The Mysterious Affair at Styles
“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 practiced hand, and finally uttering an ejaculation
of satisfaction. “_Voilà!_ 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 V.
“IT ISN’T STRYCHNINE, IS IT?”
“Where did you find this?” I asked Poirot, in lively curiosity.
“In the waste-paper basket. You recognise 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?”
“Oh, _là là!_ That miserable cocoa!” cried Poirot flippantly.
He laughed with apparent enjoyment, raising his arms to heaven in mock
despair, in what I could not but consider the worst possible taste.
“And, anyway,” I said, with increasing coldness, “as Mrs. Inglethorp
took her coffee upstairs with her, I do not see what you expect to
find, unless you consider it likely that we shall discover a packet of
strychnine on the coffee tray!”
Poirot was sobered at once.
“Come, come, my friend,” he said, slipping his arms through mine. “_Ne
vous fâchez pas!_ Allow me to interest myself in my coffee-cups, and I
will respect your cocoa. There! Is it a bargain?”
He was so quaintly humorous that I was forced to laugh; and we went
together to the drawing-room, where the coffee-cups and tray remained
undisturbed as we had left them.
Poirot made me recapitulate the scene of the night before, listening
very carefully, and verifying the position of the various cups.
“So Mrs. Cavendish stood by the tray—and poured out. Yes. Then she came
across to the window where you sat with Mademoiselle Cynthia. Yes. Here
are the three cups. And the cup on the mantelpiece, half drunk, that
would be Mr. Lawrence Cavendish’s. And the one on the tray?”
“John Cavendish’s. I saw him put it down there.”
“Good. One, two, three, four, five—but where, then, is the cup of Mr.
Inglethorp?”
“He does not take coffee.”
“Then all are accounted for. One moment, my friend.”
With infinite care, he took a drop or two from the grounds in each cup,
sealing them up in separate test tubes, tasting each in turn as he did
so. His physiognomy underwent a curious change. An expression gathered
there that I can only describe as half puzzled, and half relieved.
“_Bien!_” he said at last. “It is evident! I had an idea—but clearly I
was mistaken. Yes, altogether I was mistaken. Yet it is strange. But no
matter!”
And, with a characteristic shrug, he dismissed whatever it was that was
worrying him from his mind. I could have told him from the beginning
that this obsession of his over the coffee was bound to end in a blind
alley, but I restrained my tongue. After all, though he was old, Poirot
had been a great man in his day.
“Breakfast is ready,” said John Cavendish, coming in from the hall.
“You will breakfast with us, Monsieur Poirot?”
Poirot acquiesced. I observed John. Already he was almost restored to
his normal self. The shock of the events of the last night had upset
him temporarily, but his equable poise soon swung back to the normal.
He was a man of very little imagination, in sharp contrast with his
brother, who had, perhaps, too much.
Ever since the early hours of the morning, John had been hard at work,
sending telegrams—one of the first had gone to Evelyn Howard—writing
notices for the papers, and generally occupying himself with the
melancholy duties that a death entails.
“May I ask how things are proceeding?” he said. “Do your investigations
point to my mother having died a natural death—or—or must we prepare
ourselves for the worst?”
“I think, Mr. Cavendish,” said Poirot gravely, “that you would do well
not to buoy yourself up with any false hopes. Can you tell me the views
of the other members of the family?”
“My brother Lawrence is convinced that we are making a fuss over
nothing. He says that everything points to its being a simple case of
heart failure.”
“He does, does he? That is very interesting—very interesting,” murmured
Poirot softly. “And Mrs. Cavendish?”
A faint cloud passed over John’s face.
“I have not the least idea what my wife’s views on the subject are.”
The answer brought a momentary stiffness in its train. John broke the
rather awkward silence by saying with a slight effort:
“I told you, didn’t I, that Mr. Inglethorp has returned?”
Poirot bent his head.
“It’s an awkward position for all of us. Of course one has to treat him
as usual—but, hang it all, one’s gorge does rise at sitting down to eat
with a possible murderer!”
Poirot nodded sympathetically.
“I quite understand. It is a very difficult situation for you, Mr.
Cavendish. I would like to ask you one question. Mr. Inglethorp’s
reason for not returning last night was, I believe, that he had
forgotten the latch-key. Is not that so?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose you are quite sure that the latch-key _was_ forgotten—that
he did not take it after all?”
“I have no idea. I never thought of looking. We always keep it in the
hall drawer. I’ll go and see if it’s there now.”
Poirot held up his hand with a faint smile.
“No, no, Mr. Cavendish, it is too late now. I am certain that you would
find it. If Mr. Inglethorp did take it, he has had ample time to
replace it by now.”
“But do you think——”
“I think nothing. If anyone had chanced to look this morning before his
return, and seen it there, it would have been a valuable point in his
favour. That is all.”
John looked perplexed.
“Do not worry,” said Poirot smoothly. “I assure you that you need not
let it trouble you. Since you are so kind, let us go and have some
breakfast.”
Everyone was assembled in the dining-room. Under the circumstances, we
were naturally not a cheerful party. The reaction after a shock is
always trying, and I think we were all suffering from it. Decorum and
good breeding naturally enjoined that our demeanour should be much as
usual, yet I could not help wondering if this self-control were really
a matter of great difficulty. There were no red eyes, no signs of
secretly indulged grief. I felt that I was right in my opinion that
Dorcas was the person most affected by the personal side of the
tragedy.
I pass over Alfred Inglethorp, who acted the bereaved widower in a
manner that I felt to be disgusting in its hypocrisy. Did he know that
we suspected him, I wondered. Surely he could not be unaware of the
fact, conceal it as we would. Did he feel some secret stirring of fear,
or was he confident that his crime would go unpunished? Surely the
suspicion in the atmosphere must warn him that he was already a marked
man.
But did everyone suspect him? What about Mrs. Cavendish? I watched her
as she sat at the head of the table, graceful, composed, enigmatic. In
her soft grey frock, with white ruffles at the wrists falling over her
slender hands, she looked very beautiful. When she chose, however, her
face could be sphinx-like in its inscrutability. She was very silent,
hardly opening her lips, and yet in some queer way I felt that the
great strength of her personality was dominating us all.
And little Cynthia? Did she suspect? She looked very tired and ill, I
thought. The heaviness and languor of her manner were very marked. I
asked her if she were feeling ill, and she answered frankly:
“Yes, I’ve got the most beastly headache.”
“Have another cup of coffee, mademoiselle?” said Poirot solicitously.
“It will revive you. It is unparalleled for the _mal de tête_.” He
jumped up and took her cup.
“No sugar,” said Cynthia, watching him, as he picked up the
sugar-tongs.
“No sugar? You abandon it in the war-time, eh?”
“No, I never take it in coffee.”
“_Sacré!_” murmured Poirot to himself, as he brought back the
replenished cup.
Only I heard him, and glancing up curiously at the little man I saw
that his face was working with suppressed excitement, and his eyes were
as green as a cat’s. He had heard or seen something that had affected
him strongly—but what was it? I do not usually label myself as dense,
but I must confess that nothing out of the ordinary had attracted _my_
attention.
In another moment, the door opened and Dorcas appeared.
“Mr. Wells to see you, sir,” she said to John.
I remembered the name as being that of the lawyer to whom Mrs.
Inglethorp had written the night before.
John rose immediately.
“Show him into my study.” Then he turned to us. “My mother’s lawyer,”
he explained. And in a lower voice: “He is also Coroner—you understand.
Perhaps you would like to come with me?”
We acquiesced and followed him out of the room. John strode on ahead
and I took the opportunity of whispering to Poirot:
“There will be an inquest then?”
Poirot nodded absently. He seemed absorbed in thought; so much so that
my curiosity was aroused.
“What is it? You are not attending to what I say.”
“It is true, my friend. I am much worried.”
“Why?”
“Because Mademoiselle Cynthia does not take sugar in her coffee.”
“What? You cannot be serious?”
“But I am most serious. Ah, there is something there that I do not
understand. My instinct was right.”
“What instinct?”