had straightened all the objects on the mantelpiece. And, if they were already straightened, there would be no need to straighten them again, unless, in the meantime, some one else had touched them.”
“Dear me,” I murmured, “so that is the explanation of your extraordinary behaviour. You rushed down to Styles, and found it still there?”
“Yes, and it was a race for time.”
“But I still can’t understand why Inglethorp was such a fool as to leave it there when he had plenty of opportunity to destroy it.”
reposing right at the bottom, was a magnificent black beard.
“Oho!” said Poirot. “Oho!” He turned it over in his hands, examining it closely. “New,” he remarked. “Yes, quite new.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he replaced it in the chest, heaped all the other things on top of it as before, and made