Suddenly Poirot stiffened.
“Dr. Durand!”
“Yes?” The doctor came forward.
“There is foam on the lips. You observed it?”
“I didn’t notice it, I must admit.”
“But you observe it now?”
“Oh, certainly.”
Poirot again shot a question at Giraud.
“You noticed it without doubt?”
The other did not reply. Poirot proceeded. The dagger had been withdrawn from the wound. It reposed in a glass jar by the side of the body. Poirot examined it, then he studied the wound closely. When he looked up, his eyes were excited, and shone with the green light I knew so well.
“It is a strange wound, this! It has not bled. There is no stain on the clothes. The blade of the dagger is slightly discoloured, that is all. What do you think, M. le docteur?”
“I can only say that it is most abnormal.”
“It is not abnormal at all. It is most simple. The man was stabbed after he was dead.” And, stilling the clamour of voices that arose with a wave of his hand, Poirot turned to Giraud and added, “M. Giraud agrees with me, do you not, monsieur?”
Whatever Giraud’s real belief, he accepted the position without moving a muscle. Calmly and almost scornfully he replied:
“Certainly I agree.”
The murmur of surprise and interest broke out again.
“But what an idea!” cried M. Hautet. “To stab a man after he is dead! Barbaric! Unheard of! Some unappeasable hate, perhaps.”
“No, M. le juge,” said Poirot. “I should fancy it was done quite cold-bloodedly—to create an impression.”
“What impression?”
“The impression it nearly did create,” returned Poirot oracularly.
M. Bex had been thinking.
