I gave a noncommittal grunt. Margaret Ernst had seemed to me to be passionate about the principles at stake as much as anything else—about the idea of the injustice that had been done to the Ives—but I knew that to say so would be foolish. Poirot would only lecture me about my inability to recognize amorous feelings. To give him something to think about apart from my countless mistakes and inadequacies, I told him about my visit to Pleasant’s, and what Fee Spring had told me. “What do you think it means?” I asked as our car bumped over something bulky that must have been lying on the road.

Once more, Poirot ignored my question. He asked me if I had told him everything.

“Everything that took place in Great Holling, yes. The only other news is the inquest, which was today. The three victims were poisoned. Cyanide, as we thought. Here’s a strange puzzle, though: no recently consumed food was found in their stomach contents. Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and Richard Negus had not eaten for several hours before they were murdered. Which means we have a missing afternoon tea for three to account for.”

“Ah! That is one mystery solved.”

“Solved? I’d say it was a mystery created. Am I wrong?”

“Oh, Catchpool,” said Poirot sadly. “If I tell you the answer, if I take pity on you, you will not hone your ability to think for yourself—and you must! I have a very good friend that I have not spoken of to you. Hastings is his name. Often I entreat him to use his little gray cells, but I know that they will never be a match for mine.”

I thought he was limbering up to give me a compliment—“You, on the other hand . . .” —but then he said, “Yours, too, will never match mine. It is not the intelligence that you lack, nor the sensitivity, nor even the originality. It is merely the confidence. Instead of looking for the answer, you look around for somebody to find it and tell it to you—eh bien, you find Hercule Poirot! But Poirot is not only a solver of puzzles, mon ami. He is also a guide, a teacher. He wishes you to learn to think for yourself, as he does. As does this woman that you describe, Margaret Ernst, who relies not upon the Bible but upon her own judgment.”

“Yes. I thought that rather arrogant of her,” I said pointedly. I would have liked to elaborate, but we had arrived at the Bloxham Hotel.

15. The Fourth Cufflink

The Fourth Cufflink