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My thoughts flew to Mary Cavendish, and I hedged: "In ay?"

"Well, Mr Lawrence Cavendish's evidence for instance?"

I was relieved

"Oh, Lawrence! No, I don't think so He's always a nervous chap"

"His suggestion that his ht have been poisoned accidentally by , that did not strike you as strange--hein?"

"No, I can't say it did The doctors ridiculed it of course But it was quite a natural suggestion for a layman to make"

"But Monsieur Lawrence is not a lay ree"

"Yes, that's true I never thought of that" I was rather startled "It is odd"

Poirot nodded

"From the first, his behaviour has been peculiar Of all the household, he alone would be likely to recognize the sy, and yet we find him the only member of the family to uphold strenuously the theory of death from natural causes If it had been Monsieur John, I could have understood it He has no technical knowledge, and is by nature uniinative But Monsieur Lawrence--no! And now, to-day, he puts forward a suggestion that he hiht in this, mon ami!"