III
“I wanted to find you, M. Poirot.”
Superintendent¹ Sugden had excused himself and gone back into the house. Looking after
him, Hilda said:
“I didn’t know he was with you. I thought he was with Pilar. He seems a nice man, quite
considerate.”
Her voice was pleasant, a low, soothing² cadence³ to it.
Poirot asked:
“You wanted to see me, you say?”
She inclined her head.
“Yes. I think you can help me.”
“I shall be delighted to do so, madame.”
She said:
“You are a very intelligent man, M. Poirot. I saw that last night. There are things which you
will, I think, find out quite easily. I want you to understand my husband.”
“Yes, madame?”
“I shouldn’t talk like this to Superintendent Sugden. He wouldn’t understand. But you will.”
Poirot bowed. “You honour me, madame.”
Hilda went calmly on:
“My husband, for many years, ever since I married him, has been what I can only describe as
a mental cripple.”
“Ah!”
“When one suffers some great hurt physically⁴, it causes shock and pain, but slowly it mends,
the flesh heals, the bone knits. There may be, perhaps, a little weakness, a slight scar, but nothing
more. My husband, M. Poirot, suffered a great hurt mentally at his most susceptible⁵ age. He
adored his mother and he saw her die. He believed that his father was morally responsible for that
death. From that shock he has never quite recovered. His resentment⁶ against his father never died
down. It was I who persuaded David to come here this Christmas, to be reconciled to his father. I
wanted it—for his sake—I wanted that mental wound to heal. I realize now that coming here was a
mistake. Simeon Lee amused himself by probing into that old wound. It was—a very dangerous
thing to do. . . .”
Poirot said: “Are you telling me, madame, that your husband killed his father?”

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