“I suppose they would,” I said grumpily. “What about this interest of yours in my patients?”
Again he twinkled. “Only one of them, doctor. Only one of them.”
“The last?” I hazarded.
“I find Miss Russell a study of the most interesting,” he said evasively.
“Do you agree with my sister and Mrs. Ackroyd that there is something fishy about her?” I asked.
“Eh? What do you say—fishy?”
I explained to the best of my ability.
“And they say that, do they?”
“Didn’t my sister convey as much to you yesterday afternoon?”
“ C’est possible. ”
“For no reason whatever,” I declared.
“ Les femmes ,” generalized Poirot. “They are marvelous! They invent haphazard—and by miracle they are right. Not that it is that, really. Women observe subconsciously a thousand little details, without knowing that they are doing so. Their subconscious mind adds these little things together—and they call the result intuition. Me, I am very skilled in psychology. I know these things.”
He swelled his chest out importantly, looking so ridiculous, that I found it difficult not to burst out laughing. Then he took a small sip of his chocolate, and carefully wiped his mustache.
“I wish you’d tell me,” I burst out, “what you really think of it all?”