Chapter 35 Finale

I am sorry to relate that as the door closed behind Franklin Clarke I laughed hysterically¹.
Poirot looked at me in mild surprise.
‘It’s because you told him his crime was not sporting,’ I gasped².
‘It was quite true. It was abominable—not so much the murder of his brother—but the cruelty that condemned³ an unfortunate man to a living death. To catch a fox and put him in a box and never let him go!That is not le sport!’
Megan Barnard gave a deep sigh.
‘I can’t believe it—I can’t. Is it true?’
‘Yes, mademoiselle. The nightmare is over.’
She looked at him and her colour deepened
Poirot turned to Fraser.
‘Mademoiselle Megan, all along, was haunted by a fear that it was you who had committed the second crime.’
Donald Fraser said quietly:
‘I fancied so myself at one time.’
‘Because of your dream?’ He drew a little nearer to the young man and dropped his voice confidentially⁴. ‘Your dream has a very natural explanation. It is that you find that already the image of one sister fades in your memory and that its place is taken by the other sister. Mademoiselle Megan replaces her sister in your heart, but since you cannot bear to think of yourself being unfaithful so soon to the dead, you strive to stifle⁵ the thought, to kill it! That is the explanation of the dream.’
Fraser’s eyes went towards Megan.
‘Do not be afraid to forget,’ said Poirot gently. ‘She was not so well worth remembering. In Mademoiselle Megan you have one in a hundred—un coeur magnifique!’
Donald Fraser’s eyes lit up.
‘I believe you are right.’
We all crowded round Poirot asking questions, elucidating⁶ this point and that.
‘Those questions, Poirot? That you asked of everybody. Was there any point in them?’
‘Some of them were simplement une blague. But I learnt one thing that I wanted to know—that Franklin Clarke was in London when the first letter was posted—and also I wanted to see his face when I asked my questionof Mademoiselle Thora. He was off his guard. I saw all the

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