"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."