Yes, I say now, how’s that for a theory? Something in that, I should say.’
The inspector swelled his chest out importantly.
He was so plainly delighted with himself that any words of ours would have been quite superfluous.
We arrived back at my house at this minute, and I hurried in to my surgery patients, who had all been waiting a considerable time, leaving Poirot to walk to the police station with the inspector.
Having dismissed the last patient, I strolled into the little room at the back of the house which I call my workshop 1 am rather proud of the home-made wireless set I turned out.
Caroline hates my workroom. I have kept my tools there, and Annie is not allowed to wreak havoc with a dustpan and brush.
I was just adjusting the interior of an alarm clock which had been denounced as wholly unreliable by the household, when the door opened and Caroline put her head in.
‘Oh! there you are, James,’ she said, with deep disapproval.
‘M. Poirot wants to see you.’
‘Well,’ I said, rather irritably, for her sudden entrance had startled me and I had let go of a piece of delicate mechanism. ‘If he wants to see me, he can come in here.’
‘In here?’ said Caroline. ‘That’s what I said - in here.’ Caroline gave a sniff of disapproval and retired.
She returned in a moment or two, ushering in Poirot, and then retired again, shutting the door with a bang.
‘Aha! my friend,’ said Poirot, coming forward and rubbing his hands. ‘You have not got rid of me so easily, you see!’
‘Finished with the inspector?’ I asked.
‘For the moment, yes.
And you, you have seen all the patients?’
‘Yes.’
Poirot sat down and looked at me, tilting his egg-shaped head on one side, with the air of one who savours a very delicious joke.
‘You are in error,’ he said at last. ‘You have still one patient to see.’
‘Not you?’ I exclaimed in surprise.
‘Ah, not me, bien entendu. Me, I have the health magnificent.
No, to tell you the truth, it is a little complot of mine.
There is someone I wish to see, you understand - and at the same time it is not necessary that the whole village should intrigue itself about the matter - which is what would happen if the lady were seen to come to my house for it is a lady.
But to you she has already come as a patient before.’ ‘Miss Russell!’ I exclaimed. ‘Precisement. I wish much to speak with her, so I send her the little note and make the appointment in your surgery.
You are not annoyed with me?’
‘On the contrary,’ I said. ‘That is, presuming I am allowed to be present at the interview?’
‘But naturally!
In your own surgery!’
‘You know,’ I said, throwing down the pincers I was holding, ‘it’s extraordinarily intriguing, the whole thing.
Every new development that arises is like the shake you give to a kaleidoscope - the thing changes entirely in aspect.
Now, why are you so anxious to see Miss Russell?’
Poirot raised his eyebrows. ‘Surely it is obvious?’ he murmured.
‘There you go again,’ I grumbled.
‘According to you everything is obvious. But you leave me walking about in a fog.’
Poirot shook his head genially to me. ‘You mock yourself at me.
Take the matter of Mademoiselle Flora.
The inspector was surprised - but you - you were not.’
‘I never dreamed of her being the thief,’ I expostulated.
‘That - perhaps no.
But I was watching your face and you were not - like Inspector Raglan - startled and incredulous.’ I thought for a minute or two.
‘Perhaps you are right,’ I said at last.
‘All along I’ve felt that Flora was keeping back something - so the truth, when it came, was subconsciously expected. It upset Inspector Raglan very much indeed, poor man.’
‘Ah! pour {a oui\ The poor man must rearrange all his ideas.
I profited by his state of mental chaos to induce him to grant me a little favour.’ ‘What was that?’
Poirot took a sheet of notepaper from his pocket. Some words were written on it, and he read them aloud.
‘The police have, for some days, been seeking for Captain Ralph Paton, the nephew of Mr Ackroyd of Fernly Park, whose death occurred under such tragic circumstances last Friday.
Captain Paton has been found at Liverpool, where he was on the point of embarking for America.’ He folded up the piece of paper again.
‘That, my friend, will be in the newspapers tomorrow morning.’
I stared at him, dumbfounded.
‘But - but it isn’t true!