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simple, as you said. I really wonder that I did not think of it myself."

Poirot did not appear to be listening to me.

"They have made one more discovery, la-bas," he observed, jerking his

thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Styles. "Mr. Wells told me as we

were going upstairs."

What was it?"

Locked up in the desk in the boudoir, they found a will of Mrs. Inglethorp's,

dated before her marriage, leaving her fortune to Alfred Inglethorp. It must

have been made just at the time they were engaged. It came quite as a

surprise to Wells--and to John Cavendish also. It was written on one of

those printed will forms, and witnessed by two of the servants--not Dorcas."

Did Mr. Inglethorp know of it?"

He says not."

One might take that with a grain of salt," I remarked sceptically. "All these

wills are very confusing. Tell me, how did those scribbled words on the

envelope help you to discover that a will was made yesterday afternoon?"

Poirot smiled.

"Mon ami, have you ever, when writing a letter, been arrested by the fact

that you did not know how to spell a certain word?"

"Yes, often. I suppose every one has."

Exactly. And have you not, in such a case, tried the word once or twice on

the edge of the blotting-paper, or a spare scrap of paper, to see if it looked

right? Well, that is what Mrs. Inglethorp did. You will notice that the word

'possessed' is spelt first with one 's' and subsequently with two--correctly. To

make sure, she had further tried it in a sentence, thus: 'I am possessed.'

Now, what did that tell me? It told me that Mrs. Inglethorp had been writing

the word 'possessed' that afternoon, and, having the fragment of paper

found in the grate fresh in my mind, the possibility of a will--(a document

almost certain to contain that word)--occurred to me at once. This possibility

was confirmed by a further circumstance. In the general confusion, the

boudoir had not been swept that morning, and near the desk were several

The Mysterious Affair at Styles