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Ida Gransbury and Mr.
    Richard Negus—they arrive separately and appear to
    have nothing to do with one another. And yet all three
    share not merely the date of their deaths, which was
    yesterday, but also their date of arrival at the Bloxham
    Hotel: Wednesday.”
    “What’s remarkable about it?” I asked. “Plenty of
    other guests must also have arrived on Wednesday in
    a hotel of this size. I mean, ones that have not been
    murdered.”
    Poirot’s eyes looked as if they were about to burst
    forth from his head. I couldn’t see that I had said
    anything particularly shocking, so I pretended not to
    notice his consternation, and continued to tell him the
    facts of the case.
    “Each of the victims was found inside his or her
    locked bedroom,” I said, feeling rather self-conscious
    about the “his or her” part. “The killer locked all
    three doors and made off with the keys—”
    “ Attendez, ” Poirot interrupted. “You mean that the
    keys are missing. You cannot know that the murderer
    took them or has them now.”
    I took a deep breath. “We suspect that the killer
    took the keys away with him. We’ve done a thorough
    search, and they are certainly not inside the rooms,
    nor anywhere else in the hotel.”
    “My excellent staff have checked and confirmed
    that this is true,” said Lazzari.
    Poirot said that he would like to perform his own
    thorough search of the three rooms. Lazzari joyously
    agreed, as if Poirot had proposed a tea party followed
    by dancing.
    “Check all you like, but you won’t find the three
    room keys,” I said. “I’m telling you, the murderer took
    them. I don’t know what he did with them, but—”
    “Perhaps he put them in his coat pocket, with one,
    or three, or five monogrammed cufflinks,” Poirot said
    coolly.
    “Ah, now I see why they speak of you as the most
    splendid detective, Monsieur Poirot!” Lazzari
    exclaimed, though he can’t have understood Poirot’s
    remark. “You have a superb mind, they say!”
    “Cause of death is looking very much like
    poisoning,” I said, disinclined to linger over
    descriptions of Poirot’s brilliance. “We think cyanide,
    which can work with great speed if the quantities are
    sufficient. The inquest’ll tell us for sure, but . . .
    almost certainly their drinks were poisoned. In the
    case of Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury, that drink
    was a cup of tea. In the case of Richard Negus, it was
    sherry.”
    “How is this known?” Poirot asked. “The drinks
    are still there in the rooms?”
    “The cups are, yes, and Negus’s sherry glass. Only
    the remaining few drops of the drinks themselves, but
    it’s easy enough to tell tea from coffee. We will find
    cyanide in those drops, I’ll wager.”
    “And the time of death?”
    “According to the police doctor, all three were
    murdered between four o’clock in the afternoon and
    half past eight in the evening. Luckily, we’ve managed
    to narrow it down further: to between a quarter past
    seven and ten minutes past eight.”
    “A stroke of luck indeed!” Lazzari agreed. “Each
    of the . . . ah . . . deceased guests was last seen alive
    at fifteen minutes after seven o’clock, by three
    unquestionably dependable representatives of this
    hotel—so we know this must be true! I myself found
    the deceased persons—so terrible, this tragedy!—at
    between fifteen and twenty minutes after eight
    o’clock.”
    “But they must have been dead by ten past eight,” I
    told Poirot. “That was when the note announcing the
    murders was found on the front desk.”
    “Wait, please,” said Poirot. “We will get to this
    note in due course. Monsieur Lazzari, it is surely not
    possible that each of the murder victims was last seen
    alive by a member of hotel staff at a quarter past
    seven precisely ?”
    “Yes.” Lazzari nodded so hard, I feared his head
    might fall off his neck. “It is very, very true. All three
    ordered dinner to be brought to their rooms at a
    quarter past