“Seems quite OK, doesn’t it?” said the inspector rather gloomily. “A chap can’t be murdering someone in one place when he’s drinking in the bar in another place a mile away.”
“Are you going to release him?”
“Don’t see what else we can do. We can’t very well hold him for obtaining money on false pretences. Can’t prove a ruddy thing.”
The inspector tossed a match into the grate in a disgruntled fashion. Poirot retrieved it and put it neatly in a little receptacle designed for the purpose. His action was purely mechanical. I could see that his thoughts were on something very different.
“If I were you,” he said at last, “I should not release the man Charles Kent yet.”
“What do you mean?” Raglan stared at him.
“What I say. I should not release him yet.”
“You don’t think he can have had anything to do with the murder, do you?”
“I think probably not—but one cannot be certain yet.”
“But haven’t I just told you—?”
Poirot raised a hand protestingly. “ Mais oui, mais oui. I heard. I am not deaf—or stupid, thank the good God! But you see, you approach the matter from the wrong—the wrong—premises, is not that the word?”
The inspector stared at him heavily. “I don’t see how you make that out. Look here, we know Mr. Ackroyd was alive at a quarter to ten. You admit that, don’t you?”