‘He’d been talking about Scottish superstitions.’
‘And his eyes were—where?’
‘I’m not sure. I think he was looking up towards the head of the table where Mrs Widburn was sitting.’
‘Who sat next to her?’
‘The Duke of Merton, then Jane Wilkinson, then some fellow I didn’t know.’
‘M. le Duc. It is possible that he was looking at M. le Duc when the word Paris was spoken. The Duke, remember, was in Paris or was supposed to be in Paris at the time of the crime. Suppose Ross suddenly remembered something which went to show that Merton was not in Paris.’
‘My dear Poirot!’
‘Yes, you consider that an absurdity. So does everyone. Had M. le Duc a motive for the crime? Yes, a very strong one. But to suppose that he committed it—oh! absurd. He is so rich, of so assured a position, of such a well-known lofty character. No one will scrutinize his alibi too carefully. And yet to fake an alibi in a big hotel is not so difficult. To go across by the afternoon service—to return—it could be done. Tell me, Hastings, did Ross not say anything when the word Paris was mentioned? Did he show no emotion?’
‘I do seem to remember that he drew in his breath rather sharply.’
‘And his manner when he spoke to you afterwards. Was it bewildered? Confused?’
‘That absolutely describes it.’
‘Précisément. An idea has come to him. He thinks it preposterous! Absurd! And yet—he hesitates to voice it. First he will speak to me. But alas! when he has made up his mind, I am already departed.’
‘If he had only said a little more to me,’ I lamented.
‘Yes. If only—Who was near you at the time?’
‘Well, everybody, more or less. They were saying goodbye to Mrs Widburn. I didn’t notice particularly.’
Poirot got up again.
‘Have I been all wrong?’ he murmured as he began once more to pace the floor. ‘All the time, have I been wrong?’
I looked at him with sympathy. Exactly what the ideas were that passed through his head I did not know. ‘Close as an oyster’ Japp had called him, and the Scotland Yard inspector’s words were truly descriptive. I only know that now, at this moment, he was at war with himself.
‘At any rate,’ I said, ‘this murder cannot be put down to Ronald Marsh.’
‘It is a point in his favour,’ my friend said absent-mindedly. ‘But that does not concern us for the moment.’
Abruptly, as before, he sat down.
‘I cannot be entirely wrong. Hastings, do you remember that I once posed to myself five questions?’
‘I seem to remember dimly something of the sort.’
‘They were: Why did Lord Edgware change his mind on the subject of divorce? What is the explanation of the letter he said he wrote to his wife and which she said she never got? Why was there that expression of rage on his face when we left his house that day? What were a pair of pince-nez doing in Carlotta Adams’ handbag? Why did someone telephone to Lady Edgware at Chiswick and immediately ring off?’
‘Yes, these were the questions,’ I said. ‘I remember now.’
‘Hastings, I have had in mind all along a certain little idea. An idea as to who the man was—the man behind. Three of those questions I have answered—and the answers accord with my little idea. But two of the questions, Hastings, I cannot answer.
‘You see what that means. Either I am wrong as to the person, and it cannot be that person. Or else the answer to the two questions that I cannot answer is there all the time. Which is it, Hastings? Which is it?’
Rising, he went to his desk, unlocked it and took out the letter Lucie Adams had sent him from America. He had asked Japp to let him keep it a day or two and Japp had agreed. Poirot laid it on the table in front of him and pored over it.
The minutes went by. I yawned and picked up a book. I did not think that Poirot would get much result from his study. We had already gone over and over the letter. Granted that it was not Ronald Marsh who was referred to, there was nothing whatever to show who else it might be.