Загадочное происшествие в Стайлзе / The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Книга для чтения на английском языке.

Was it possible that Mrs Inglethorp’s mind was deranged? Had she some fantastic idea of demoniacal possession[87 - some fantastic idea of demoniacal possession – фантастическая идея об одержимости дьяволом]? And, if that were so, was it not also possible that she might have taken her own life?

I was about to expound these theories to Poirot, when his own words distracted me.

‘Come,’ he said, ‘now to examine the coffee cups!’

‘My dear Poirot! What on earth is the good of that, now that we know about the cocoa?’

‘Oh, l? l?![88 - Oh, l? l?! – (фр.

He laughed with apparent enjoyment, raising his arms to heaven in 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 arm through mine. ‘Ne vous f?chez pas![89 - Ne vous f?chez pas! – (фр.) Не сердитесь!] Allow me to interest myself in my coffee cups, and I will respect your cocoa. There! Is it a blotting?’

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 mantelpiece, 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.’

‘Good. One, two, three, four, five—but where, then, is the cup of Mr Inglethorp?’

‘He does not take coffee.

‘Then all are accounted for. One moment, my friend.’

With infinite care, he took a drop or two from the grounds in each cup, sealing them up in separate test tubes, tasting each in turn as he did so. His physiognomy underwent a curious change. An expression gathered there that I can only describe as half puzzled, and half relieved.

‘Bien!’ he said at last. ‘It is evident! I had an idea—but clearly I was mistaken. Yes, altogether I was mistaken.