I laughed.
“There, Poirot, you are quite wrong! I happen to know for a fact that, far from being in love with her, he positively dislikes her.”
“Who told you that, mon ami?”
“Cynthia herself.”
“La pauvre petite! And she was concerned?”
“She said that she did not mind at all.”
“Then she certainly did mind very much,” remarked Poirot. “They are like that—les femmes!”
“What you say about Lawrence is a great surprise to me,” I said.
“But why? It was most obvious. Did not Monsieur Lawrence make
is the very person. But I am in her black books, since I cleared Mr. Inglethorp. Still, we can but try.”
With a nod that was barely civil, Miss Howard assented to Poirot’s request for a few minutes’ conversation.
We went into the little morning-room, and Poirot closed the door.
“Well, Monsieur Poirot,”