I said doubtfully, for I was really quite indifferent to the fate of Alfred Inglethorp, and thought that a good fright would do him no harm.
Poirot, who was watching me intently, gave a sigh.
“Come, my friend,” he said, changing the subject, “apart from Mr. Inglethorp, how did the evidence at the inquest strike you?”
“Oh, pretty much what I expected.”
“Did nothing strike you as peculiar about it?”
My thoughts flew to Mary Cavendish, and I hedged:
“In what way?”
“Well, Mr. Lawrence Cavendish’s evidence for instance?”
I was relieved.
“Oh, Lawrence! No, I don’t think so. He’s always a nervous chap.”
“His suggestion that his mother might have been poisoned accidentally by means of the tonic she was taking, that did not strike you as strange—hein?”
“No, I can’t say it did. The doctors ridiculed it of course. But it was quite a natural suggestion for a layman to make.”
“But Monsieur Lawrence is not a layman. You told me yourself that he had started by studying medicine, and that he had taken his degree.”
“Yes, that’s true. I never thought of that.” I was rather startled. “It is odd.”
Poirot nodded.
“From the first, his behaviour has been peculiar. Of all the household, he alone would be likely to recognize the symptoms of strychnine poisoning, and yet we find him the only member of the family to uphold strenuously the theory of death from natural causes. If it had been Monsieur John, I could have understood it. He has no technical knowledge, and is by nature unimaginative. But Monsieur Lawrence—no! And now, to-day, he puts forward a suggestion that he himself must have known was ridiculous. There is food for thought in this, mon ami!”
“It’s very confusing,” I agreed.
“Then there is Mrs. Cavendish,” continued Poirot. “That’s another who is not telling all she knows! What do you make of her attitude?”
“I don’t know what to make of it. It seems inconceivable that she should be shielding Alfred Inglethorp. Yet that is what it looks like.”
Poirot nodded reflectively.
“Yes, it is queer. One thing is certain, she overheard a good deal more of that ‘private conversation’ than she was willing to admit.”
“And yet she is the last person one would accuse of stooping to eavesdrop!”
“Exactly. One thing her evidence has shown me. I made a mistake. Dorcas was quite right. The quarrel did take place earlier in the afternoon, about four o’clock, as she said.”
I looked at him curiously. I had never understood his insistence on that point.
“Yes, a good deal that was peculiar came out to-day,” continued Poirot. “Dr. Bauerstein, now, what was he doing up and dressed at that hour in the morning? It is astonishing to me that no one commented on the fact.”
“He has insomnia, I believe,” I said doubtfully.
“Which is a very good, or a very bad explanation,” remarked Poirot. “It covers everything, and explains nothing. I shall keep my eye on our clever Dr. Bauerstein.”
“Any more faults to find with the evidence?” I inquired satirically.
“Mon ami,” replied Poirot gravely, “when you find that people are not telling you the truth—look out! Now, unless I am much mistaken, at the inquest to-day only one—at most, two persons were speaking the truth without reservation or subterfuge.”
“Oh, come now, Poirot! I won’t cite Lawrence, or Mrs. Cavendish. But there’s John—and Miss Howard, surely they were speaking the truth?”
“Both of them, my friend? One, I grant you, but both——!”
His words gave me an unpleasant shock. Miss Howard’s evidence, unimportant as it was, had been given in such a downright straightforward manner that it had never occurred to me to doubt her sincerity. Still, I had a great respect for Poirot’s sagacity—except on the occasions when he was what I described to myself as “foolishly pig-headed.”
“Do you really think so?” I asked. “Miss Howard had always seemed to me so essentially honest—almost uncomfortably so.”
Poirot gave me a curious look, which I could not quite fathom. He seemed to speak, and then checked himself.
“Miss Murdoch too,” I continued, “there’s nothing untruthful about her.”
“No. But it was strange that she never heard a sound, sleeping next door; whereas Mrs. Cavendish, in the other wing of the building, distinctly heard the table fall.”
“Well, she’s young. And she sleeps soundly.”
“Ah, yes, indeed! She must be a famous sleeper, that one!”
I did not quite like the tone of his voice, but at that moment a smart knock reached our ears, and looking out of the window we perceived the two detectives waiting for us below.
Poirot seized his hat, gave a ferocious twist to his moustache, and, carefully brushing an imaginary speck of dust from his sleeve, motioned me to precede him down the stairs; there we joined the detectives and set out for Styles.
I think the appearance of the two Scotland Yard men was rather a shock—especially to John, though of course after the verdict, he had realized that it was only a matter of time. Still, the presence of the detectives brought the truth home to him more than anything else could have done.
Poirot had conferred with Japp in a low tone on the way up, and it was the latter functionary who requested that the household, with the exception of the servants, should be assembled together in the drawing-room. I realized the significance of this. It was up to Poirot to make his boast good.
Personally, I was not sanguine. Poirot might have excellent reasons for his belief in Inglethorp’s innocence, but a man of the type of Summerhaye would require tangible proofs, and these I doubted if Poirot could supply.
Before very long we had all trooped into the drawing-room, the door of which Japp closed. Poirot politely set chairs for every one. The Scotland Yard men were the cynosure of all eyes. I think that for the first time we realized that the thing was not a bad dream, but a tangible reality. We had read of such things—now we ourselves were actors in the drama. To-morrow the daily papers, all over England, would blazon out the news in staring headlines: “MYSTERIOUS TRAGEDY IN ESSEX”
“WEALTHY LADY POISONED”
There would be pictures of Styles, snap-shots of “The family leaving the Inquest”—the village photographer had not been idle! All the things that one had read a hundred times—things that happen to other people, not to oneself. And now, in this
