The Mysterious Affair

Poirot’s abrupt departure had intrigued us all greatly. Sunday morning wore away, and still he did not reappear. But about three o’clock a ferocious and prolonged hooting outside drove us to the window, to see Poirot alighting from a car, accompanied by Japp and Summerhaye. The little man was transformed. He radiated an absurd complacency. He bowed with exaggerated respect to Mary Cavendish. Still beaming, Poirot marshalled us all into the drawing-room, bringing forward chairs as he did so. Finally Miss Howard consented to return to her chair. A few minutes later Alfred Inglethorp entered the room. The company once assembled, Poirot said meditatively:

“where” 

John stuck his head in at this juncture, and invited us both to come up to Mrs. Inglethorp’s room, as he and Mr. Wells had finished looking through the desk in the boudoir. To make this part of my story clear, I append the following plan of the first floor of Styles. The servants’ rooms are reached through the door B. They have no communication with the right wing, where the Inglethorps’ rooms were situated. 

Poirot puffed at his tiny cigarette, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Mr. Inglethorp sus” 

“Poirot, you old villain,” I said, “I’ve half a mind to strangle you! I am inclined to think that Miss Howard was the master mind in that affair. You remember her once mentioning that her father was a doctor? Possibly she dispensed his medicines for him, or she may have taken the idea from one of the many books lying about when Mademoiselle Cynthia was studying for her exam. Anyway, she was familiar with the fact that the addition of a bromide to a mixture containing strychnine would cause the precipitation of the latter. Probably the idea came to her quite suddenly. Mrs. Inglethorp had a box of bromide powders, which she occasionally took at night?”

Poirot did not answer me for a moment, but at last he said: 

“Miss Howard sus” 

“What could be easier than quietly to dissolve one or more of those powders in Mrs. Inglethorp’s large sized bottle of medicine when it came from Coot’s? The risk is practically nil. The tragedy will not take place until nearly a fortnight later. If anyone has seen either of them touching the medicine, they will have forgotten it by that time. Miss Howard will have engineered her quarrel, and departed from the house. The lapse of time, and her absence, will defeat all suspicion. Yes, it was a clever idea! I am still a little fogged on only one thing. Why did she agree to do it?” 

“theyre teaming” 

“You devil! How did you get it?” 

 A chair was overturned. Poirot skipped nimbly aside. A quick movement on his part, and his assailant fell with a crash.

Poirot rose from his seat with the air of a popular lecturer, and bowing politely to his audience, pronounced: 

“Mr. Inglethorp sus”