Chap­ter IV begins with the nar­ra­tor mak­ing his way through a path shad­ed by over­grown green­ery, his mind full of con­fu­sion and urgency. Arriv­ing at the mod­est home where Her­cule Poirot and oth­er Bel­gian refugees live, he quick­ly brings news of Mrs. Inglethorp’s untime­ly death. Poirot lis­tens care­ful­ly, dis­play­ing not grief but intense curios­i­ty, reveal­ing his nat­ur­al instinct to dive into a puz­zle no mat­ter how unset­tling. Rather than react emo­tion­al­ly, Poirot focus­es on detail and context—he asks about the din­ner, the sequence of symp­toms, and how the death unfold­ed. His hunch leads him to sus­pect poi­son­ing by strych­nine, giv­en its delayed but unmis­tak­able effects, prompt­ing a sharp turn in the inves­ti­ga­tion. Poirot’s calm, cal­cu­lat­ed inter­est sug­gests that a deep­er web of inten­tions may lie beneath the sur­face of this seem­ing­ly straight­for­ward tragedy.

Upon reach­ing the scene, Poirot and the nar­ra­tor begin a care­ful inspec­tion of Mrs. Inglethorp’s bed­room. The room, while out­ward­ly untouched, holds curi­ous dis­tur­bances that demand attention—a cracked cup, hard­ened wax on the rug, and a dis­patch case left locked but sus­pi­cious­ly in reach. Poirot does not allow any object to go unno­ticed. The bro­ken lamp and a key found in the ash­es indi­cate some­one may have tried to cov­er their tracks hasti­ly, pos­si­bly in pan­ic. The par­tial­ly burned will, hid­den among cin­ders in the fire­place, push­es the nar­ra­tive into ques­tions of inher­i­tance and motive. What had seemed like a nat­ur­al death now hints at plan­ning, pan­ic, and per­haps des­per­a­tion. Each object tells a par­tial truth, and Poirot’s role is to piece them into a sto­ry no one else yet under­stands.

Inter­view­ing the ser­vants becomes Poirot’s next move. Dor­cas, the loy­al maid, gives a descrip­tion of the house­hold’s mood, Mrs. Inglethorp’s com­plaints, and her con­cerns over a miss­ing key. Annie, the younger maid, adds oth­er intrigu­ing details—most notably, the unused sleep­ing pow­ders and a sus­pi­cious green gar­ment that has gone miss­ing. These women, caught in the back­ground of the house’s dai­ly oper­a­tions, pro­vide obser­va­tions over­looked by oth­ers. Poirot treats them not as back­ground noise but as cru­cial wit­ness­es. Their insights help him begin to see the true shape of the evening’s events. The con­trast between the two accounts allows Poirot to iden­ti­fy incon­sis­ten­cies and pat­terns that oth­er inves­ti­ga­tors might dis­miss.

It becomes clear to Poirot that much of what has been accept­ed at face val­ue must be reex­am­ined. The cocoa, long assumed harm­less, becomes a pos­si­ble ves­sel for the strych­nine. This rev­e­la­tion sub­tly shifts the foun­da­tion of the entire inves­ti­ga­tion. Poirot shares lit­tle of his cer­tain­ty, but his ener­gy changes as if a veil has been lift­ed. He appears con­fi­dent that a break­through is close, yet he holds back from announc­ing it. Hast­ings, puz­zled but eager, con­tin­ues to chase sur­face-lev­el the­o­ries while Poirot silent­ly reorders the facts. The detective’s faith in log­ic, detail, and human psy­chol­o­gy sets him apart.

Poirot’s qui­et bril­liance begins to show through his restraint. Rather than declar­ing accu­sa­tions, he builds his the­o­ry piece by piece, study­ing behav­ior as much as phys­i­cal evi­dence. His aware­ness of human emotion—jealousy, fear, ambition—lets him nav­i­gate the lies with­out demand­ing con­fes­sions. Poirot isn’t inter­est­ed in chaos or dra­ma; he wants truth with clar­i­ty and ele­gance. While oth­ers are dis­tract­ed by per­son­al loy­al­ties and cir­cum­stan­tial assump­tions, he remains focused on the evi­dence. And though the read­er may crave a quick answer, Poirot insists that time and thought must lead the way. The sto­ry, like the poi­son, works slow­ly but with pre­ci­sion.

Facts alone do not always point to the cul­prit; they require con­text, which Poirot gleans from body lan­guage, gaps in sto­ries, and objects left out of place. He’s not immune to com­pas­sion, but he under­stands that feel­ings can dis­tort facts. In rec­og­niz­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of the burned will and the odd place­ment of items, Poirot sub­tly builds a time­line that con­tra­dicts sur­face appear­ances. This chap­ter makes it clear that noth­ing about this case is acci­den­tal. The crime was not clumsy—it was clever, cal­cu­lat­ed, and designed to mis­lead. But Poirot’s sharp eyes and sharp­er instincts ensure that the truth, no mat­ter how well hid­den, won’t remain buried for long.