must be right! I am right!”
“But then—”
He interrupted me.
“Wait, my friend. I must be right, therefore this new murder is impossible unless—unless—oh, wait, I implore you. Say no word—”
He was silent for a moment or two, then, resuming his normal manner, he said in a quiet assured voice: “The victim is a man of middle-age. His body was found in the locked shed near the scene of the crime and had been dead at least forty-eight hours. And it is most probable that he was stabbed in a similar manner to M. Renauld, though not necessarily in the back.”
It was my turn to gape—and gape I did. In all my knowledge of Poirot he had never done anything so amazing as this. And, almost inevitably, a doubt crossed my mind.
“Poirot,” I cried, “you’re pulling my leg. You’ve heard all about it already.”
He turned his earnest gaze upon me reproachfully.
“Would I do such a thing? I assure you that I have heard nothing whatsoever. Did you not observe the shock your news was to me?”
“But how on earth could you know all that?”
“I was right then? But I knew it. The little grey cells, my friend, the little grey cells! They told me. Thus, and in no other way, could there have been a second death. Now tell me all. If we go round to the left here, we can take a short cut across the golf links which will bring us to the back of the Villa Geneviève much more quickly.”
As we walked, taking the way he had indicated, I recounted all I knew. Poirot listened attentively.
“The dagger was in the wound, you say? That is curious. You are sure it was the same one?”
“Absolutely certain. That’s what make it so impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible. There may have been two daggers.”
I raised my eyebrows.
