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 house, a murder had been committed. In front of us were “the detectives in charge of the case.” The well-known glib phraseology passed rapidly through my mind in the interval before Poirot opened the proceedings.
I think every one was a little surprised that it should be he and not one of the official detectives who took the initiative.
“Mesdames and messieurs,” said Poirot, bowing as though he were a celebrity about to deliver a lecture, “I have asked you to come here all together, for a certain object. That object, it concerns Mr. Alfred Inglethorp.”
Inglethorp was sitting a little by himself—I think, unconsciously, every one had drawn his chair slightly away from him—and he gave a faint start as Poirot pronounced his name.
“Mr. Inglethorp,” said Poirot, addressing him directly, “a very dark shadow is resting on this house—the shadow of murder.”
Inglethorp shook his head sadly.
“My poor wife,” he murmured. “Poor Emily! It is terrible.”
“I do not think, monsieur,” said Poirot pointedly, “that you quite realize how terrible it may be—for you.” And as Inglethorp did not appear to understand, he added: “Mr. Inglethorp, you are standing in very grave danger.”
The two detectives fidgeted. I saw the official caution “Anything you say will be used in evidence against you,” actually hovering on Summerhaye’s lips. Poirot went on.
“Do you understand now, monsieur?”
“No; What do you mean?”
“I mean,” said Poirot deliberately, “that you are suspected of poisoning your wife.”
A little gasp ran round the circle at this plain speaking.
“Good heavens!” cried Inglethorp, starting up. “What a monstrous idea! I—poison my dearest Emily!”
“I do not think”—Poirot watched him narrowly—“that you quite realize the unfavourable nature of your evidence at the inquest. Mr. Inglethorp, knowing what I have now told you, do you still refuse to say where you were at six o’clock on Monday afternoon?”
With a groan, Alfred Inglethorp sank down again and buried his face in his hands. Poirot approached and stood over him.
“Speak!” he cried menacingly.
With an effort, Inglethorp raised his face from his hands. Then, slowly and deliberately, he shook his head.
“You will not speak?”
“No. I do not believe that anyone could be so monstrous as to accuse me of what you say.”
Poirot nodded thoughtfully, like a man whose mind is made up.
“Soit!” he said. “Then I must speak for you.”
Alfred Inglethorp sprang up again.
“You? How can you speak? You do not know——” he broke off abruptly.
Poirot turned to face us. “Mesdames and messieurs! I speak! Listen! I, Hercule Poirot, affirm that the man who entered the chemist’s shop, and purchased strychnine at six o’clock on Monday last was not Mr. Inglethorp, for at six o’clock