Part 23 (2/2)
”Yes?”
Benedict Farley said in a whisper: ”Then I shoot myself...”
There was silence.
Then Poirot said, ”That is your dream?”
”Yes.”
”The same every night?”
”Yes.”
”What happens after you shoot yourself?”
”I wake up.”
Poirot nodded his head slowly and thoughtfully.
”As a matter of interest, do you keep a revolver in that particular drawer?”
”Yes.”
”Why?”
”I have always done so. It is as well to be prepared.”
”Prepared for what?”
Farley said irritably, ”A man in my position has to be on his guard. All rich men have enemies.”
Poirot did not pursue the subject. He remained silent for a moment or two, then he said: ”Why exactly did you send for me?”
”I will tell you. First of all I consulted a doctor - three doctors to be exact.”
”Yes?”
”The first told me it was all a question of diet. He was an elderly man. The second was a young man of the modern school. He a.s.sured me that it all hinged on a certain event that took place in infancy at that particular time of day - three twenty-eight. I am so determined, he says, not to remember that event, that I symbolize it by destroying myself. That is his explanation.”
”And the third doctor?” asked Poirot.
Benedict Farley's voice rose in shrill anger.
”He's a young man too. He has a preposterous theory! He a.s.serts that I, myself, am tired of life, that my life is so unbearable to me that I deliberately want to end it! But since to acknowledge that fact would be to acknowledge that essentially I am a failure, I refuse in my waking moments to face the truth. But when I am asleep, all inhibitions are removed, and I proceed to do that which I really wish to do. I put an end to myself.”
”His view is that you really wish, unknown to yourself, to commit suicide?” said Poirot.
Benedict Farley cried shrilly: ”And that's impossible - impossible! I'm perfectly happy! I've got everything I want - everything money can buy! It's fantastic - unbelievable even to suggest a thing like that!”
Poirot looked at him with interest. Perhaps something in the shaking hands, the trembling shrillness of the voice, warned him that the denial was too vehement, that its very insistence was in itself suspect. He contented himself with saying: ”And where do I come in, Monsieur?”
Benedict Farley calmed down suddenly. He tapped with an emphatic finger on the table beside him.
”There's another possibility. And if it's right, you're the man to know about it! You're famous, you've had hundreds of cases - fantastic, improbable cases! You'd know if anyone does.”
”Know what?”
Farley's voice dropped to a whisper.
”Supposing someone wants to kill me... Could they do it this way? Could they make me dream that dream night after night?”
”Hypnotism, you mean?”
”Yes.”
Hercule Poirot considered the question.
”It would be possible, I suppose,” he said at last. ”It is more a question for a doctor.”
”You don't know of such a case in your experience?”
”Not precisely on those lines, no.”
”You see what I'm driving at? I'm made to dream the same dream, night after night, night after night - and then - one day the suggestion is too much for me - and I act upon it. I do what I've dreamed of so often - kill myself!”
Slowly Hercule Poirot shook his head.
”You don't think that is possible?” asked Farley.
”Possible?” Poirot shook his head. ”That is not a word I care to meddle with.”
”But you think it improbable?”
”Most improbable.”
Benedict Farley murmured, ”The doctor said so too...” Then his voice rising shrilly again, he cried out, ”But why do I have this dream? Why? Why?”
Hercule Poirot shook his head. Benedict Farley said abruptly, ”You're sure you've never come across anything like this in your experience?”
”Never.”
”That's what I wanted to know.”
Delicately, Poirot cleared his throat.
”You permit,” he said, ”a question?”
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