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"What
a memory!"
"So
here you are, M. Poirot," Inspector Bland said. "Assisting at
a murder once again."
"You are
right," said Poirot. "I was called down here to assist."
"Called down to
assist?" Bland looked puzzled. Poirot said quickly:
"I mean, I was asked
down here to give away the prizes of this murder hunt."
"So Mrs. Oliver told
me."
"She told you
nothing else?" Poirot said it with apparent carelessness. He was
anxious to discover whether Mrs. Oliver had given the Inspector any hint
of the real motives which had led her to insist on Poirot's journey to
Devon.
"Told me nothing
else? She never stopped telling me things. Every possible and impossible
motive for the girl's murder. She set my head spinning. Phew! What an
imagination!"
"She earns her
living by her imagination, mon ami," said Poirot drily.
"She mentioned a man
called De Sousa--did she imagine that?"
"No, that is a sober
fact."
"There was something
about the letter at breakfast and a yacht and coming up the river in a
launch. I couldn't make head or tail of it."
Poirot embarked upon an
explanation. He told of the scene at the breakfast table, the letter,
Lady Stubbs's headache.
"Mrs. Oliver said
that Lady Stubbs was frightened. Did you think she was afraid,
too?"
"That was the
impression she gave me."
"Afraid of this
cousin of hers? Why"
Poirot shrugged his
shoulders.
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