pretend to go and return. Whatever it is, Clayton
will know. Anything is preferable to the ghastly
torment of suspicion he is enduring."
"Then you mean that Rich killed him after the
others had gone? But the doctor said that was im-possible.''
"Exactly. So you see, Hastings, he must have
been killed during the evening."
"But everyone was in the room!"
"Precisely," said Poirot gravely. "You see the
beauty of that? 'Everyone was in the room.' What
an alibi! What sangfroid--what nerve--what au-dacity!''
"I still don't understand." .
"Who went behind that screen to wind up the
phonograph and change the records? The phono-graph
and the chest were side by side, remember.
The others are dancing--the phonograph is play-ing.
And the man who does not dance lifts the lid
of the chest and thrusts the knife he has just
.slipped into his sleeve deep into the body of the
man who was hiding there."
"Impossible! The man would cry out."
"Not if he were drugged first?"
"Drugged?"
"Yes. Who did Clayton have a drink with at
THE MYSTERY OF THE BAGDAD CHEST
49
seven-thirty? Ah! Now you see. Curtiss! Curtiss
has inflamed Clayton's mind with suspicions
against his wife and Rich. Curtiss suggests this
plan--the visit to Scotland, the concealment in the