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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“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!”