Hercule Poirot 3-Book Collection 1: The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Murder on the Links, Poirot Investigates

‘Oh! Yes, sir; it always was. It had never been opened.’

‘And the door into Mr Inglethorp’s room? Did you notice if that was bolted too?’

Annie hesitated.

‘I couldn’t rightly say, sir; it was shut but I couldn’t say whether it was bolted or not.’

‘When you finally left the room, did Mrs Inglethorp bolt the door after you?’

‘No, sir, not then, but I expect she did later. She usually did lock it at night. The door into the passage, that is.’

‘Did you notice any candle grease on the floor when you did the room yesterday?’

‘Candle grease? Oh, no, sir. Mrs Inglethorp didn’t have a candle, only a reading-lamp.’

‘Then, if there had been a large patch of candle grease on the floor, you think you would have been sure to have seen it?’

‘Yes, sir, and I would have taken it out with a piece of blotting-paper and a hot iron.’

Then Poirot repeated the question he had put to Dorcas:

‘Did your mistress ever have a green dress?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Nor a mantle, nor a cape, nor a—how do you call it?—a sports coat?’

‘Not green, sir.’

Nor anyone else in the house?’

Annie reflected.

‘No, sir.’

‘You are sure of that?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘Bien! That is all I want to know. Thank you very much.’

With a nervous giggle, Annie took herself creakingly out of the room. My pent-up excitement burst forth.

‘Poirot,’ I cried, ‘I congratulate you! This is a great discovery.’

‘What is a great discovery?’

‘Why, that it was the cocoa and not the coffee that was poisoned. That explains everything! Of course, it did not take effect until the early morning, since the cocoa was only drunk in the middle of the night.’

‘So you think that the cocoa—mark well what I say, Hastings, the cocoa—contained strychnine?’

‘Of course! That salt on the tray, what else could it have been?’

‘It might have been salt,’ replied Poirot placidly.

I shrugged my shoulders. If he was going to take the matter that way, it was no good arguing with him. The idea crossed my mind, not for the first time, that poor old Poirot was growing old. Privately I thought it lucky that he had associated with him someone of a more receptive type of mind.

Poirot was surveying me with quietly twinkling eyes.

‘You are not pleased with me, mon ami?’

‘My dear Poirot,’ I said coldly, ‘it is not for me to dictate to you. You have a right to your own opinion, just as I have to mine.’

‘A most admirable sentiment,’ remarked Poirot, rising briskly to his feet. ‘Now I have finished with this room. By the way, whose is the smaller desk in the corner?’

‘Mr Inglethorp’s.’

‘Ah!’ He tried the roll top tentatively. ‘Locked. But perhaps one of Mrs Inglethorp’s keys would open it.’ He tried several, twisting and turning them with a practised hand, and finally uttering an ejaculation of satisfaction. ‘Voila! It is not the key, but it will open it at a pinch.’ He slid back the roll top, and ran a rapid eye over the neatly filed papers. To my surprise, he did not examine them, merely remarking approvingly as he relocked the desk: ‘Decidedly, he is a man of method, this Mr Inglethorp!’

A ‘man of method’ was, in Poirot’s estimation, the highest praise that could be bestowed on any individual.

I felt that my friend was not what he had been as he rambled on disconnectedly:

‘There were no stamps in his desk, but there might have been, eh, mon ami? There might have been? Yes’—his eyes wandered round the room—‘this boudoir has nothing more to tell us. It did not yield much. Only this.’

He pulled a crumpled envelope out of his pocket, and tossed it over to me. It was rather a curious document. A plain, dirty-looking old envelope with a few words scrawled across it, apparently at random. The following is a facsimile of it:

Chapter 5 (#ulink_12cc3340-62ef-530c-9414-9d2c58766c6e)

‘It isn’t Strychnine, is it?’ (#ulink_12cc3340-62ef-530c-9414-9d2c58766c6e)

‘Where did you find this?’ I asked Poirot, in lively curiosity.

‘In the waste-paper basket. You recognize the handwriting?’

‘Yes, it is Mrs Inglethorp’s. But what does it mean?’

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

‘I cannot say—but it is suggestive.’

A wild idea flashed across me. Was it possible that Mrs Inglethorp’s mind was deranged? Had she some fantastic idea of demoniacal possession? And, if that were so, was it not also possible that she might have taken her own life?

I was about to expound these theories to Poirot, when his own words distracted me.

‘Come,’ he said, ‘now to examine the coffee-cups!’

‘My dear Poirot! What on earth is the good of that, now that we know about the cocoa?’