Adopting a brisker, more business-like manner, Graham explained the procedure to be followed. 'I have notified the coroner. The inquest will be held tomorrow at the King's Arms.'
'And – you mean – the police will have to be involved? There's no way out of it?'
'There is not. Surely you must realize that, Richard?' said Dr Graham.
Richard's tone was frantic as he began to exclaim, 'But why didn't you warn me that -'
'Come on, Richard. Take a hold of yourself. I'm sure you understand that I have only taken such steps as I thought absolutely necessary,' Graham interrupted him. 'After all, no time should be lost in matters of this kind.'
'My God!' exclaimed Richard.
Dr Graham addressed Amory in a kindlier tone. 'Richard, I know. I do understand. This has been a terrible shock to you. But there are things I must ask you about. Do you feel equal to answering a few questions?'
Richard made a visible effort to pull himself together. 'What do you want to know?' he asked.
'First of all,' said Graham, 'what food and drink did your father have at dinner last night?'
'Let's see, we all had the same. Soup, fried sole, cutlets, and we finished off with a fruit salad.'
'Now, what about drink?' continued Dr Graham. Richard considered for a moment before replying. 'My father and my aunt drank burgundy. So did Raynor, I think. I stuck with whisky and soda, and Dr Carelli – yes, Dr Carelli drank white wine throughout the meal.'
'Ah, yes, the mysterious Dr Carelli,' Graham murmured. 'You'll excuse me, Richard, but how much precisely do you know about this man?'
Interested to hear Richard Amory's reply to this, Hastings moved closer to the two men. In answer to Dr Graham, Richard declared, 'I know nothing about him. I'd never met him, or even heard of him, until yesterday.'
'But he is a friend of your wife?' asked the doctor.
'Apparently he is.'
'Does she know him intimately?'
'Oh, no, he is a mere acquaintance, I gather.'
Graham made a little clicking sound with his tongue, and shook his head. 'You've not allowed him to leave the house, I hope?' he asked.
'No, no,' Richard assured him. 'I pointed out to him last night that, until this matter was cleared up – the business of the formula being stolen, I mean – it would be best for him to remain here at the house. In fact, I sent down to the inn where he had a room, and had his things brought up here.'
'Didn't he make any protest at all?' Graham asked in some surprise.
'Oh, no, in fact he agreed quite eagerly.'
'H'm,' was Graham's only response to this. Then, looking about him, he asked, 'Well now, what about this room?'
Poirot approached the two men. 'The doors were locked last night by Tredwell, the butler,' he assured Dr Graham, 'and the keys were given to me. Everything is exactly as it was, except that we have moved the chairs, as you see.'
Dr Graham looked at the coffee-cup on the table.
Pointing to it, he asked, 'Is that the cup?' He went across to the table, picked up the cup and sniffed at it. 'Richard,' he asked, 'is this the cup your father drank from? I'd better take it. It will have to be analysed.' Carrying the cup over to the coffee-table, he opened his bag.
Richard sprang to his feet. 'Surely you don't think -' he began, but then broke off.
'It seems highly unlikely,' Graham told him, 'that the poison could have been administered at dinner. The most likely explanation is that the hyoscine was added to Sir Claud's coffee.'
'I – I -' Richard tried to utter as he rose and took a step towards the doctor, but then broke off with a despairing gesture and left the room abruptly through the French windows into the garden.
Dr Graham took a small cardboard box of cotton wool from his bag and carefully packed the cup in it, talking to Poirot as he did so. 'A nasty business,' he confided. 'I'm not at all surprised that Richard Amory is upset. The newspapers will make the most of this Italian doctor's friendship with his wife. And mud tends to stick, Monsieur Poirot. Mud tends to stick. Poor lady! She was probably wholly innocent. The man obviously made her acquaintance in some plausible way. They're astonishingly clever, these foreigners. Of course, I suppose I shouldn't be talking this way, as though the thing were a foregone conclusion, but what else is one to imagine?'
'You think it leaps to the eye, yes?' Poirot asked him, exchanging glances with Hastings.
'Well, after all,' Dr Graham explained, 'Sir Claud's invention was valuable. This foreigner comes along, of whom nobody knows anything. An Italian. Sir Claud is mysteriously poisoned -'
'Ah, yes! The Borgias,' exclaimed Poirot.
'I beg your pardon?' asked the doctor.
'Nothing, nothing.'
Dr Graham picked up his bag and prepared to leave, holding out his hand to Poirot. 'Well, I'd best be off.'
'Goodbye – for the present, Monsieur le Docteur,' said Poirot as they shook hands.
At the door, Graham paused and looked back. 'Goodbye, Monsieur Poirot. You will see that nobody disturbs anything in this room until the police arrive, won't you? That's extremely important.'
'Most certainly, I shall make myself responsible for it,' Poirot assured him.
As Graham left, closing the door behind him, Hastings observed drily, 'You know, Poirot, I shouldn't like to be ill in this house. For one thing, there appears to be a poisoner at loose in the place – and, for another, I'm not at all sure I trust that young doctor.'
Poirot gave Hastings a quizzical look. 'Let us hope that we will not be in this house long enough to become ill,' he said, moving to the fireplace and pressing the bell. 'And now, my dear Hastings, to work,' he announced as he rejoined his colleague, who was contemplating the coffee-table with a puzzled expression.
'What are you going to do?' Hastings asked.
'You and I, my friend,' replied Poirot with a twinkle in his eye, 'are going to interview Cesare Borgia.'
Tredwell entered in response to Poirot's call. 'You rang, sir?' the butler asked.
'Yes, Tredwell. Will you please ask the Italian gentleman, Dr Carelli, if he would be kind enough to come here?'
'Certainly, sir,' Tredwell replied. He left the room, and Poirot went to the table to pick up the case of drugs.
'It would be well, I think,' he confided to Hastings, 'if we were to put this box of so very dangerous drugs back in its proper place. Let us, above all things, be neat and orderly.'
Handing the tin case to Hastings, Poirot took a chair to the bookcase and climbed onto it.
'The old cry for neatness and symmetry, eh?' Hastings exclaimed. 'But there's more to it than that, I imagine.'
'What do you mean, my friend?' asked Poirot.
'I know what it is. You don't want to scare Carelli. After all, who handled those drugs last night? Amongst others, he did. If he saw them down on the table, it might put him on his guard, eh, Poirot?'
Poirot tapped Hastings on the head. 'How astute is my friend Hastings,' he declared, taking the case from him.
'I know you too well,' Hastings insisted. 'You can't throw dust in my eyes.'
As Hastings spoke, Poirot drew a finger along the top of the bookshelf, sweeping dust down into his friend's upturned face. 'It seems to me, my dear Hastings, that that is precisely what I have done,' Poirot exclaimed as he gingerly drew a finger along the shelf again, making a grimace as he did so. 'It appears that I have praised the domestics too soon. This shelf is thick with dust. I wish I had a good wet duster in my hand to clean it up!'
'My dear Poirot,' Hastings laughed, 'you're not a housemaid.'
'Alas, no,' observed Poirot sadly. 'I am only a detective!'
'Well, there's nothing to detect up there,' Hastings declared, 'so get down.'
'As you say, there is nothing -' Poirot began, and then stopped dead, standing quite still on the chair as though turned to stone.
'What is it?' Hastings asked him impatiently, adding, 'Do get down, Poirot. Dr Carelli will be here at any
