insignificant details that any one might fail to see what you were driving at.”
Poirot lit one of his little cigarettes with his usual precision. Then he looked up.
“And since you see everything now, mon ami, what exactly is it that you see?”
“Why, that it was Madame Daubreuil—Beroldy, who murdered Mr. Renauld. The similarity of the two cases proves that beyond a doubt.”
“Then you consider that Madame Beroldy was wrongly acquitted? That in actual fact she was guilty of connivance in her husband’s murder?”
I opened my eyes wide.
“But of course! Don’t you?”
Poirot walked to the end of the room, absentmindedly straightened a chair, and then said thoughtfully.
“Yes, that is my opinion. But there is no ‘of course’ about it, my friend. Technically speaking, Madame Beroldy is innocent.”
“Of that crime, perhaps. But not of this.”
Poirot sat down again, and regarded me, his thoughtful air more marked than ever.
“So it is definitely your opinion, Hastings, that Madame Daubreuil murdered M. Renauld?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He shot the question at me with such suddenness that I was taken aback.
“Why?” I stammered. “Why? Oh, because—” I came to a stop.
Poirot nodded his head at me.
“You see, you come to a stumbling-block at once. Why should Madame Daubreuil (I shall call her that for clearness sake) murder M. Renauld? We can find no shadow of a motive. She does not benefit by his death; considered as either mistress or blackmailer she stands to lose. You cannot have a murder without a motive. The first crime was different, there we had a rich lover
