“ 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?”

He put down his cup. “You wish that?”

“I do.”

“You have seen what I have seen. Should not our ideas be the same?”