It is but the extremely
beautiful nature that you have, which made me pause."

"Well," I grumbled, a little mollified. "I still think you might have
given me a hint."

"But I did, my friend. Several hints. You would not take them. Think
now, did I ever say to you that I believed John Cavendish guilty? Did
I not, on the contrary, tell you that he would almost certainly be
acquitted?"

"Yes, but----"

"And did I not immediately afterwards speak of the difficulty of
bringing the murderer to justice? Was it not plain to you that I was
speaking of two entirely different persons?"

"No," I said, "it was not plain to me!"

"Then again," continued Poirot, "at the beginning, did I not repeat to
you several times that I didn't want Mr. Inglethorp arrested _now_? That
should have conveyed something to you."

"Do you mean to say you suspected him as long ago as that?"

"Yes. To begin with, whoever else might benefit by Mrs. Inglethorp's
death, her husband would benefit the most. There was no getting away
from that. When I went up to Styles with you that first day, I had no
idea as to how the crime had been committed, but from what I knew of
Mr. Inglethorp I fancied that it would be very hard to find anything to
connect him with it. When I arrived at the chateau, I realized at once
that it was Mrs. Inglethorp who had burnt the will; and there, by the
way, you cannot complain, my friend, for I tried my best to force on you
the significance of that bedroom fire in midsummer."

"Yes, yes," I said impatiently. "Go on."

"Well, my friend, as I say, my views as to Mr. Inglethorp's guilt were
very much shaken. There was, in fact, so much evidence against him that
I was inclined to believe that he had not done it."

"When did you change your mind?"

"When I found that the more efforts I made to clear him, the more
efforts he made to get himself arrested. Then, when I discovered that
Inglethorp had nothing to do with Mrs. Raikes and that in fact it was
John Cavendish who was interested in that quarter, I was quite sure."

"But why?"

"Simply this. If it had been Inglethorp who was carrying on an intrigue
with Mrs. Raikes, his silence was perfectly comprehensible. But, when I
discovered that it was known all over the village that it was John who
was attracted by the farmer's pretty wife, his silence bore quite a
different interpretation. It was nonsense to pretend that he was
afraid of the scandal, as no possible scandal cou