The Mysterious Affair at Styles

‘Well,’ I said wearily. ‘I suppose someone must have stepped on it.’

‘Exactly,’ said Poirot, in an odd voice. ‘Someone stepped on it.’

He rose from his knees, and walked slowly across to the mantelpiece, where he stood abstractedly fingering the ornaments, and straightening them—a trick of his when he was agitated.

‘Mon ami,’ he said, turning to me, ‘somebody stepped on that cup, grinding it to powder, and the reason they did so was either because it contained strychnine or—which is far more serious—because it did not contain strychnine!’

I made no reply. I was bewildered, but I knew that it was no good asking him to explain. In a moment or two he roused himself, and went on with his investigations. He picked up the bunch of keys from the floor, and twirling them round in his fingers finally selected one, very bright and shining, which he tried in the lock of the purple despatch-case. It fitted, and he opened the box, but after a moment’s hesitation, closed and relocked it, and slipped the bunch of keys, as well as the key that had originally stood in the lock, into his own pocket.

‘I have no authority to go through these papers. But it should be done—at once!’

He then made a very careful examination of the drawers of the washstand. Crossing the room to the left-hand window, a round stain, hardly visible on the dark brown carpet, seemed to interest him particularly. He went down on his knees, examining it minutely—even going so far as to smell it.

Finally, he poured a few drops of the cocoa into a test tube, sealing it up carefully. His next proceeding was to take out a little notebook.

‘We have found in this room,’ he said, writing busily, ‘six points of interest. Shall I enumerate them, or will you?’

‘Oh, you,’ I replied hastily.

‘Very well, then. One, a coffee cup that has been ground into powder; two, a dispatch case with a key in the lock; three, a stain on the floor.’

‘That may have been done some time ago,’ I interrupted.

‘No, for it is still perceptibly damp and smells of coffee. Four, a fragment of some dark green fabric—only a thread or two, but recognizable.’

‘Ah!’ I cried. ‘That was what you sealed up in the envelope.’

‘Yes. It may turn out to be a piece of one of Mrs Inglethorp’s own dresses, and quite unimportant. We shall see. Five, this!’ With a dramatic gesture, he pointed to a large splash of candle grease on the floor by the writing table. ‘It must have been done since yesterday, otherwise a good housemaid would have at once removed it with blotting paper and a hot iron. One of my best hats once—but that is not to the point.’

‘It was very likely done last night. We were very agitated. Or perhaps Mrs Inglethorp herself dropped her candle.’

‘You brought only one candle into the room?’

‘Yes. Lawrence Cavendish was carrying it. But he was very upset. He seemed to see something over here’—I indicated the mantelpiece—‘that absolutely paralysed him.’

‘That is interesting,’ said Poirot quickly. ‘Yes, it is suggestive’—his eye sweeping the whole length of the wall—‘But it was not his candle that made this great patch, for you perceive that this is white grease; whereas Monsieur Lawrence’s candle, which is still on the dressing table, is pink. On the other hand, Mrs Inglethorp had no candlestick in the room, only a reading lamp.’

‘Then,’ I said, ‘what do you deduce?’

To which my friend only made a rather irritating reply, urging me to use my own natural faculties.

‘And the sixth point?’ I asked. ‘I suppose it is the sample of cocoa.’

‘No,’ said Poirot thoughtfully, ‘I might have included that in the six, but I did not. No, the sixth point I will keep to myself for the present.’

He looked quickly round the room. ‘There is nothing more to be done here, I think, unless’—he stared earnestly and long at the dead ashes in the grate. ‘The fire burns—and it destroys. But by chance—there might be—let us see!’

Deftly, on hands and knees, he began to sort the ashes from the grate into the fender, handling them with the greatest caution. Suddenly, he gave a faint exclamation.

‘The forceps, Hastings!’

I quickly handed them to him, and with skill he extracted a small piece of half-charred paper.

‘There, mon ami!’ he cried. ‘What do you think of that?’

I scrutinized the fragment. This is an exact reproduction of it:

I was puzzled. It was unusually thick, quite unlike ordinary notepaper. Suddenly an idea struck me.

‘Poirot!’ I cried. ‘This is a fragment of a will!’

‘Exactly.’

I looked at him sharply.

‘You are not surprised?’

‘No,’ he said gravely, ‘I expected it.’

I relinquished the piece of paper, and watched him put it away in his case, with the same methodical care that he bestowed on everything. My brain was in a whirl. What was this complication of a will? Who had destroyed it? The person who had left the candle grease on the floor? Obviously. But how had anyone gained admission? All the doors had been bolted on the inside.

‘Now, my friend,’ said Poirot briskly, ‘we will go. I should like to ask a few questions of the parlourmaid—Dorcas, her name is, is it not?’

We passed through Alfred Inglethorp’s room, and Poirot delayed long enough to make a brief but fairly comprehensive examination of it. We went out through that door, locking both it and that of Mrs Inglethorp’s room as before.

I took him down to the boudoir which he had expressed a wish to see, and went myself in search of Dorcas.

When I returned with her, however, the boudoir was empty.

‘Poirot,’ I cried, ‘where are you?’

‘I am here, my friend.’

He had stepped outside the French window, and was standing, apparently lost in admiration, before the various shaped flower beds.

‘Admirable!’ he murmured. ‘Admirable! What symmetry! Observe that crescent; and those diamonds—their neatness rejoices the eye. The spacing of the plants, also, is perfect. It has been recently done; is it not so?’

‘Yes, I believe they were at it yesterday afternoon. But come in—Dorcas is here.’

‘Eh bien, eh bien! Do not grudge me a moment’s satisfaction of the eye.’

‘Yes, but this affair is more important.’

‘And how do you know that these fine begonias are not of equal importance?’

I shrugged my shoulders. There was really no arguing with him if he chose to take that line.

‘You do not agree? But such things have been. Well, we will come in and interview the brave Dorcas.’