Poirot turns his attention to the reappearance of the diamond ring, and confronts Valerie Hobhouse, in whose soup the ring was found. He claims that these poisons were then carefully disposed of, but cannot be sure that the morphine was not stolen from him while it was in his possession. Nigel Chapman admits to having stolen the stethoscope in order to pose as a doctor and steal the morphine tartrate from the hospital dispensary as part of a bet to acquire three deadly poisons. Inspector Sharpe quickly solves the mystery of the stolen stethoscope during his interviews with the inhabitants of the hostel. Several of the original incidents have not been solved by Celia’s confession. Celia makes restitution for the crimes and is seemingly reconciled with her victims, but when she is discovered the following morning dead from an overdose of morphine it does not take the investigators long to see through attempts to make her death seem like suicide. She denies specifically: stealing Nigel Chapman’s green ink and using it to deface Elizabeth Johnston’s work taking the stethoscope, the light bulbs and boracic powder and cutting up and concealing a rucksack.Ĭelia appears to have committed the lesser thefts in order to attract the attention of Colin McNabb, a psychology student who at first regards her as an interesting case study, and then – almost immediately – becomes engaged to her. Poirot’s solution of the petty thefts is unsubtle but effective: once he has threatened to call in the police, Celia Austin quickly confesses to the pettier amongst the incidents.
It is nevertheless not long before the crime of theft is the least of Poirot’s concerns. But when he sees the bizarre list of stolen and vandalized items - including a stethoscope, some lightbulbs, some old flannel trousers, a box of chocolates, a slashed rucksack, some boracic powder and a diamond ring later found in a bowl of a soup - he congratulates the warden, Mrs Hubbard, on a 'unique and beautiful problem'.
An outbreak of apparent kleptomania at a student hostel is not normally the sort of crime that arouses Hercule Poirot's interest.
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