I read this aright as showing Japp to be completely puzzled and hoping to pick up a pointer from Poirot.
Japp had a car waiting, and we drove up in it to Croftlands. It was a square, white house, quite unpretentious, and covered with creepers, including the starry yellow jasmine. Japp looked up at it as we did.
"Must have been balmy to go writing that, poor old cove," he remarked. "Hallucinations, perhaps, and thought he was outside."
Poirot was smiling at him.
"Which was it, my good Japp?" he asked; "accident or murder?"
The Inspector seemed a little embarrassed by the question.
"Well, if it weren't for that curry business, I'd be for accident every time. There's no sense in holding a live man's head in the fire—why, he'd scream the house down."
"Ah!" said Poirot in a low voice. "Fool that I have been. Triple imbecile! You are a cleverer man than I am, Japp."
Japp was rather taken aback by the compliment—Poirot being usually given to exclusive self praise. He reddened and muttered something about there being a lot of doubt about that.
He led the way through the house to the room where the tragedy had occurred—Mr. Paynter's study. It was a wide, low room, with book-lined walls and big leather arm-chairs.