Chapter 23 twenty two

(twenty two) "You should already be quite aware of your situation, Miss Hohouse. I have warned you—" Valerie Holmes interrupted him. "I know what I'm doing. You have warned me that everything I say will be used as a testimony. I have prepared it. You accused me of smuggling. I have nothing to say. This means a long prison sentence. Another meaning is I will be charged with accessory murder." "Your willing confession may help you, but I cannot make any promises, or offer any hint of solicitation." "I don't care. A few years in a gloomy prison and it's all over. I'm going to confess. I may be what you call an accessory, but I'm not a murderer. I never meant to kill and didn't want to kill. I can Not so stupid. What I want is for Nigel's case to be plainly prosecuted...”

"Celier knows too much, no matter what I can do with it. Nigel won't give me time. He asks her out for a meeting, tells her he'll come clean about the rucksack and the ink, and sneaks in at her coffee Added morphine. He got her earlier letter to Mrs. Hubbard and tore out the useful 'suicide' sentence. He put the empty morphine bottle (the one he pretended to throw away but didn't have) on her Bedside. I see now that he had been thinking about this murder for some time. Then he came and told me what he had done. I had to side with him for my own sake. "Mrs. Nicole must have died like this. He found her drinking, she was growing unreliable—he managed to meet her somewhere on her way home and poisoned her drink. He denied to me— — but I know he did it right. Then there's Patricia. He went to my room and told me what happened. He told me what I had to do - so he and I were both indestructible Alibi. At this point I'm caught in the net, there's no way out... I think if you didn't catch me, I must have gone abroad somewhere. Live again. But you caught me... Now I have only one thing to worry about - to make sure that cruel, smug guy gets hanged."

Inspector Sharpe took a deep breath.It was all very satisfying, it was incredible good fortune; yet he was perplexed. The policeman licks the pencil. "I don't quite get it," Sharp said. She interrupted him. "You don't have to understand. I have my reasons." Hercule Poirot spoke very softly. "Because of Mrs. Nicoletis?" he asked. He heard her gasp. "She's—your mother, isn't she?" "Yes," said Valerie Hohouses. "She's my mother..."