Читать книгу Agatha Christie: The Collection. The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Poirot Investigates, The Murder on the Links, The Secret Adversary, The Man in the Brown Suit онлайн

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An old woman came and opened it.

“Good afternoon,” I said pleasantly. “Is Dr. Bauerstein in?”

She stared at me.

“Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“About him.”

“What about him?”

“He’s took.”

“Took? Dead?”

“No, took by the perlice.”

“By the police!” I gasped. “Do you mean they’ve arrested him?”

“Yes, that’s it, and ——”

I waited to hear no more, but tore up the village to find Poirot.

To my extreme annoyance, Poirot was not in, and the old Belgian who answered my knock informed me that he believed he had gone to London.

I was dumbfounded. What on earth could Poirot be doing in London! Was it a sudden decision on his part, or had he already made up his mind when he parted from me a few hours earlier?

I retraced my steps to Styles in some annoyance. With Poirot away, I was uncertain how to act. Had he foreseen this arrest? Had he not, in all probability, been the cause of it? Those questions I could not resolve. But in the meantime what was I to do? Should I announce the arrest openly at Styles, or not? Though I did not acknowledge it to myself, the thought of Mary Cavendish was weighing on me. Would it not be a terrible shock to her? For the moment, I set aside utterly any suspicions of her. She could not be implicated — otherwise I should have heard some hint of it.