otland
Yard men in and out of the house like a jack-in-the-box! Never know
where they won't turn up next. Screaming headlines in every paper in
the country--damn all journalists, I say! Do you know there was a
whole crowd staring in at the lodge gates this morning. Sort of Madame
Tussaud's chamber of horrors business that can be seen for nothing.
Pretty thick, isn't it?"

"Cheer up, John!" I said soothingly. "It can't last for ever."

"Can't it, though? It can last long enough for us never to be able to
hold up our heads again."

"No, no, you're getting morbid on the subject."

"Enough to make a man morbid, to be stalked by beastly journalists and
stared at by gaping moon-faced idiots, wherever he goes! But there's
worse than that."

"What?"

John lowered his voice:

"Have you ever thought, Hastings--it's a nightmare to me--who did it?
I can't help feeling sometimes it must have been an accident.
Because--because--who could have done it? Now Inglethorp's out of the
way, there's no one else; no one, I mean, except--one of us."

Yes, indeed, that was nightmare enough for any man! One of us? Yes,
surely it must be so, unless-----

A new idea suggested itself to my mind. Rapidly, I considered it. The
light increased. Poirot's mysterious doings, his hints--they all fitted
in. Fool that I was not to have thought of this possibility before, and
what a relief for us all.

"No, John," I said, "it isn't one of us. How could it be?"

"I know, but, still, who else is there?"

"Can't you guess?"

"No."

I looked cautiously round, and lowered my voice.

"Dr. Bauerstein!" I whispered.

"Impossible!"

"Not at all."

"But what earthly interest could he have in my mother's death?"

"That I don't see," I confessed, "but I'll tell you this: Poirot thinks
so."

"Poirot? Does he? How do you know?"

I told him of Poirot's intense excitement on hearing that Dr. Bauerstein
had been at Styles on the fatal night, and added:

"He said twice: 'That alters everything.' And I've been thinking. You
know Inglethorp said he had put down the coffee in the hall? Well,
it was just then that Bauerstein arrived. Isn't it possible that, as
Inglethorp brought him through the hall, the doctor dropped something
into the coffee in passing?"

"H'm," said John. "It would have been very risky."

"Yes, but it was possible."

"And then, how could he know it was her coffee? No, old fellow, I don't
think that will wash."

But I had