It's got to be stopped somehow. What do you think I'd better do?"
"Do nothing," said Poirot with emphasis.
"Oh, but -"
"Believe me, you will do least harm by not interfering." "If I were to tackle Allerton -"
"What can you say or do? Judith is twenty-one and her own mistress."
"But I feel I ought to be able -"
Poirot interrupted me.
"No, Hastings. Do not imagine that you are clever enough, forceful enough, or even cunning enough to impose your personality on either of those two people. Allerton is accustomed to dealing with angry and impotent fathers, and probably enjoys it as a good joke. Judith is not the sort of creature who can be browbeaten. I would advise you - if I advised you at all - to do something very different. I would trust her, if I were you."
I stared at him.
"Judith," said Hercule Poirot, "is made of very fine stuff. I admire her very much."
I said, my voice unsteady:
"I admire her, too. But I'm afraid for her."
Poirot nodded his head with sudden energy.
"I too am afraid for her," he said. "But not in the way you are. I am terribly afraid. And I am powerless - or nearly so. And the days go by. There is danger, Hastings, and it is very close."
II
I knew as well as Poirot that the danger was very close. I had more reason to know it than he had, because of what I had actually overheard the previous night.
Nevertheless I pondered on that phrase of Poirot's as I went down to breakfast. "I would trust her if I were you."
It had come unexpectedly - but it had given me an odd sense of comfort. And almost immediately, the truth of it was justified. For Judith had obviously changed her mind about going up to London that day.
Instead she went off with Franklin to the lab as usual directly after breakfast, and it was clear that they were to have an arduous and busy day there.
A feeling of intense thanksgiving rushed over me. How mad, how despairing I had been last night. I had assumed - assumed quite certainly that Judith had yielded to Allerton's specious proposals. But it was true, I reflected now, that I had never heard her actually assent. No, she was too fine, too essentially good and true, to give in. She had refused the rendezvous.
Allerton had breakfast early, I found, and gone off to Ipswich. He, then, had kept to the plan and must assume that Judith was going up to London as arranged.
Well, I thought grimly, he would get a disappointment.
Boyd Carrington came along and remarked rather grumpily that I looked very cheerful this morning.
"Yes," I said. "I've had some good news."
