mock despair, in what I could not but consider the worst possible
taste.

"And, anyway," I said, with increasing coldness, "as Mrs.
Inglethorp took her coffee upstairs with her, I do not see what
you expect to find, unless you consider it likely that we shall
discover a packet of strychnine on the coffee tray!"

Poirot was sobered at once.

"Come, come, my friend," he said, slipping his arms through mine.
"Ne vous fachez pas! Allow me to interest myself in my
coffee-cups, and I will respect your coco. There! Is it a
bargain?"

He was so quaintly humorous that I was forced to laugh; and we
went together to the drawing-room, where the coffee-cups and tray
remained undisturbed as we had left them.

Poirot made me recapitulate the scene of the night before,
listening very carefully, and verifying the position of the
various cups.

"So Mrs. Cavendish stood by the tray--and poured out. Yes. Then
she came across to the window where you sat with Mademoiselle
Cynthia. Yes. Here are the three cups. And the cup on the
mantel-piece, half drunk, that would be Mr. Lawrence Cavendish's.
And the one on the tray?"

"John Cavendish's. I saw him put it down there."