ted to return to her chair. A few minutes
later Alfred Inglethorp entered the room.

The company once assembled, Poirot rose from his seat with the air of a
popular lecturer, and bowed politely to his audience.

"Messieurs, mesdames, as you all know, I was called in by Monsieur John
Cavendish to investigate this case. I at once examined the bedroom of
the deceased which, by the advice of the doctors, had been kept locked,
and was consequently exactly as it had been when the tragedy occurred.
I found: first, a fragment of green material; second, a stain on the
carpet near the window, still damp; thirdly, an empty box of bromide
powders.

"To take the fragment of green material first, I found it caught in the
bolt of the communicating door between that room and the adjoining one
occupied by Mademoiselle Cynthia. I handed the fragment over to
the police who did not consider it of much importance. Nor did they
recognize it for what it was--a piece torn from a green land armlet."

There was a little stir of excitement.

"Now there was only one person at Styles who worked on the land--Mrs.
Cavendish. Therefore it must have been Mrs. Cavendish who entered
the deceased's room through the door communicating with Mademoiselle
Cynthia's room."

"But that door was bolted on the inside!" I cried.

"When I examined the room, yes. But in the first place we have only
her word for it, since it was she who tried that particular door and
reported it fastened. In the ensuing confusion she would have had ample
opportunity to shoot the bolt across. I took an early opportunity
of verifying my conjectures. To begin with, the fragment corresponds
exactly with a tear in Mrs. Cavendish's armlet. Also, at the inquest,
Mrs. Cavendish declared that she had heard, from her own room, the fall
of the table by the bed. I took an early opportunity of testing that
statement by stationing my friend Monsieur Hastings in the left wing of
the building, just outside Mrs. Cavendish's door. I myself, in company
with the police, went to the deceased's room, and whilst there I,
apparently accidentally, knocked over the table in question, but found
that, as I had expected, Monsieur Hastings had heard no sound at all.
This confirmed my belief that Mrs. Cavendish was not speaking the truth
when she declared that she had been dressing in her room at the time of
the tragedy. In fact, I was convinced that, far from having been in her
own room, Mrs. Cavendish was