I should make it clear: there were two plans—one that Harriet and Ida agreed to, and a quite different one known only to Richard and me. As far as Harriet and Ida were concerned it would go like this: Ida would kill Harriet, Richard would kill Ida, I would kill Richard. Then I would fake my own murder, at the Bloxham, using the blood that Sammy would get hold of. I would live only as long as it took to see Nancy Ducane hanged, and then I would take my own life. If by some chance Nancy did not hang, I was to kill her and then take my own life. I had to be the last to die, because of the acting involved. I am a good actress when I want to be. When I contrived to meet you at the coffee house, Monsieur Poirot . . . Harriet Sippel could not have produced such a performance. Neither could Ida, or Richard. So you see, I had to be the one to stay alive.

The plan that Harriet and Ida were party to was not Richard’s true plan. When he came to see me alone, two weeks after our first meeting in London with Harriet and Ida, he told me that the question of whether Nancy ought to die had been concerning him greatly. Like me, he did not believe Nancy had admitted to Harriet that she had spoken up at the King’s Head for any reason apart from to defend Patrick against lies.

On the other hand, Richard could see Harriet’s point. Patrick and Frances Ive’s deaths had been caused by the ill-judged behavior of several people, and it was hard not to count Nancy Ducane among those responsible.

I could not have been more surprised, or frightened, when Richard confessed that he had been unable to reach a decision in the matter of Nancy, and that therefore he had decided to leave it up to me. After he, Harriet and Ida were dead, he said, I was free to choose: either to do my best to ensure that Nancy hanged, or to take my own life and leave a different note for the hotel staff to find—not “MAY THEY NEVER REST IN PEACE,” but a note containing the truth about our deaths.

I begged Richard not to force me to decide alone. Why me? I demanded to know.

“Because, Jennie,” he said—and I shall never forget this—“because you are the best of us. You were never inflated with a sense of your own virtue. Yes, you told a lie, but you realized your error as soon as the words had left your mouth. I believed your falsehood for an inexcusably long time when I had no proof, and I helped to gather support for a campaign against a good, innocent man. A flawed man, yes—not a saint. But who among us is perfect?”