I wish I could have known beforehand that Flora was going to say she’d seen her uncle alive at a quarter to ten. That puzzled me more than I can say. In fact, all through the case there have been things that puzzled me hopelessly. Everyone seems to have taken a hand.
My greatest fear all through has been Caroline. I have fancied she might guess. Curious the way she spoke that day of my “strain of weakness.”
Well, she will never know the truth. There is, as Poirot said, one way out. …
I can trust him. He and Inspector Raglan will manage it between them. I should not like Caroline to know. She is fond of me, and then, too, she is proud. … My death will be a grief to her, but grief passes. …
When I have finished writing, I shall enclose this whole manuscript in an envelope and address it to Poirot.
And then—what shall it be? Veronal? There would be a kind of poetic justice. Not that I take any responsibility for Mrs. Ferrars’s death. It was the direct consequence of her own actions. I feel no pity for her.
I have no pity for myself either.
So let it be veronal.
But I wish Hercule Poirot had never retired from work and come here to grow vegetable marrows.