Poirot had conferred with Japp in a low tone on the way up, and
it was the latter functionary who requested that the household,
with the exception of the servants, should be assembled together
in the drawing-room. I realized the significance of this. It
was up to Poirot to make his boast good.
Personally, I was not sanguine. Poirot might have excellent
reasons for his belief in Inglethorp's innocence, but a man of
the type of Summerhaye would require tangible proofs, and these I
doubted if Poirot could supply.
Before very long we had all trooped into the drawing-room, the
door of which Japp closed. Poirot politely set chairs for every
one. The Scotland Yard men were the cynosure of all eyes. I
think that for the first time we realized that the thing was not
a bad dream, but a tangible reality. We had read of such
things--now we ourselves were actors in the drama. To-morrow the
daily papers, all over England, would blazon out the news in
staring headlines:
"MYSTERIOUS TRAGEDY IN ESSEX"
"WEALTHY LADY POISONED"
There would be pictures of Styles, snap-shots of "The family
leaving the Inquest"--the village photographer had not been idle!
All the things that one had read a hundred times--things that
happen to other people, not to oneself.
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