Do you remember the day of John Cavendish’s arrest, when you found me deliberating over a big decision?”

“Yes, I quite understood your distress.”

“Pardon me, mon ami, but you did not understand it in the least. I was trying to decide whether or not I would clear John Cavendish at once. I could have cleared him—though it might have meant a failure to convict the real criminals. They were entirely in the dark as to my real attitude up to the very last moment—which partly accounts for my success.”


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Howard. “Haven’t I always told you the man is a villain? Haven’t I always told you he would murder her in her bed? Haven’t I always hated him like poison?”

“Exactly,” said Poirot. “That bears out my little idea entirely.”

“What little idea?”

“Miss Howard, do you remember a conversation that took


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