merhaye with an incredulous grin on
his face.

"Well, my friend," cried Poirot, before I could get in a word, "what do
you think? Mon Dieu! I had some warm moments in that court; I did not
figure to myself that the man would be so pig-headed as to refuse to say
anything at all. Decidedly, it was the policy of an imbecile."

"H'm! There are other explanations besides that of imbecility," I
remarked. "For, if the case against him is true, how could he defend
himself except by silence?"

"Why, in a thousand ingenious ways," cried Poirot. "See; say that it is
I who have committed this murder, I can think of seven most plausible
stories! Far more convincing than Mr. Inglethorp's stony denials!"

I could not help laughing.

"My dear Poirot, I am sure you are capable of thinking of seventy!
But, seriously, in spite of what I heard you say to the detectives, you
surely cannot still believe in the possibility of Alfred Inglethorp's
innocence?"

"Why not now as much as before? Nothing has changed."

"But the evidence is so conclusive."

"Yes, too conclusive."

We turned in at the gate of Leastways Cottage, and proceeded up the now
familiar stairs.

"Yes, yes, too conclusive," continued Poirot, almost to himself.
"Real evidence is usually vague and unsatisfactory. It has to be
examined--sifted. But here the whole thing is cut and dried. No, my
friend, this evidence has been very cleverly manufactured--so cleverly
that it has defeated its own ends."

"How do you make that out?"

"Because, so long as the evidence against him was vague and intangible,
it was very hard to disprove. But, in his anxiety, the criminal has
drawn the net so closely that one cut will set Inglethorp free."

I was silent. And in a minute or two, Poirot continued:

"Let us look at the matter like this. Here is a man, let us say, who
sets out to poison his wife. He has lived by his wits as the saying
goes. Presumably, therefore, he has some wits. He is not altogether
a fool. Well, how does he set about it? He goes boldly to the village
chemist's and purchases strychnine under his own name, with a trumped up
story about a dog which is bound to be proved absurd. He does not employ
the poison that night. No, he waits until he has had a violent quarrel
with her, of which the whole household is cognisant, and which naturally
directs their suspicions upon him. He prepares no defence--no shadow
of an alibi, yet he knows the chemist's assistant must n