"That, I think, completes the case—except for the crux of the whole thing—the fact that the uneaten curry, duly analysed, was found to contain enough powdered opium to have killed two men!"
I paused.
"And your conclusions, Hastings?" asked Poirot quietly.
"It's difficult to say. It might be an accident—the fact that some one attempted to poison him the same night might be merely a coincidence."
"But you don't think so? You prefer to believe it—murder!"
"Don't you?"
"Mon ami, you and I do not reason in the same way. I am not trying to make up my mind between two opposite solutions—murder or accident—that will come when we have solved the other problem—the mystery of the 'Yellow Jasmine.' By the way, you have left out something there."
"You mean the two lines at right angles to each other faintly indicated under the words? I did not think they could be of any possible importance."
"What you think is always so important to yourself, Hastings. But let us pass from the mystery of the Yellow Jasmine to the Mystery of the Curry."
"I know. Who poisoned it? Why? There are a hundred questions one can ask. Ah Ling, of course, prepared it. But why should he wish to kill his master? Is he a member of a tong, or something like that. One reads of such things. The tong of the Yellow Jasmine, perhaps. Then there is Gerald Paynter."