“I did not know. My panic on the night we first met was genuine, Monsieur Poirot. I could not decide what to do about anything! I allowed Sammy to go forward with his story about the keys, and to identify Nancy. I let all that happen, telling myself that at any moment I could go to the authorities with the truth and save her. But . . . I did not do so. Richard thought me a better person than him, but he was wrong—so wrong!

“There is a part of me, still, that envies Nancy because Patrick loved her, the same spiteful part that started all the trouble in Great Holling. And . . . I knew that if I admitted to conspiring in a plot to convict an innocent woman of murder, I would surely go to prison. I was scared.”

“Tell us please, mademoiselle: what did you do? What happened on the day of these . . . executions at the Bloxham Hotel?”

“I was supposed to arrive there at six o’clock. That was when we had agreed to meet.”

“The four conspirators?”

“Yes, and Sammy. I spent the whole day watching the clock tick its way toward the awful moment. When it got close to five o’clock, I simply knew I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t! I did not go to the hotel at all. Instead, I ran through the streets of London, crying with fear. I had no notion of where to go or what to do, so I ran and ran. I felt as if Richard Negus was bound to be out looking for me, furious that I had let him and the others down. I went to Pleasant’s Coffee House at the agreed time, thinking that I could at least keep that part of my promise, even if I couldn’t kill Richard as I was supposed to.

“When I arrived at the coffee house, I was afraid for my life. That was no act that you saw. I thought Richard, not Nancy, might kill me—and, what is more, I was convinced that if he did, he would be doing the right thing. I did deserve to die! I said nothing to you that wasn’t true, Monsieur Poirot. Please, recall now what I said:

That I was scared of being murdered? I was—by Richard. That I had done something terrible in the past? I had—and if Richard did catch up with me and kill me, as I believed he one day would, I honestly did not want him to be punished for it. I knew that I had let him down. Can you understand that? Richard might have wanted to die, but I wanted him to live. Despite the harm he did to Patrick, he was a good man.”

“Oui, mademoiselle.”

“I longed to tell you the truth that night, Monsieur Poirot, but I lacked the courage.”