The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie Page B

apart.”
    “Oh, John!”
    Something in her tone fired me, and I blurted out: “Old John's an awfully good sort.”
    She studied me curiously for a minute or two, and then said, to my great surprise: “You
     are loyal to your friend. I like you for that.”
    “Aren't you my friend too?”
    “I am a very bad friend.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “Because it is true. I am charming to my friends one day, and forget all about them the
     next.”
    I don't know what impelled me, but I was nettled, and I said foolishly and not in the best
     of taste: “Yet you seem to be invariably charming to Dr. Bauerstein!”
    Instantly I regretted my words. Her face stiffened. I had the impression of a steel
     curtain coming down and blotting out the real woman. Without a word, she turned and went
     swiftly up the stairs, whilst I stood like an idiot gaping after her.
    I was recalled to other matters by a frightful row going on below. I could hear Poirot
     shouting and expounding. I was vexed to think that my diplomacy had been in vain. The
     little man appeared to be taking the whole house into his confidence, a proceeding of
     which I, for one, doubted the wisdom. Once again I could not help regretting that my
     friend was so prone to lose his head in moments of excitement. I stepped briskly down the
     stairs. The sight of me calmed Poirot almost immediately. I drew him aside.
    “My dear fellow,” I said, “is this wise? Surely you don't want the whole house to know of
     this occurrence? You are actually playing into the criminal's hands.”
    “You think so, Hastings?”
    “I am sure of it.”
    “Well, well, my friend, I will be guided by you.”
    “Good. Although, unfortunately, it is a little too late now.”
    “Sure.”
    He looked so crestfallen and abashed that I felt quite sorry, though I still thought my
     rebuke a just and wise one.
    “Well,” he said at last, “let us go, mon ami.”
    “You have finished here?”
    “For the moment, yes. You will walk back with me to the village?”
    “Willingly.”
    He picked up his little suitcase, and we went out through the open window in the drawing
     room. Cynthia Murdoch was just coming in, and Poirot stood aside to let her pass.
    “Excuse me, mademoiselle, one minute.”
    “Yes?” she turned inquiringly.
    “Did you ever make up Mrs. Inglethorp's medicines?”
    A slight flush rose in her face, as she answered rather constrainedly: “No.”
    “Only her powders?”
    The flush deepened as Cynthia replied: “Oh, yes, I did make up some sleeping powders for
     her once.”
    “These?”
    Poirot produced the empty box which had contained powders.
    She nodded.
    “Can you tell me what they were? Sulphonal? Veronal?”
    “No, they were bromide powders.”
    “Ah! Thank you, mademoiselle; good morning.”
    As we walked briskly away from the house, I glanced at him more than once. I had often
     before noticed that, if anything excited him, his eyes turned green like a cat's. They
     were shining like emeralds now.
    “My friend,” he broke out at last, “I have a little idea, a very strange, and probably
     utterly impossible idea. And yet - it fits in.”
    I shrugged my shoulders. I privately thought that Poirot was rather too much given to
     these fantastic ideas. In this case, surely, the truth was only too plain and apparent.
    “So that is the explanation of the blank label on the box,” I remarked. “Very simple, as
     you said. I really wonder that I did not think of it myself.”
    Poirot did not appear to be listening to me. “They have made one more discovery, la-bas,”
     he observed, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Styles. “Mr. Wells
     told me as we were going upstairs.”
    “What was it?”
    “Locked up in the desk in the boudoir, they found a will of Mrs. Inglethorp's, dated
     before her marriage, leaving her fortune to Alfred Inglethorp. It must have been made just
     at the time they were engaged. It came quite