“No.”
“You arrived at Styles before Dr. Wilkins, I believe?”
“That is so. The motor met me just outside the lodge gates, and I hurried there as fast as I could.”
“Will you relate to us exactly what happened next?”
“I entered Mrs. Inglethorp’s room. She was at that moment in a typical tetanic convulsion. She turned towards me, and gasped out: ‘Alfred—Alfred–-‘ “
“Could the strychnine have been administered in Mrs. Inglethorp’s after-dinner coffee which was taken to her by her husband?”
“Possibly,
no, sir. Mrs. Inglethorp didn’t have a candle, only a reading-lamp.”
“Then, if there had been a large patch of candle grease on the floor, you think you would have been sure to have seen it?”
“Yes, sir, and I would have taken it out with a piece of blotting-paper and a hot iron.”
Then Poirot repeated the question he had put to Dorcas: