Triple imbecile!
You are a cleverer man than I am, Japp."
Japp was rather taken aback by the compliment - Poirot being usually given to exclusive self-praise.
He reddened and muttered something about there being a lot of doubt about that.
He led the way through the house to the room where the tragedy had occurred - Mr. Paynter's study.
It was a wide, low room, with book-lined walls and big leather armchairs.
Poirot looked across at once to the window which gave upon a gravelled terrace.
"The window, it was unlatched?" he asked.
"That's the whole point, of course. When the doctor left this room, he merely closed the door behind him.
The next morning it was found locked.
Who locked it?
Mr. Paynter?
Ah Ling declares that the window was closed and bolted.
Dr. Quentin, on the other hand, has an impression that it was closed, but not fastened, but he won't swear either way.
If he could, it would make a great difference.
If the man was murdered, some one entered the room either through the door or the window - if through the door, it was an inside job; if through the window, it might have been any one.
First thing when they had broken the door down, they flung the window open, and the housemaid who did it thinks that it wasn't fastened, but she's a precious bad witness- will remember anything you ask her to!"
"What about the key?"
"There you are again.
It was on the floor among the wreckage of the door.
Might have fallen from the keyhole, might have been dropped there by one of the people who entered, might have been slipped underneath the door from the outside."
"In fact everything is 'might have been'?"
"You've hit it, Moosior Poirot.
That's just what it is."
Poirot was looking round him, frowning unhappily.
"I cannot see light," he murmured. "Just now - yes, I got a gleam, but now all is darkness once more.
I have not the clue - the motive."
"Young Gerald Paynter had a pretty good motive," remarked Japp grimly. "He's been wild enough in his time, I can tell you.
And extravagant.
You know what artists are, too - no morals at all." Poirot did not pay much attention to Japp's sweeping strictures on the artistic temperament. Instead he smiled knowingly.
"My good Japp, is it possible that you throw the mud in my eyes?
I know well enough that it is the Chinaman you suspect.
But you are so artful.
You want me to help you - and yet you drag the red kipper across the trail."
Japp burst out laughing.
"That's you all over, Mr. Poirot.
Yes, I'd bet on the Chink, I'll admit it now.
It stands to reason that it was he who doctored the curry, and if he'd try once in an evening to get his master out of the way, he'd try twice."
"I wonder if he would," said Poirot softly.
"But it's the motive that beats me.
Some heathen revenge or other, I suppose."
"I wonder," said Poirot again. "There has been no robbery?
Nothing has disappeared?
No jewellery, or money, or papers?"
"No - that is, not exactly."
I pricked up my ears; so did Poirot.
"There's been no robbery, I mean," explained Japp. "But the old boy was writing a book of some sort.
We only knew about it this morning when there was a letter from the publishers asking about the manuscript.
It was just completed, it seems.
Young Paynter and I have searched high and low, but can't find a trace of it - he must have hidden it away somewhere."