“Perfect, Hastings! You have it!”
I sprang up. “But we must inquire at the station. Surely they cannot have failed to notice two foreigners who left by that train! We must go there at once!”
“You think so, Hastings?”
“Of course. Let us go there now.”
Poirot restrained my ardor with a light touch upon the arm. “Go by all means if you wish, mon ami—but if you go, I should not ask for particulars of two foreigners.”
I stared, and he said rather impatiently, “Là, là you do not believe all that rigmarole, do you? The masked men and all the rest of cette histoire-là!”
His words took me so much aback that I hardly knew how to respond. He went on serenely:
“You heard me say to Giraud, did you not, that all the details of this crime were familiar to me? Eh bien, that presupposes one of two things, either the brain that planned the first crime also planned this one, or else an account read of a cause célèbre unconsciously remained in our assassin’s memory and prompted the details. I shall be able to pronounce definitely on that after—” He broke off.
I was revolving sundry matters in my mind.
“But Mr. Renauld’s letter? It distinctly mentions a secret and Santiago.”
“Undoubtedly there was a secret in M. Renauld’s life—there can be no doubt of that. On the other hand, the word Santiago, to my mind, is a red herring, dragged continually across the track to put us off the scent. It is possible that it was used in the same way on M. Renauld, to keep him from directing his suspicions into a quarter nearer at hand. Oh, be assured, Hastings, the danger that threatened him was not in Santiago, it was near at hand, in France.”
He spoke so gravely, and with such assurance, that I could not fail to be convinced. But I essayed one final objection: “And the match and cigarette end found near the body? What of them?”
“Planted! Deliberately planted there for Giraud or one of his tribe to find! Ah, he is smart, Giraud, he can do his
97
