is essential to the solving of crime,’ I said. ‘Without knowing the motive, you can’t solve anything, and without understanding character, motive is unknowable. I have also heard him say that no man can act in a way that is contrary to his own nature.’
‘Then I would have been able to convince him that John could never commit a murder—to do so would be at odds with his principles. The idea is laughable. Now, however, I learn that Hercule Poirot is not the one I need to convince, for he did not write the letter. Furthermore, I am able to draw the inescapable conclusion that the letter’s true author is a liar and a fraudster. That sort of person might stop at nothing in his quest to destroy my son.’
McCrodden returned quickly to his chair as if the wall at which he had been staring had silently instructed him to do so. ‘I must know who wrote and sent the letter,’ he said. ‘It is imperative, if I’m to ensure John’s safety. I should like to engage the services of Hercule Poirot. Do you think he would agree to investigate for me?’
‘He might, but … it’s not at all certain that the letter-writer believes what he claims to believe. What if it’s no more than a horribly misjudged joke? This might be the end of it. If your son receives no further communi-cations—’
‘You are naïve in the extreme if you think that,’ said McCrodden. He picked up the letter and threw it at me. It landed on the floor at my feet. ‘When someone sends something like that, they mean you harm. You ignore them at your peril.’
‘My superintendent tells me the death of Barnabas Pandy was an accident,’ I said. ‘He drowned while taking a bath.’
‘That is the story, yes. Officially, there is no suspicion that the death was a murder.’
‘You sound as if you think it could have been,’ I said.
‘Once the possibility is raised, one has a duty to consider it,’ said McCrodden.
‘But the likelihood is that Pandy was not murdered, and you say your son could never commit a murder, so …’
‘I see,’ said McCrodden. ‘You think I am guilty of wilful paternal blindness? No, it’s not that. No one knows John better than I do. He has many faults, but he would not kill.’
He had misunderstood me; I had simply wanted to say that since no one was looking for a murderer in connection with Pandy’s death, and since he knew his son was innocent, McCrodden really had nothing to worry about.
‘You will have heard that I am a strong advocate of the death penalty. “Rowland Rope”, they call me. I do not care for the name, and no one would dare say it in my presence. Now, if they were to call me “Rowland Just and Civilized Society For the Protection of the Innocent” … Unfortunately, that does not trip so easily off the tongue. I’m sure you agree, Inspector, that we must all be accountable for our actions. I don’t need to tell you about Plato’s Ring of Gyges. I discussed it with John many times. I did everything I could to instil proper values in him, but I failed. He is so passionately against the taking of human life that he doesn’t support the death penalty even for the most depraved monsters. He contends that I am as much a murderer as the bloodthirsty reprobate who slits a throat in an alleyway for the sake of a few shillings. Murder is murder, he says. So you see, he would never allow himself to kill another person. It would make him look ludicrous in his own eyes, which would be intolerable to him.’
I nodded, though I was not convinced. My experience as a police inspector has taught me that many people are able to regard themselves with inordinate fondness, no matter what heinous crimes they have committed. They care only about how they look to others, and whether they can get away with it.
‘And, as you say, no one apart from our nefarious letter-writer seems to think Pandy’s death was unlawful,’ McCrodden went on. ‘He was an extremely wealthy man—owner of the Combingham Hall Estate and former owner of several slate mines in Wales. That’s how he made his fortune.’
‘Mines?’ I recalled my conversation with the Super, and the minor/miner misunderstanding. ‘Did your son John used to work in a mine?’
‘Yes. In the north, near Guisborough.’
‘Not in Wales, then?’
‘Never in Wales. You can abandon that idea.’
I did my best to look as if I had abandoned it.
‘Pandy was ninety-four when he drowned in his bath,’ said McCrodden. ‘He had been a widower for sixty-five years. He and his wife had one child, a daughter, who married and had two daughters of her own before dying, along with her husband, in a house fire. Pandy took in his two orphaned grandchildren, Lenore and Annabel, who have both lived at Combingham Hall ever since. Annabel, the youngest, is not married. The older sister, Lenore, married a man by the name of Cecil Lavington. They had two children, Ivy and Timothy, in that order. Cecil died of an infection four years ago. That’s all I’ve managed to find out, and none of it is interesting or suggestive of what steps to take next. I hope Poirot can do better.’
‘There might be nothing to find out,’ I said. ‘They might be a quite ordinary family, in which no murder has been committed.’
‘There is plenty to find out,’ McCrodden corrected me. ‘Who is the letter-writer, and why did he or she fix upon my son? Until we know these things, those of us who have been accused remain implicated.’
‘You have been accused of nothing,’ I said.
‘You would not say that if you saw the note John enclosed with the letter!’ He pointed at the floor, where the letter still lay by my feet. ‘He accused me of putting Poirot up to it, so that John would have no choice but to take up the law in order to defend himself.’
‘Why would he think you might do that?’
‘John believes I hate him. It could not be further from the truth. I have been critical of the way he conducts his affairs in the past, but only because I want him to prosper. He seems to wish the opposite for himself. He has squandered every opportunity I’ve created for him. One of the reasons I know he cannot have killed Barnabas Pandy is that he does not have the animus to spare. All of his ill will is directed towards me—erroneously.’
I made a polite noise that I hoped was expressive of sympathy.
‘The sooner I can speak to Hercule Poirot, the better,’ said McCrodden. ‘I hope he will be able to get to the bottom of this unsavoury business. I long ago gave up hope of changing my son’s mind about me, but I should like to prove, if I can, that I had nothing do to with that letter.’
While I was in the offices of Donaldson & McCrodden on Henrietta Street, Poirot was also in the offices of a firm of solicitors: Fuller, Fuller & Vout, only a short distance away on Drury Lane. Needless to say, I did not know this at the time.
Frustrated by his inability to find me, my Belgian friend had set about discovering all he could about Barnabas Pandy and almost the first thing he found out was that Pandy had been represented in all matters of a legal nature by Peter Vout, the firm’s
