Chapter 3 – Accidents?
It was from that moment that the conversation took on a different tone. Up to now, Poirot and the girl had been at cross-purposes. They were separated by a gulf¹ of years. His fame and reputation meant nothing to her-she was of the generation that knows only the great names of the immediate² moment. She was, therefore, unimpressed by his warnings. He was to her only a rather comic elderly foreigner with an amusingly melodramatic mind.
And this attitude baffled Poirot. To begin with, his vanity suffered. It was his constant dictum that all the world knew Hercule Poirot. Here was someone who did not. Very good for him, I could not but feel-but not precisely³ helpful to the object in view!
With the discovery of the missing pistol, however, the affair took on a new phase. Nick ceased to treat it as a mildly amusing joke. She still treated the matter lightly, because it was her habit and her creed⁴ to treat all occurrences lightly, but there was a distinct difference in her manner.
She came back and sat down on the arm of a chair, frowning thoughtfully. 'That's odd,' she said. Poirot whirled round on me.
'You remember, Hastings, the little idea I mentioned? Well, it was correct, my little idea! Supposing Mademoiselle had been found shot lying in the hotel garden? She might not have been found for some hours-few people pass that way. And beside her hand -just fallen from it-is her own pistol. Doubtless the good Madame Ellen would identify it. There would be suggestions, no doubt, of worry or of sleeplessness-'
Nick moved uneasily.
'That's true. I have been worried to death. Everybody's been telling me I'm nervy. Yes-they'd say all that...'
'And bring in a verdict of suicide. Mademoiselle's fingerprints⁵ conveniently on the pistol and nobody else's-but yes, it would be very simple and convincing.'
'How terribly amusing!' said Nick, but not, I was glad to note, as though she were terribly amused.
Poirot accepted her words in the conventional sense in which they were uttered.
'N'est ce pas? But you understand, Mademoiselle, there must be no more of this. Four failures-yes-but the fifth time there may be a success.'
'Bring out your rubber-tyred hearses,' murmured Nick.

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