The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

The Under Dog

Lily Margrave smoothed her gloves out on her knee with a nervous gesture, and darted a glance at the occupant of the big chair opposite her.

She had heard of M. Hercule Poirot, the well-known investigator, but this was the first time she had seen him in the flesh.

The comic, almost ridiculous, aspect that he presented disturbed her conception of him. Could this funny little man, with the egg-shaped head and the enormous moustaches, really do the wonderful things that were claimed for him? His occupation at the moment struck her as particularly childish. He was piling small blocks of coloured wood one upon the other, and seemed far more interested in the result than in the story she was telling.

At her sudden silence, however, he looked sharply across at her.

‘Mademoiselle, continue, I pray of you. It is not that I do not attend; I attend very carefully, I assure you.’

He began once more to pile the little blocks of wood one upon the other, while the girl's voice took up the tale again. It was a gruesome tale, a tale of violence and tragedy, but the voice was so calm and unemotional, the recital was so concise that something of the savour of humanity seemed to have been left out of it.

She stopped at last.

‘I hope,’ she said anxiously, ‘that I have made everything clear.’

Poirot nodded his head several times in emphatic assent. Then he swept his hand across the wooden blocks, scattering them over the table, and, leaning back in his chair, his fingertips pressed together and his eyes on the ceiling, he began to recapitulate.

‘Sir Reuben Astwell was murdered ten days ago. On Wednesday, the day before yesterday, his nephew, Charles Leverson, was arrested by the police. The facts against him as far as you know are: — you will correct me if I am wrong, Mademoiselle — Sir Reuben was sitting up late writing in his own special sanctum, the Tower room. Mr Leverson came in late, letting himself in with a latch-key. He was overheard quarrelling with his uncle by the butler, whose room is directly below the Tower room. The quarrel ended with a sudden thud as of a chair being thrown over and a half-smothered cry.

‘The butler was alarmed, and thought of getting up to see what was the matter, but as a few seconds later he heard Mr Leverson leave the room gaily whistling a tune, he thought nothing more of it. On the following morning, however, a housemaid discovered Sir Reuben dead by his desk. He had been struck down by some heavy instrument. The butler, I gather, did not at once tell the story to the police. That was natural, I think, eh, Mademoiselle?’

The sudden question made Lily Margrave start.

‘I beg your pardon?’ she said.

‘One looks for humanity in these matters, does one not?’ said the little man. ‘As you recited the story to me — so admirably, so concisely — you made of the actors in the drama machines — puppets. But me, I look always for human nature. I say to myself, this butler, this — what did you say his name was?’

‘His name is Parsons.’

‘This Parsons, then, he will have the characteristics of his class, he will object very strongly to the police, he will tell them as little as possible. Above all, he will say nothing that might seem to incriminate a member of the household. A house-breaker, a burglar, he will cling to that idea with all the strength of extreme obstinacy. Yes, the loyalties of the servant class are an interesting study.’

He leaned back beaming.

‘In the meantime,’ he went on, ‘everyone in the household has told his or her tale, Mr Leverson among the rest, and his tale was that he had come in late and gone up to bed without seeing his uncle.’

‘That is what he said.’

‘And no one saw reason to doubt that tale,’ mused Poirot, ‘except, of course, Parsons. Then there comes down an inspector from Scotland Yard, Inspector Miller you said, did you not? I know him, I have come across him once or twice in the past. He is what they call the sharp man, the ferret, the weasel.

‘Yes I know him! And the sharp Inspector Miller, he sees what the local inspector has not seen, that Parsons is ill at ease and uncomfortable, and knows something that he has not told. Eh bien, he makes short work of Parsons. By now it has been clearly proved that no one broke into the house that night, that the murderer must be looked for inside the house and not outside. And Parsons is unhappy and frightened, and feels very relieved to have his secret knowledge drawn out of him.

‘He has done his best to avoid scandal, but there are limits; and so Inspector Miller listens to Parsons' story, and asks a question or two, and then makes some private investigations of his own. The case he builds up is very strong — very strong.

‘Blood-stained fingers rested on the corner of the chest in the Tower room and the fingerprints were those of Charles Leverson. The housemaid told him she emptied a basin of blood-stained water in Mr Leverson's room the morning after the crime. He explained to her that he had cut his finger, and he had a little cut there, oh yes, but such a very little cut! The cuff of his evening shirt had been washed, but they found blood-stains in the sleeve of his coat. He was hard pressed for money, and he inherited money at Sir Reuben's death. Oh, yes, a very strong case, Mademoiselle,’ He paused.

‘And yet you come to me today.’

Lily Margrave shrugged her slender shoulders.

‘As I told you, M. Poirot, Lady Astwell sent me.’

‘You would not have come of your own accord, eh?’

The little man glanced at her shrewdly. The girl did not answer.

‘You do not reply to my question.’

Lily Margrave began smoothing her gloves again.

‘It is rather difficult for me, M. Poirot. I have my loyalty to Lady Astwell to consider. Strictly speaking, I am only her paid companion, but she has treated me more as though I were a daughter or a niece. She has been extraordinarily kind, and whatever her faults, I should not like to appear to criticise her actions, or — well, to prejudice you against taking up the case.’

‘Impossible to prejudice Hercule Poirot, cela ne se fait pas,’ declared the little man cheerily. ‘I perceive that you think Lady Astwell has in her bonnet the buzzing bee. Come now, is it not so?’

‘If I must say —’

‘Speak, Mademoiselle.’

‘I think the whole thing is simply silly.’

‘It strikes you like that, eh?’

‘I don't want to say anything against Lady Astwell —’

‘I comprehend,’ murmured Poirot gently. ‘I comprehend perfectly.’ His eyes invited her to go on.

‘She really is a very good sort, and frightfully kind, but she isn't — how can I put it? She isn't an educated woman. You know she was an actress when Sir Reuben married her, and she has all sorts of prejudices and superstitions. If she says a thing, it must be so, and she simply won't listen to reason. The inspector was not very tactful with her, and it put her back up. She says it is nonsense to suspect Mr Leverson and just the sort of stupid, pigheaded mistake the police would make, and that, of course, dear Charles did not do it.’

‘But she has no reasons, eh?’

‘None whatever.’

‘Ha! Is that so? Really, now.’

‘I told her,’ said Lily, ‘that it would be no good coming to you with a mere statement like that and nothing to go on.’

‘You told her that,’ said Poirot, ‘did you really? That is interesting.’

His eyes swept over Lily Margrave in a quick comprehensive survey, taking in the details of her neat black suit, the touch of white at her throat and the smart little black hat. He saw the elegance of her, the pretty face with its slightly pointed chin, and the dark blue, long-lashed eyes. Insensibly his attitude changed; he was interested now, not so much in the case as in the girl sitting opposite him.

‘Lady Astwell is, I should imagine, Mademoiselle, just a trifle inclined to be unbalanced and hysterical?’

Lily Margrave nodded eagerly.

‘That describes her exactly. She is, as I told you, very kind, but it is impossible to argue with her or to make her see things logically.’

‘Possibly she suspects someone on her own account,’ suggested Poirot, ‘someone quite absurd.’

‘That is exactly what she does do,’ cried Lily. ‘She has taken a great dislike to Sir Reuben's secretary, poor man. She says she knows he did it, and yet it has been proved quite conclusively that poor Mr Owen Trefusis cannot possibly have done it.’

‘And she has no reasons?’

‘Of course not; it is all intuition with her.’

Lily Margrave's voice was very scornful.

‘I perceive, Mademoiselle,’ said Poirot, smiling, ‘that you do not believe in intuition?’

‘I think it is nonsense,’ replied Lily.

Poirot leaned back in his chair.

‘Les femmes,’ he murmured, ‘they like to think that it is a special weapon that the good God has given them, and for every once that it shows them the truth, at least nine times it leads them astray.’

‘I know,’ said Lily, ‘but I have told you what Lady Astwell is like. You simply cannot argue with her.’

‘So you, Mademoiselle, being wise and discreet, came along to me as you were bidden, and have managed to put me au courant of the situation.’

Something in the tone of his voice made the girl look up sharply.

‘Of course, I know,’ said Lily apologetically, ‘how very valuable your time is.’

‘You are too flattering, Mademoiselle,’ said Poirot, ‘but indeed — yes, it is true, at this present time I have many cases of moment on hand.’

‘I was afraid that might be so,’ said Lily, rising. ‘I will tell Lady Astwell —’

But Poirot did not rise also. Instead he lay back in his chair and looked steadily up at the girl.

‘You are in haste to be gone, Mademoiselle? Sit down one more little moment, I pray of you.’

He saw the colour flood into her face and ebb out again. She sat down once more slowly and unwillingly.

‘Mademoiselle is quick and decisive,’ said Poirot. ‘She must make allowances for an old man like myself, who comes to his decisions slowly. You mistook me, Mademoiselle. I did not say that I would not go down to Lady Astwell.’

‘You will come, then?’

The girl's tone was flat. She did not look at Poirot, but down at the ground, and so was unaware of the keen scrutiny with which he regarded her.

‘Tell Lady Astwell, Mademoiselle, that I am entirely at her service. I will be at — Mon Repos, is it not? — this afternoon.’

He rose. The girl followed suit.

‘I — I will tell her. It is very good of you to come, M. Poirot. I am afraid, though, you will find you have been brought on a wild goose chase.’

‘Very likely, but — who knows?’

He saw her out with punctilious courtesy to the door. Then he returned to the sitting-room, frowning, deep in thought. Once or twice he nodded his head, then he opened the door and called to his valet.

‘My good George, prepare me, I pray of you, a little valise. I go down to the country this afternoon.’

‘Very good, sir,’ said George.

He was an extremely English-looking person. Tall, cadaverous and unemotional.

‘A young girl is a very interesting phenomenon, George,’ said Poirot, as he dropped once more into his arm-chair and lighted a tiny cigarette. ‘Especially, you understand, when she has brains. To ask someone to do a thing and at the same time to put them against doing it, that is a delicate operation. It requires finesse. She was very adroit — oh, very adroit — but Hercule Poirot, my good George, is of a cleverness quite exceptional.’

‘I have heard you say so, sir.’

‘It is not the secretary she has in mind,’ mused Poirot. ‘Lady Astwell's accusation of him she treats with contempt. Just the same she is anxious that no one should disturb the sleeping dogs. I, my good George, I go to disturb them, I go to make the dogs fight! There is a drama there, at Mon Repos. A human drama, and it excites me. She was adroit, the little one, but not adroit enough. I wonder — I wonder what I shall find there?’

Into the dramatic pause which succeeded these words George's voice broke apologetically:

‘Shall I pack dress clothes, sir?’

Poirot looked at him sadly.

‘Always the concentration, the attention to your own job. You are very good for me, George.’

When the 4.55 drew up at Abbots Cross station, there descended from it M. Hercule Poirot, very neatly and foppishly attired, his moustaches waxed to a stiff point. He gave up his ticket, passed through the barrier, and was accosted by a tall chauffeur.

‘M. Poirot?’

The little man beamed upon him.

‘That is my name.’

‘This way, sir, if you please.’

He held open the door of the big Rolls-Royce.

The house was a bare three minutes from the station. The chauffeur descended once more and opened the door of the car, and Poirot stepped out. The butler was already holding the front door open.

Poirot gave the outside of the house a swift appraising glance before passing through the open door. It was a big, solidly built red brick mansion, with no pretensions to beauty, but with an air of solid comfort.

Poirot stepped into the hall. The butler relieved him deftly of his hat and overcoat, then murmured with that deferential undertone only to be achieved by the best servants:

‘Her Ladyship is expecting you, sir.’

Poirot followed the butler up the soft-carpeted stairs. This, without doubt, was Parsons, a very well-trained servant, with a manner suitably devoid of emotion. At the top of the staircase he turned to the right along a corridor. He passed through a door into a little anteroom, from which two more doors led. He threw open the left-hand one of these, and announced:

‘M. Poirot, m'lady.’

The room was not a very large one, and it was crowded with furniture and knick-knacks. A woman, dressed in black, got up from a sofa and came quickly towards Poirot.

‘M. Poirot,’ she said with outstretched hand. Her eye ran rapidly over the dandified figure. She paused a minute, ignoring the little man's bow over her hand, and his murmured ‘Madame,’ and then, releasing his hand after a sudden vigorous pressure, she exclaimed:

‘I believe in small men! They are the clever ones.’

‘Inspector Miller,’ murmured Poirot, ‘is, I think, a tall man?’

‘He is a bumptious idiot,’ said Lady Astwell. ‘Sit down here by me, will you, M. Poirot?’

She indicated the sofa and went on:

‘Lily did her best to put me off sending for you, but I have not come to my time of life without knowing my own mind.’

‘A rare accomplishment,’ said Poirot, as he followed her to the settee.

Lady Astwell settled herself comfortably among the cushions and turned so as to face him.

‘Lily is a dear girl,’ said Lady Astwell, ‘but she thinks she knows everything, and as often as not in my experience those sort of people are wrong. I am not clever, M. Poirot, I never have been, but I am right where many a more stupid person is wrong. I believe in guidance. Now do you want me to tell you who is the murderer, or do you not? A woman knows, M. Poirot.’

‘Does Miss Margrave know?’

‘What did she tell you?’ asked Lady Astwell sharply.

‘She gave me the facts of the case.’

‘The facts? Oh, of course they are dead against Charles, but I tell you, M. Poirot, he didn't do it. I know he didn't!’ She bent upon him an earnestness that was almost disconcerting.

‘You are very positive, Lady Astwell?’

‘Trefusis killed my husband, M. Poirot. I am sure of it.’

‘Why?’

‘Why should he kill him, do you mean, or why am I sure? I tell you I know it! I am funny about those things. I made up my mind at once, and I stick to it.’

‘Did Mr Trefusis benefit in any way by Sir Reuben's death?’

‘Never left him a penny,’ returned Lady Astwell promptly. ‘Now that shows you dear Reuben couldn't have liked or trusted him.’

‘Had he been with Sir Reuben long, then?’

‘Close on nine years.’

‘That is a long time,’ said Poirot softly, ‘a very long time to remain in the employment of one man. Yes, Mr Trefusis, he must have known his employer well.’

Lady Astwell stared at him.

‘What are you driving at? I don't see what that has to do with it.’

‘I was following out a little idea of my own,’ said Poirot. ‘A little idea, not interesting, perhaps, but original, on the effects of service.’

Lady Astwell still stared.

‘You are very clever, aren't you?’ she said in rather a doubtful tone. ‘Everybody says so.’

Hercule Poirot laughed.

‘Perhaps you shall pay me that compliment, too, Madame, one of these days. But let us return to the motive. Tell me now of your household, of the people who were here in the house on the day of the tragedy.’

‘There was Charles, of course.’

‘He was your husband's nephew, I understand, not yours.’

‘Yes, Charles was the only son of Reuben's sister. She married a comparatively rich man, but one of those crashes came — they do, in the city — and he died, and his wife, too, and Charles came to live with us. He was twenty-three at the time, and going to be a barrister. But when the trouble came, Reuben took him into his office.’

‘He was industrious, M. Charles?’

‘I like a man who is quick on the uptake,’ said Lady Astwell with a nod of approval. ‘No, that's just the trouble, Charles was not industrious. He was always having rows with his uncle over some muddle or other that he had made. Not that poor Reuben was an easy man to get on with. Many's the time I've told him that he had forgotten what it was to be young himself. He was very different in those days, M. Poirot.’

Lady Astwell heaved a sigh of reminiscence.

‘Changes must come, Madame,’ said Poirot. ‘It is the law.’

‘Still,’ said Lady Astwell, ‘he was never really rude to me. At least if he was, he was always sorry afterwards — poor dear Reuben.’

‘He was difficult, eh?’ said Poirot.

‘I could always manage him,’ said Lady Astwell with the air of a successful lion tamer. ‘But it was rather awkward sometimes when he would lose his temper with the servants. There are ways of doing it, and Reuben's was not the right way.’

‘How exactly did Sir Reuben leave his money, Lady Astwell?’

‘Half to me and half to Charles,’ replied Lady Astwell promptly. ‘The lawyers don't put it simply like that, but that's what it amounts to.’

Poirot nodded his head.

‘I see — I see,’ he murmured. ‘Now, Lady Astwell, I will demand of you that you will describe to me the household. There was yourself, and Sir Reuben's nephew, Mr Charles Leverson, and the secretary, Mr Owen Trefusis, and there was Miss Lily Margrave. Perhaps you will tell me something of that young lady.’

‘You want to know about Lily?’

‘Yes, she had been with you long?’

‘About a year. I have had a lot of secretary-companions you know, but somehow or other they all got on my nerves. Lily was different. She was tactful and full of common sense and besides she looks so nice. I do like to have a pretty face about me, M. Poirot. I am a funny kind of person; I take likes and dislikes straight away. As soon as I saw that girl, I said to myself: “She'll do”.’

‘Did she come to you through friends, Lady Astwell?’

‘I think she answered an advertisement. Yes — that was it.’

‘You know something of her people, of where she comes from?’

‘Her father and mother are out in India, I believe. I don't really know much about them, but you can see at a glance that Lily is a lady, can't you, M. Poirot?’

‘Oh perfectly, perfectly.’

‘Of course,’ went on Lady Astwell, ‘I am not a lady myself. I know it, and the servants know it, but there is nothing mean-spirited about me. I can appreciate the real thing when I see it, and no one could be nicer than Lily has been to me. I look upon that girl almost as a daughter, M. Poirot, indeed I do.’

Poirot's right hand strayed out and straightened one or two of the objects lying on a table near him.

‘Did Sir Reuben share this feeling?’ he asked.

His eyes were on the knick-knacks, but doubtless he noted the pause before Lady Astwell's answer came.

‘With a man it's different. Of course they — they got on very well,’

‘Thank you, Madame,’ said Poirot. He was smiling to himself.

‘And these were the only people in the house that night?’ he asked. ‘Excepting, of course, the servants.’

‘Oh, there was Victor.’

‘Victor?’

‘Yes my husband's brother, you know, and his partner.’

‘He lived with you?’

‘No, he had just arrived on a visit. He has been out in West Africa for the past few years.’

‘West Africa,’ murmured Poirot.

He had learned that Lady Astwell could be trusted to develop a subject herself if sufficient time was given her.

‘They say it's a wonderful country, but I think it's the kind of place that has a very bad effect upon a man. They drink too much, and they get uncontrolled. None of the Astwells has a good temper and Victor's, since he came back from Africa, has been simply too shocking. He has frightened me once or twice.’

‘Did he frighten Miss Margrave, I wonder?’ murmured Poirot gently.

‘Lily? Oh, I don't think he has seen much of Lily.’

Poirot made a note or two in a diminutive note-book; then he put the pencil back in its loop and returned the note-book to his pocket.

‘I thank you, Lady Astwell. I will now, if I may, interview Parsons.’

‘Will you have him up here?’

Lady Astwell's hand moved towards the bell. Poirot arrested the gesture quickly.

‘No, no, a thousand times no. I will descend to him.’

‘If you think it is better —’

Lady Astwell was clearly disappointed at not being able to participate in the forthcoming scene. Poirot adopted an air of secrecy.

‘It is essential,’ he said mysteriously, and left Lady Astwell duly impressed.

He found Parsons in the butler's pantry, polishing silver. Poirot opened the proceedings with one of his funny little bows.

‘I must explain myself,’ he said. ‘I am a detective agent.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Parsons, ‘we gathered as much.’

His tone was respectful but aloof.

‘Lady Astwell sent for me,’ continued Poirot. ‘She is not satisfied; no, she is not satisfied at all.’

‘I have heard her Ladyship say so on several occasions,’ said Parsons.

‘In fact,’ said Poirot, ‘I recount to you the things you already know? Eh? Let us then not waste time on these bagatelles. Take me, if you will be so good, to your bedroom and tell me exactly what it was you heard there on the night of the murder.’

The butler's room was on the ground floor, adjoining the servants' hall. It had barred windows, and the strong-room was in one corner of it. Parsons indicated the narrow bed.

‘I had retired, sir, at eleven o'clock. Miss Margrave had gone to bed, and Lady Astwell was with Sir Reuben in the Tower room.’

‘Lady Astwell was with Sir Reuben? Ah, proceed.’

‘The Tower room, sir, is directly over this. If people are talking in it one can hear the murmur of voices, but naturally not anything that is said. I must have fallen asleep about half past eleven. It was just twelve o'clock when I was awakened by the sound of the front door being slammed to and knew Mr Leverson had returned. Presently I heard footsteps overhead, and a minute or two later Mr Leverson's voice talking to Sir Reuben.

‘It was my fancy at the time, sir, that Mr Leverson was — I should not exactly like to say drunk, but inclined to be a little indiscreet and noisy. He was shouting at his uncle at the top of his voice. I caught a word or two here or there, but not enough to understand what it was all about, and then there was a sharp cry and a heavy thud.’

There was a pause, and Parsons repeated the last words. ‘A heavy thud,’ he said impressively.

‘If I mistake not, it is a dull thud in most works of romance,’ murmured Poirot.

‘Maybe, sir,’ said Parsons severely. ‘It was a heavy thud I heard.’

‘A thousand pardons,’ said Poirot.

‘Do not mention it, sir. After the thud, in the silence, I heard Mr Leverson's voice as plain as plain can be, raised high. “My God,” he said, “my God,” just like that, sir.’

Parsons, from his first reluctance to tell the tale, had now progressed to a thorough enjoyment of it. He fancied himself mightily as a narrator. Poirot played up to him.

‘Mon Dieu,’ he murmured. ‘What emotion you must have experienced!’

‘Yes, indeed, sir,’ said Parsons, ‘as you say, sir. Not that I thought very much of it at the time. But it did occur to me to wonder if anything was amiss, and whether I had better go up and see. I went to turn the electric light on, and was unfortunate enough to knock over a chair.

‘I opened the door, and went through the servants' hall, and opened the other door which gives on a passage. The back stairs lead up from there, and as I stood at the bottom of them, hesitating, I heard Mr Leverson's voice from up above, speaking hearty and cheery-like. “No harm done, luckily,” he says. “Good night,” and I heard him move off along the passage to his own room, whistling.’

‘Of course I went back to bed at once. Just something knocked over, that's all I thought it was. I ask you, sir, was I to think Sir Reuben was murdered, with Mr Leverson saying good night and all?’

‘You are sure it was Mr Leverson's voice you heard?’

Parsons looked at the little Belgian pityingly, and Poirot saw clearly enough that, right or wrong, Parsons' mind was made up on this point.

‘Is there anything further you would like to ask me, sir?’

‘There is one thing.’ said Poirot, ‘do you like Mr Leverson?’

‘I — I beg your pardon, sir?’

‘It is a simple question. Do you like Mr Leverson?’

Parsons, from being startled at first, now seemed embarrassed.

‘The general opinion in the servants' hall, sir,’ he said, and paused.

‘By all means,’ said Poirot, ‘put it that way if it pleases you.’

‘The opinion is, sir, that Mr Leverson is an open-handed young gentleman, but not, if I may say so, particularly intelligent, sir.’

‘Ah!’ said Poirot. ‘Do you know, Parsons, that without having seen him, that is also precisely my opinion of Mr Leverson.’

‘Indeed, sir.’

‘What is your opinion — I beg your pardon — the opinion of the servants' hall of the secretary?’

‘He is a very quiet, patient gentleman, sir. Anxious to give no trouble.’

‘Vraiment,’ said Poirot.

The butler coughed.

‘Her ladyship, sir,’ he murmured, ‘is apt to be a little hasty in her judgments.’

‘Then, in the opinion of the servants' hall, Mr Leverson committed the crime?’

‘We none of us wish to think it was Mr Leverson,’ said Parsons. ‘We — well, plainly we didn't think he had it in him, sir.’

‘But he has a somewhat violent temper, has he not?’ asked Poirot.

Parsons came nearer to him.

‘If you are asking me who had the most violent temper in the house —’

Poirot held up a hand.

‘Ah! But that is not the question I should ask,’ he said softly. ‘My question would be, who has the best temper?’

Parsons stared at him open-mouthed.

Poirot wasted no further time on him. With an amiable little bow — he was always amiable — he left the room and wandered out into the big square hall of Mon Repos. There he stood a minute or two in thought, then, at a slight sound that came to him, cocked his head on one side in the manner of a perky robin, and finally, with noiseless steps, crossed to one of the doors that led out of the hall.

He stood in the doorway, looking into the room; a small room furnished as a library. At a big desk at the further end of it sat a thin, pale young man busily writing. He had a receding chin, and wore a pince-nez.

Poirot watched him for some minutes, and then he broke the silence by giving a completely artificial and theatrical cough.

‘Ahem!’ coughed M. Hercule Poirot.

The young man at the desk stopped writing and turned his head. He did not appear unduly startled, but an expression of perplexity gathered on his face as he eyed Poirot.

The latter came forward with a little bow.

‘I have the honour of speaking to M. Trefusis, yes? Ah! my name is Poirot, Hercule Poirot. You may perhaps have heard of me.’

‘Oh — er — yes, certainly,’ said the young man.

Poirot eyed him attentively.

Owen Trefusis was about thirty-three years of age, and the detective saw at once why nobody was inclined to treat Lady Astwell's accusation seriously. Mr Owen Trefusis was a prim, proper young man, disarmingly meek, the type of man who can be, and is, systematically bullied. One could feel quite sure that he would never display resentment.

‘Lady Astwell sent for you, of course,’ said the secretary. ‘She mentioned that she was going to do so. Is there any way in which I can help you?’

His manner was polite without being effusive. Poirot accepted a chair, and murmured gently:

‘Has Lady Astwell said anything to you of her beliefs and suspicions?’

Owen Trefusis smiled a little.

‘As far as that goes,’ he said, ‘I believe she suspects me. It is absurd, but there it is. She has hardly spoken a civil word to me since Sir Reuben's death, and she shrinks against the wall as I pass by.’

His manner was perfectly natural, and there was more amusement than resentment in his voice. Poirot nodded with an air of engaging frankness.

‘Between ourselves,’ he explained, ‘she said the same thing to me. I did not argue with her — me, I have made it a rule never to argue with very positive ladies. You comprehend, it is a waste of time.’

‘Oh, quite.’

‘I say, yes, Madame — oh, perfectly, Madame — précisément, Madame. They mean nothing, those words, but they soothe all the same. I make my investigations, for though it seems almost impossible that anyone except M. Leverson could have committed the crime, yet — well, the impossible has happened before now.’

‘I understand your position perfectly,’ said the secretary. ‘Please regard me as entirely at your service.’

‘Bon,’ said Poirot. ‘We understand one another. Now recount to me the events of that evening. Better start with dinner.’

‘Leverson was not at dinner, as you doubtless know,’ said the secretary. ‘He had a serious disagreement with his uncle, and went off to dine at the Golf Club. Sir Reuben was in a very bad temper in consequence.’

‘Not too amiable, ce Monsieur, eh?’ hinted Poirot delicately.

Trefusis laughed.

‘Oh! He was a Tartar! I haven't worked with him for nine years without knowing most of his little ways. He was an extraordinarily difficult man, M. Poirot. He would get into childish fits of rage and abuse anybody who came near him.

‘I was used to it by that time. I got into the habit of paying absolutely no attention to anything he said. He was not bad-hearted really, but he could be most foolish and exasperating in his manner. The great thing was never to answer him back.’

‘Were other people as wise as you were in that respect?’

Trefusis shrugged his shoulders.

‘Lady Astwell enjoyed a good row,’ he said. ‘She was not in the least afraid of Sir Reuben, and she always stood up to him and gave him as good as she got. They always made up afterwards, and Sir Reuben was really devoted to her.’

‘Did they quarrel that last night?’

The secretary looked at him sideways, hesitated a minute, then he said:

‘I believe so; what made you ask?’

‘An idea, that is all.’

‘I don't know, of course,’ explained the secretary, ‘but things looked as though they were working up that way.’

Poirot did not pursue the topic.

‘Who else was at dinner?’

‘Miss Margrave, Mr Victor Astwell, and myself.’

‘And afterwards?’

‘We went into the drawing-room. Sir Reuben did not accompany us. About ten minutes later he came in and hauled me over the coals for some trifling matter about a letter. I went up with him to the Tower room and set the thing straight; then Mr Victor Astwell came in and said he had something he wished to talk to his brother about, so I went downstairs and joined the two ladies.

‘About a quarter of an hour later I heard Sir Reuben's bell ringing violently, and Parsons came to say I was to go up to Sir Reuben at once. As I entered the room, Mr Victor Astwell was coming out. He nearly knocked me over. Something had evidently happened to upset him. He has a very violent temper. I really believe he didn't see me.’

‘Did Sir Reuben make any comment on the matter?’

‘He said: 'Victor is a lunatic; he will do for somebody some day when he is in one of these rages.'’

‘Ah!’ said Poirot. ‘Have you any idea what the trouble was about?’

‘I couldn't say at all.’

Poirot turned his head very slowly and looked at the secretary. Those last words had been uttered too hastily. He formed the conviction that Trefusis could have said more had he wished to do so. But once again Poirot did not press the question.

‘And then? Proceed, I pray of you.’

‘I worked with Sir Reuben for about an hour and a half. At 11 o'clock Lady Astwell came in, and Sir Reuben told me I could go to bed.’

‘And you went?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you any idea how long she stayed with him?’

‘None at all. Her room is on the first floor, and mine is on the second, so I would not hear her go to bed.’

‘I see.’

Poirot nodded his head once or twice and sprang to his feet.

‘And now, Monsieur, take me to the Tower room.’

He followed the secretary up the broad stairs to the first landing. Here Trefusis led him along the corridor, and through a baize door at the end of it, which gave on the servants' staircase and on a short passage that ended in a door. They passed through this door and found themselves on the scene of the crime.

It was a lofty room twice as high as any of the others, and was roughly about thirty feet square. Swords and assegais adorned the walls, and many native curios were arranged about on tables. At the far end, in the embrasure of the window, was a large writing-table. Poirot crossed straight to it.

‘It was here Sir Reuben was found?’

Trefusis nodded.

‘He was struck from behind, I understand?’

Again the secretary nodded.

‘The crime was committed with one of these native clubs,’ he explained. ‘A tremendously heavy thing. Death must have been practically instantaneous.’

‘That strengthens the conviction that the crime was not premeditated. A sharp quarrel, and a weapon snatched up almost unconsciously.’

‘Yes, it does not look well for poor Leverson.’

‘And the body was found fallen forward on the desk?’

‘No, it had slipped sideways to the ground.’

‘Ah,’ said Poirot, ‘that is curious.’

‘Why curious?’ asked the secretary.

‘Because of this.’

Poirot pointed to a round irregular stain on the polished surface of the writing-table.

‘That is a blood-stain, mon ami,’

‘It may have splattered there,’ suggested Trefusis, ‘or it may have been made later, when they moved the body.’

‘Very possibly, very possibly,’ said the little man. ‘There is only the one door to this room?’

‘There is a staircase here.’

Trefusis pulled aside a velvet curtain in the corner of the room nearest the door, where a small spiral staircase led upward.

‘This place was originally built by an astronomer. The stairs lead up to the tower where the telescope was fixed. Sir Reuben had the place fitted up as a bedroom, and sometimes slept there if he was working very late.’

Poirot went nimbly up the steps. The circular room upstairs was plainly furnished, with a camp-bed, a chair and dressing-table. Poirot satisfied himself that there was no other exit, and then came down again to where Trefusis stood waiting for him.

‘Did you hear Mr Leverson come in?’ he asked.

Trefusis shook his head.

‘I was fast asleep by that time.’

Poirot nodded. He looked slowly round the room.

‘Eh bien!’ he said at last. ‘I do not think there is anything further here, unless — perhaps you would be so kind as to draw the curtains.’

Obediently Trefusis pulled the heavy black curtains across the window at the far end of the room. Poirot switched on the light — which was masked by a big alabaster bowl hanging from the ceiling.

‘There was a desk light?’ he asked.

For reply the secretary clicked on a powerful green-shaded hand lamp, which stood on the writing-table. Poirot switched the other light off, then on, then off again.

‘C'est bien! I have finished here.’

‘Dinner is at half past seven,’ murmured the secretary.

‘I thank you, M. Trefusis, for your many amiabilities.’

‘Not at all.’

Poirot went thoughtfully along the corridor to the room appointed for him. The inscrutable George was there laying out his master's things.

‘My good George,’ he said presently, ‘I shall, I hope, meet at dinner a certain gentleman who begins to intrigue me greatly. A man who has come home from the tropics, George. With a tropical temper — so it is said. A man whom Parsons tries to tell me about, and whom Lily Margrave does not mention. The late Sir Reuben had a temper of his own, George. Supposing such a man to come into contact with a man whose temper was worse than his own — how do you say it? The fur would jump about, eh?’

‘“Would fly” is the correct expression, sir, and it is not always the case, sir, not by a long way.’

‘No?’

‘No, sir. There was my Aunt Jemima, sir, a most shrewdish tongue she had, bullied a poor sister of hers who lived with her, something shocking she did. Nearly worried the life out of her. But if anyone came along who stood up to her, well, it was a very different thing. It was meekness she couldn't bear.’

‘Ha!’ said Poirot, ‘it is suggestive — that.’

George coughed apologetically.

‘Is there anything I can do in any way,’ he inquired delicately, ‘to — er — assist you, sir?’

‘Certainly,’ said Poirot promptly. ‘You can find out for me what colour evening dress Miss Lily Margrave wore that night, and which housemaid attends her.’

George received these commands with his usual stolidity.

‘Very good. sir, I will have the information for you in the morning.’

Poirot rose from his seat and stood gazing into the fire.

‘You are very useful to me, George,’ he murmured. ‘Do you know, I shall not forget your Aunt Jemima?’

Poirot did not, after all, see Victor Astwell that night. A telephone message came from him that he was detained in London.

‘He attends to the affairs of your late husband's business, eh?’ asked Poirot of Lady Astwell.

‘Victor is a partner,’ she explained. ‘He went out to Africa to look into some mining concessions for the firm. It was mining, wasn't it, Lily?’

‘Yes, Lady Astwell.’

‘Gold mines, I think, or was it copper or tin? You ought to know, Lily, you were always asking Reuben questions about it all. Oh, do be careful, dear, you will have that vase over!’

‘It is dreadfully hot in here with the fire,’ said the girl. ‘Shall I — shall I open the window a little?’

‘If you like, dear,’ said Lady Astwell placidly.

Poirot watched while the girl went across to the window and opened it. She stood there a minute or two breathing in the cool night air. When she returned and sat down in her seat, Poirot said to her politely:

‘So Mademoiselle is interested in mines?’

‘Oh, not really,’ said the girl indifferently, ‘I listened to Sir Reuben, but I don't know anything about the subject.’

‘You pretended very well, then,’ said Lady Astwell. ‘Poor Reuben actually thought you had some ulterior motive in asking all those questions.’

The little detective's eyes had not moved from the fire, into which he was steadily staring, but nevertheless, he did not miss the quick flush of vexation on Lily Margrave's face. Tactfully he changed the conversation. When the hour for good nights came, Poirot said to his hostess:

‘May I have just two little words with you, Madame?’

Lily Margrave vanished discreetly. Lady Astwell looked inquiringly at the detective.

‘You were the last person to see Sir Reuben alive that night?’

She nodded. Tears sprang into her eyes, and she hastily held a black-edged handkerchief to them.

‘Ah, do not distress yourself, I beg of you do not distress yourself.’

‘It's all very well, M. Poirot, but I can't help it.’

‘I am a triple imbecile thus to vex you.’

‘No, no, go on. What were you going to say?’

‘It was about eleven o'clock, I fancy, when you went into the Tower room, and Sir Reuben dismissed Mr Trefusis. Is that right?’

‘It must have been about then.’

‘How long were you with him?’

‘It was just a quarter to twelve when I got up to my room; I remember glancing at the clock.’

‘Lady Astwell, will you tell me what your conversation with your husband was about?’

Lady Astwell sank down on the sofa and broke down completely. Her sobs were vigorous.

‘We — qua — qua — quarrelled,’ she moaned.

‘What about?’ Poirot's voice was coaxing, almost tender.

‘L-l-lots of things. It b-b-began with L-Lily. Reuben took a dislike to her — for no reason, and said he had caught her interfering with his papers. He wanted to send her away, and I said she was a dear girl, and I would not have it. And then he s-s-started shouting me down, and I wouldn't have that, so I just told him what I thought of him.

‘Not that I really meant it, M. Poirot. He said he had taken me out of the gutter to marry me, and I said — ah, but what does it all matter now? I shall never forgive myself. You know how it is, M Poirot, I always did say a good row clears the air, and how was I to know someone was going to murder him that very night? Poor old Reuben.’

Poirot had listened sympathetically to all this outburst.

‘I have caused you suffering,’ he said. ‘I apologize. Let us now be very business-like — very practical, very exact. You still cling to your idea that Mr Trefusis murdered your husband?’

Lady Astwell drew herself up.

‘A woman's instinct, M. Poirot,’ she said solemnly, ‘never lies.’

‘Exactly, exactly,’ said Poirot. ‘But when did he do it?’

‘When? After I left him, of course.’

‘You left Sir Reuben at a quarter to twelve. At five minutes to twelve Mr Leverson came in. In that ten minutes you say the secretary came along from his bedroom and murdered him?’

‘It is perfectly possible.’

‘So many things are possible,’ said Poirot. ‘It could be done in ten minutes. Oh, yes! But was it?’

‘Of course he says he was in bed and fast asleep,’ said Lady Astwell, ‘but who is to know if he was or not?’

‘Nobody saw him about,’ Poirot reminded her.

‘Everybody was in bed and fast asleep,’ said Lady Astwell triumphantly. ‘Of course nobody saw him.’

‘I wonder,’ said Poirot to himself.

A short pause.

‘Eh bien, Lady Astwell, I will wish you good night.’

George deposited a tray of early morning coffee by his master's bedside.

‘Miss Margrave, sir, wore a dress of light green chiffon on the night in question.’

‘Thank you, George, you are most reliable.’

‘The third housemaid looks after Miss Margrave, sir. Her name is Gladys.’

‘Thank you, George. You are invaluable.’

‘Not at all, sir.’

‘It is a fine morning,’ said Poirot, looking out of the window, ‘and no one is likely to be astir very early. I think, my good George, that we shall have the Tower room to ourselves if we proceed there to make a little experiment.’

‘You need me, sir?’

‘The experiment',’ said Poirot, ‘will not be painful.’

The curtains were still drawn in the Tower room when they arrived there. George was about to pull them, when Poirot restrained him.

‘We will leave the room as it is. Just turn on the desk lamp.’

The valet obeyed.

‘Now, my good George, sit down in that chair. Dispose yourself as though you were writing. Très bien. Me, I seize a club, I steal up behind you, so, and I hit you on the back of the head.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said George.

‘Ah!’ said Poirot, ‘but when I hit you, do not continue to write. You comprehend I cannot be exact. I cannot hit you with the same force with which the assassin hit Sir Reuben. When it comes to that point, we must do the make-believe. I hit you on the head, and you collapse, so. The arms well relaxed, the body limp. Permit me to arrange you. But no, do not flex your muscles.’

He heaved a sigh of exasperation.

‘You press admirably the trousers, George,’ he said, ‘but the imagination you possess it not. Get up and let me take your place.’

Poirot in his turn sat down at the writing-table.

‘I write,’ he declared, ‘I write busily. You steal up behind me, you hit me on the head with the club. Crash! The pen slips from my fingers, I drop forward, but not very far forward, for the chair is low, and the desk is high, and, moreover, my arms support me. Have the goodness, George, to go back to the door, stand there, and tell me what you see.’

‘Ahem!’

‘Yes, George?’ encouragingly.

‘I see you, sir, sitting at the desk.’

‘Sitting at the desk?’

‘It is a little difficult to see plainly, sir,’ explained George, ‘being such a long way away, sir, and the lamp being so heavily shaded. If I might turn on this light, sir?’

His hand reached out to the switch.

‘Not at all,’ said Poirot sharply. ‘We shall do very well as we are. Here am I bending over the desk, there are you standing by the door. Advance now, George, advance, and put your hand on my shoulder.’

George obeyed.

‘Lean on me a little, George, to steady yourself on your feet, as it were. Ah! Voilà.’

Hercule Poirot's limp body slid artistically sideways.

‘I collapse — so!’ he observed. ‘Yes, it is very well imagined. There is now something most important that must be done.’

‘Indeed, sir?’ said the valet.

‘Yes it is necessary that I should breakfast well.’

The little man laughed heartily at his own joke.

‘The stomach, George; it must not be ignored.’

George maintained a disapproving silence. Poirot went downstairs chuckling happily to himself. He was pleased at the way things were shaping. After breakfast he made the acquaintance of Gladys, the third housemaid. He was very interested in what she could tell him of the crime. She was sympathetic towards Charles, although she had no doubt of his guilt.

‘Poor young gentleman, sir, it seems hard, it does, him not being quite himself at the time.’

‘He and Miss Margrave should have got on well together,’ suggested Poirot, ‘as the only two young people in the house.’

Gladys shook her head.

‘Very stand-offish Miss Lily was with him. She wouldn't have no carryings-on, and she made it plain.’

‘He was fond of her, was he?’

‘Oh, only in passing, so to speak; no harm in it, sir. Mr Victor Astwell, now he is properly gone on Miss Lily.’

She giggled.

‘Ah vraiment!’

Gladys giggled again.

‘Sweet on her straight away he was. Miss Lily is just like a lily, isn't she, sir? So tall and such a lovely shade of gold hair.’

‘She should wear a green evening frock,’ mused Poirot. ‘There is a certain shade of green —’

‘She has one, sir,’ said Gladys. ‘Of course, she can't wear it now, being in mourning, but she had it on the very night Sir Reuben died.’

‘It should be a light green, not a dark green,’ said Poirot.

‘It is a light green, sir. If you wait a minute I'll show it to you. Miss Lily has just gone out with the dogs.’

Poirot nodded. He knew that as well as Gladys did. In fact, it was only after seeing Lily safely off the premises that he had gone in search of the housemaid. Gladys hurried away, and returned a few minutes later with a green evening dress on a hanger.

‘Exquis!’ murmured Poirot, holding up hands of admiration. ‘Permit me to take it to the light a minute.’

He took the dress from Gladys, turned his back on her and hurried to the window. He bent over it, then held it out at arm's length.

‘It is perfect,’ he declared. ‘Perfectly ravishing. A thousand thanks for showing it to me.’

‘Not at ail, sir,’ said Gladys. ‘We all know that Frenchmen are interested in ladies' dresses.’

‘You are too kind,’ murmured Poirot.

He watched her hurry away again with the dress. Then he looked down at his two hands and smiled. In the right hand was a tiny pair of small nail scissors, in the left was a neatly clipped fragment of green chiffon.

‘And now,’ he murmured, ‘to be heroic.’

He returned to his own apartment and summoned George.

‘On the dressing-table, my good George, you will perceive a gold scarf pin.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘On the washstand is a solution of carbolic. Immerse, I pray you, the point of the pin in the carbolic.’

George did as he was bid. He had long ago ceased to wonder at the vagaries of his master.

‘I have done that, sir.’

‘Très bien! Now approach. I tender to you my first finger; insert the point of the pin in it.’

‘Excuse me, sir, you want me to prick you, sir?’

‘But yes, you have guessed correctly. You must draw blood, you understand, but not too much.’

George took hold of his master's finger. Poirot shut his eyes and leaned back. The valet stabbed at the finger with the scarf pin, and Poirot uttered a shrill yell.

‘Je vous remercie, George,’ he said. ‘What you have done is ample.’

Taking a small piece of green chiffon from his pocket, he dabbed his finger with it gingerly.

‘The operation has succeeded to a miracle,’ he remarked, gazing at the result. ‘You have no curiosity, George? Now, that is admirable!’

The valet had just taken a discreet look out of the window.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ he murmured, ‘a gentleman has driven up in a large car.’

‘Ah! Ah!’ said Poirot. He rose briskly to his feet. ‘The elusive Mr Victor Astwell. I go down to make his acquaintance.’

Poirot was destined to hear Mr Victor Astwell some time before he saw him. A loud voice rang out from the hall.

‘Mind what you are doing, you damned idiot! That case has got glass in it. Curse you, Parsons, get out of the way! Put it down, you fool!’

Poirot skipped nimbly down the stairs. Victor Astwell was a big man. Poirot bowed to him politely.

‘Who the devil are you?’ roared the big man.

Poirot bowed again.

‘My name is Hercule Poirot.’

‘Lord!’ said Victor Astwell. ‘So Nancy sent for you, after all, did she?’

He put a hand on Poirot's shoulder and steered him into the library.

‘So you are the fellow they make such a fuss about,’ he remarked, looking him up and down. ‘Sorry for my language just now. That chauffeur of mine is a damned ass, and Parsons always does get on my nerves, blithering old idiot.

‘I don't suffer fools gladly, you know,’ he said, half apologetically, ‘but by all accounts you are not a fool, eh, M. Poirot?’

He laughed breezily.

‘Those who have thought so have been sadly mistaken,’ said Poirot placidly.

‘Is that so? Well, so Nancy has carted you down here — got a bee in her bonnet about the secretary. There is nothing in that; Trefusis is as mild as milk — drinks milk, too, I believe. The fellow is a teetotaller. Rather waste of your time isn't it?’

‘If one has an opportunity to observe human nature, time is never wasted,’ said Poirot quietly.

‘Human nature, eh?’

Victor Astwell stared at him, then he flung himself down in a chair.

‘Anything I can do for you?’

‘Yes, you can tell me what your quarrel with your brother was about that evening.’

Victor Astwell shook his head.

‘Nothing to do with the case,’ he said decisively.

‘One can never be sure,’ said Poirot.

‘It had nothing to do with Charles Leverson.’

‘Lady Astwell thinks that Charles had nothing to do with the murder.’

‘Oh, Nancy!’

‘Parsons assumes that it was M. Charles Leverson who came in that night, but he didn't see him. Remember nobody saw him.’

‘You are wrong there,’ said Astwell. ‘I saw him.’

‘You saw him?’

‘It's very simple. Reuben had been pitching into young Charles — not without good reason, I must say. Later on he tried to bully me. I told him a few home truths and, just to annoy him, I made up my mind to back the boy. I meant to see him that night, so as to tell him how the land lay. When I went up to my room I didn't go to bed. Instead, I left the door ajar and sat on a chair smoking. My room is on the second floor, M. Poirot, and Charles's room is next to it.’

‘Pardon my interrupting you — Mr Trefusis, he, too, sleeps on that floor?’

Astwell nodded.

‘Yes, his room is just beyond mine.’

‘Nearer the stairs?’

‘No, the other way.’

A curious light came into Poirot's face, but the other didn't notice it and went on:

‘As I say, I waited up for Charles. I heard the front door slam, as I thought, about five minutes to twelve, but there was no sign of Charles for about ten minutes. When he did come up the stairs I saw that it was no good tackling him that night.

He lifted his elbows significantly.

‘I see,’ murmured Poirot.

‘Poor devil couldn't walk straight,’ said Astwell. ‘He was looking pretty ghastly, too. I put it down to his condition at the time. Of course, now, I realize that he had come straight from committing the crime.’

Poirot interposed a quick question.

‘You heard nothing from the Tower room?’

‘No but you must remember that I was right at the other end of the building. The walls are thick, and I don't believe you would even hear a pistol shot fired from there.’

Poirot nodded.

‘I asked if he would like some help getting to bed,’ continued Astwell. ‘But he said he was all right and went into his room and banged the door. I undressed and went to bed.’

Poirot was staring thoughtfully at the carpet.

‘You realize, M. Astwell,’ he said at last, ‘that your evidence is very important?’

‘I suppose so, at least — what do you mean?’

‘Your evidence that ten minutes elapsed between the slamming of the front door and Leverson's appearance upstairs. He himself says, so I understand, that he came into the house and went straight up to bed. But there is more than that. Lady Astwell's accusation of the secretary is fantastic, I admit, yet up to now it has not been proved impossible. But your evidence creates an alibi.’

‘How is that?’

‘Lady Astwell says that she left her husband at a quarter to twelve, while the secretary had gone to bed at eleven o'clock. The only time he could have committed the crime was between a quarter to twelve and Charles Leverson's return. Now, if, as you say, you sat with your door open, he could not have come down from his room without your seeing him.’

‘That is so,’ agreed the other.

‘There is no other staircase?’

‘No, to get down to the Tower room he would have had to pass my door, and he didn't, I am quite sure of that. And, anyway, M. Poirot, as I said just now, the man is as meek as a parson, I assure you.’

‘But yes, but yes,’ said Poirot soothingly, ‘I understand all that.’ He paused. ‘And you will not tell me the subject of your quarrel with Sir Reuben?’

The other's face turned a dark red.

‘You'll get nothing out of me.’

Poirot looked at the ceiling.

‘I can always be discreet,’ he murmured, ‘where a lady is concerned.’

Victor Astwell sprang to his feet.

‘Damn you, how did you — what do you mean?’

‘I was thinking,’ said Poirot, ‘of Miss Lily Margrave.’

Victor Astwell stood undecided for a minute or two, then his colour subsided, and he sat down again.

‘You are too clever for me, M. Poirot. Yes, it was Lily we quarrelled about. Reuben had his knife into her; he had ferreted out something or other about the girl — false references, something of that kind. I don't believe a word of it myself.

‘And then he went further than he had any right to go, talked about her stealing down at night and getting out of the house to meet some fellow or other. My God! I gave it to him; I told him that better men than he had been killed for saying less. That shut him up. Reuben was inclined to be a bit afraid of me when I got going.’

‘I hardly wonder at it,’ murmured Poirot politely.

‘I think a lot of Lily Margrave,’ said Victor in another tone. ‘A nice girl through and through.’

Poirot did not answer. He was staring in front of him, seemingly lost in abstraction. He came out of his brown study with a jerk.

‘I must, I think, promenade myself a little. There is a hotel here, yes?’

‘Two,’ said Victor Astwell, ‘the Golf Hotel up by the links and the Mitre down by the station.’

‘I thank you,’ said Poirot. ‘Yes, certainly I must promenade myself a little.’

The Golf Hotel, as befits its name, stands on the golf links almost adjoining the club house. It was to this hostelry that Poirot repaired first in the course of that ‘promenade’ which he had advertised himself as being about to take. The little man had his own way of doing things. Three minutes after he had entered the Golf Hotel he was in private consultation with Miss Langdon, the manageress.

‘I regret to incommode you in any way, Mademoiselle,’ said Poirot, ‘but you see I am a detective.’

Simplicity always appealed to him. In this case the method proved efficacious at once.

‘A detective!’ exclaimed Miss Langdon, looking at him doubtfully.

‘Not from Scotland Yard,’ Poirot assured her. ‘In fact — you may have noticed it? I am not an Englishman. No, I make the private inquiries into the death of Sir Reuben Astwell.’

‘You don't say, now!’ Miss Langdon goggled at him expectantly.

‘Precisely,’ said Poirot, beaming. ‘Only to someone of discretion like yourself would I reveal the fact. I think, Mademoiselle, you may be able to aid me. Can you tell me of any gentleman staying here on the night of the murder who was absent from the hotel that evening and returned to it about twelve or half-past?’

Miss Langdon's eyes opened wider than ever.

‘You don't think —?’ she breathed.

‘That you had the murderer here? No, but I have reason to believe that a guest staying here promenaded himself in the direction of Mon Repos that night, and if so he may have seen something which, though conveying no meaning to him, might be very useful to me.’

The manageress nodded her head sapiently, with an air of one thoroughly well up in the annals of detective logic.

‘I understand perfectly. Now, let me see; who did we have staying here?’

She frowned, evidently running over the names in her mind, and helping her memory by occasionally checking them off on her fingertips.

‘Captain Swann, Mr Elkins, Major Blunt, old Mr Benson. No, really, sir, I don't believe anyone went out that evening.’

‘You would have noticed if they had done so, eh?’

‘Oh, yes, sir, it is not very usual, you see. I mean gentlemen go out to dinner and all that, but they don't go out after dinner, because — well, there is nowhere to go to, is there?’

The attractions of Abbots Cross were golf and nothing but golf.

‘That is so,’ agreed Poirot. ‘Then, as far as you remember, Mademoiselle, nobody from here was out that night?’

‘Captain England and his wife were out to dinner.’

Poirot shook his head.

‘That is not the kind of thing I mean. I will try the other hotel; the Mitre, is it not?’

‘Oh, the Mitre,’ said Miss Langdon. ‘Of course, anyone might have gone out walking from there.’

The disparagement of her tone, though vague, was evident, and Poirot beat a tactful retreat.

Ten minutes later he was repeating the scene, this time with Miss Cole, the brusque manageress of the Mitre, a less pretentious hotel with lower prices, situated close to the station.

‘There was one gentleman out late that night, came in about half-past twelve, as far as I can remember. Quite a habit of his it was, to go out for a walk at that time of the evening. He had done it once or twice before. Let me see now, what was his name? Just for the moment I can't remember it.’

She pulled a large ledger towards her and began turning over the pages.

‘Nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first, twenty-second. Ah, here we are. Naylor, Captain Humphrey Naylor.’

‘He had stayed here before? You know him well?’

‘Once before,’ said Miss Cole, ‘about a fortnight earlier. He went out then in the evening, I remember.’

‘He came to play golf, eh?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Miss Cole, ‘that's what most of the gentlemen come for.’

‘Very true,’ said Poirot. ‘Well, Mademoiselle, I thank you infinitely, and I wish you good day.’

He went back to Mon Repos with a very thoughtful face. Once or twice he drew something from his pocket and looked at it.

‘It must be done,’ he murmured to himself, ‘and soon, as soon as I can make the opportunity.’

His first proceeding on re-entering the house was to ask Parsons where Miss Margrave might be found. He was told that she was in the small study dealing with Lady Astwell's correspondence, and the information seemed to afford Poirot satisfaction.

He found the little study without difficulty. Lily Margrave was seated at a desk by the window, writing. But for her the room was empty. Poirot carefully shut the door behind him and came towards the girl.

‘I may have a little minute of your time, Mademoiselle, you will be so kind?’

‘Certainly.’

Lily Margrave put the papers aside and turned towards him.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘On the evening of the tragedy, Mademoiselle, I understand that when Lady Astwell went to her husband you went straight up to bed. Is that so?’

Lily Margrave nodded.

‘You did not come down again, by any chance?’

The girl shook her head.

‘I think you said, Mademoiselle, that you had not at any time that evening been in the Tower room?’

‘I don't remember saying so, but as a matter of fact that is quite true. I was not in the Tower room that evening.’

Poirot raised his eyebrows.

‘Curious,’ he murmured.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Very curious,’ murmured Hercule Poirot again. ‘How do you account, then, for this?’

He drew from his pocket a little scrap of stained green chiffon and held it up for the girl's inspection.

Her expression did not change, but he felt rather than heard the sharp intake of breath.

‘I don't understand, M. Poirot.’

‘You wore, I understand, a green chiffon dress that evening, Mademoiselle. This —’ he tapped the scrap in his fingers — ‘was torn from it.’

‘And you found it in the Tower room?’ asked the girl sharply. ‘Whereabouts?’

Hercule Poirot looked at the ceiling.

‘For the moment shall we just say — in the Tower room?’

For the first time, a look of fear sprang into the girl's eyes. She began to speak, then checked herself. Poirot watched her small white hands clenching themselves on the edge of the desk.

‘I wonder if I did go into the Tower room that evening?’ she mused. ‘Before dinner, I mean. I don't think so. I am almost sure I didn't. If that scrap has been in the Tower room all this time, it seems to me a very extraordinary thing the police did not find it right away.’

‘The police,’ said the little man, ‘do not think of things that Hercule Poirot thinks of.’

‘I may have run in there for a minute just before dinner,’ mused Lily Margrave, ‘or it may have been the night before. I wore the same dress then. Yes, I am almost sure it was the night before.’

‘I think not,’ said Poirot evenly.

‘Why?’

He only shook his head slowly from side to side.

‘What do you mean?’ whispered the girl.

She was leaning forward, staring at him, all the colour ebbing out of her face.

‘You do not notice, Mademoiselle, that this fragment is stained? There is no doubt about it, that stain is human blood.’

‘You mean —?’

‘I mean, Mademoiselle, that you were in the Tower room after the crime was committed, not before. I think you will do well to tell me the whole truth, lest worse should befall you.’

He stood up now, a stern little figure of a man, his forefinger pointed accusingly at the girl.

‘How did you find out?’ gasped Lily.

‘No matter, Mademoiselle. I tell you Hercule Poirot knows. I know all about Captain Humphrey Naylor, and that you went down to meet him that night.’

Lily suddenly put her head down on her arms and burst into tears. Immediately Poirot relinquished his accusing attitude.

‘There, there, my little one,’ he said, patting the girl on the shoulder. ‘Do not distress yourself. Impossible to deceive Hercule Poirot; once realize that and all your troubles will be at an end. And now you will tell me the whole story, will you not? You will tell old Papa Poirot?’

‘It is not what you think, it isn't, indeed. Humphrey — my brother — never touched a hair of his head.’

‘Your brother, eh?’ said Poirot. ‘So that is how the land lies. Well, if you wish to save him from suspicion, you must tell me the whole story now, without reservations.’

Lily sat up again, pushing back the hair from her forehead. After a minute or two, she began to speak in a low, clear voice.

‘I will tell you the truth, M. Poirot. I can see now that it would be absurd to do anything else. My real name is Lily Naylor, and Humphrey is my only brother. Some years ago, when he was out in Africa, he discovered a gold-mine, or rather, I should say, discovered the presence of gold. I can't tell you this part of it properly, because I don't understand the technical details, but what it amounted to was this:

‘The thing seemed likely to be a very big undertaking, and Humphrey came home with letters to Sir Reuben Astwell in the hopes of getting him interested in the matter. I don't understand the rights of it even now, but I gather that Sir Reuben sent out an expert to report, and that he subsequently told my brother that the expert's report was unfavourable and that he, Humphrey, had made a great mistake. My brother went back to Africa on an expedition into the interior and was lost sight of. It was assumed that he and the expedition had perished.

‘It was soon after that that a company was formed to exploit the Mpala Gold Fields. When my brother got back to England he at once jumped to the conclusion that these gold fields were identical with those he had discovered. Sir Reuben Astwell had apparently nothing to do with this company, and they had seemingly discovered the place on their own. But my brother was not satisfied; he was convinced that Sir Reuben had deliberately swindled him.

‘He became more and more violent and unhappy about the matter. We two are alone in the world, M. Poirot, and as it was necessary then for me to go out and earn my own living, I conceived the idea of taking a post in this household and trying to find out if any connection existed between Sir Reuben and the Mpala Gold Fields. For obvious reasons I concealed my real name, and I'll admit frankly that I used a forged reference.

‘There were many applicants for the post, most of them with better qualifications than mine, so — well, M. Poirot, I wrote a beautiful letter from the Duchess of Perthshire, who I knew had just gone to America. I thought a duchess would have a great effect upon Lady Astwell, and I was quite right. She engaged me on the spot.

‘Since then I have been that hateful thing, a spy, and until lately with no success. Sir Reuben is not a man to give away his business secrets, but when Victor Astwell came back from Africa he was less guarded in his talk, and I began to believe that, after all, Humphrey had not been mistaken. My brother came down here about a fortnight before the murder, and I crept out of the house to meet him secretly at night. I told him the things Victor Astwell had said, and he became very excited and assured me I was definitely on the right track.

‘But after that things began to go wrong; someone must have seen me stealing out of the house and have reported the matter to Sir Reuben. He became suspicious and hunted up my references, and soon discovered the fact that they were forged. The crisis came on the day of the murder. I think he thought I was after his wife's jewels. Whatever his suspicions were, he had no intention to allow me to remain any longer at Mon Repos, though he agreed not to prosecute me on account of the references. Lady Astwell took my part throughout and stood up valiantly to Sir Reuben.’

She paused. Poirot's face was very grave.

‘And now, Mademoiselle,’ he said, ‘we come to the night of the murder.’

Lily swallowed hard and nodded her head.

‘To begin with, M, Poirot, I must tell you that my brother had come down again, and that I had arranged to creep out and meet him once more. I went up to my room, as I have said, but I did not go to bed. Instead, I waited till I thought everyone was asleep, and then stole downstairs again and out by the side door. I met Humphrey and acquainted him in a few hurried words what had occurred. I told him that I believed the papers he wanted were in Sir Reuben's safe in the Tower room, and we agreed as a last desperate adventure to try and get hold of them that night.

‘I was to go in first and see that the way was clear. I heard the church clock strike twelve as I went in by the side door. I was halfway up the stairs leading to the Tower room, when I heard a thud of something falling, and a voice cried out, “My God!” A minute or two afterwards the door of the Tower room opened, and Charles Leverson came out. I could see his face quite clearly in the moonlight, but I was crouching some way below him on the stairs where it was dark, and he did not see me at all.

‘He stood there a moment swaying on his feet and looking ghastly. He seemed to be listening; then with an effort he seemed to pull himself together and, opening the door into the Tower room, called out something about there being no harm done. His voice was quite jaunty and debonair, but his face gave the lie to it. He waited a minute more, and then slowly went on upstairs and out of sight.

‘When he had gone I waited a minute or two and then crept to the Tower room door. I had a feeling that something tragic had happened. The main light was out, but the desk lamp was on, and by its light I saw Sir Reuben lying on the floor by the desk. I don't know how I managed it, but I nerved myself at last to go over and kneel down by him. I saw at once that he was dead, struck down from behind, and also that he couldn't have been dead long; I touched his hand and it was still quite warm. It was just horrible, M. Poirot. Horrible!’

She shuddered again at the remembrance.

‘And then?’ said Poirot, looking at her keenly.

Lily Margrave nodded.

‘Yes, M. Poirot, I know what you are thinking. Why didn't I give the alarm and raise the house? I should have done so, I know, but it came over me in a flash, as I knelt there, that my quarrel with Sir Reuben, my stealing out to meet Humphrey, the fact that I was being sent away on the morrow, made a fatal sequence. They would say that I had let Humphrey in, and that Humphrey had killed Sir Reuben out of revenge. If I said that I had seen Charles Leverson leaving the room, no one would believe me.

‘It was terrible, M. Poirot! I knelt there, and thought and thought, and the more I thought the more my nerve failed me. Presently I noticed Sir Reuben's keys which had dropped from his pocket as he fell. Among them was the key of the safe, the combination word I already knew, since Lady Astwell had mentioned it once in my hearing. I went over to that safe, M. Poirot, unlocked it and rummaged through the papers I found there.

‘In the end I found what I was looking for. Humphrey had been perfectly right. Sir Reuben was behind the Mpala Gold Fields, and he had deliberately swindled Humphrey. That made it all the worse. It gave a perfectly definite motive for Humphrey having committed the crime. I put the papers back in the safe, left the key in the door of it, and went straight upstairs to my room. In the morning I pretended to be surprised and horror-stricken, like everyone else, when the housemaid discovered the body.’

She stopped and looked piteously across at Poirot.

‘You do believe me, M. Poirot. Oh, do say you believe me!’

‘I believe you, Mademoiselle,’ said Poirot; ‘you have explained many things that puzzled me. Your absolute certainty, for one thing, that Charles Leverson had committed the crime, and at the same time your persistent efforts to keep me from coming down here.’

Lily nodded.

‘I was afraid of you,’ she admitted frankly. ‘Lady Astwell could not know, as I did, that Charles was guilty, and I couldn't say anything. I hoped against hope that you would refuse to take the case.’

‘But for that obvious anxiety on your part, I might have done so,’ said Poirot dryly.

Lily looked at him swiftly, her lips trembled a little.

‘And now, M. Poirot, what — what are you going to do?’

‘As far as you are concerned, Mademoiselle, nothing. I believe your story, and I accept it. The next step is to go to London and see Inspector Miller.’

‘And then?’ asked Lily.

‘And then,’ said Poirot, ‘we shall see.’

Outside the door of the study he looked once more at the little square of stained green chiffon which he held in his hand.

‘Amazing,’ he murmured to himself complacently, ‘the ingenuity of Hercule Poirot.’

Detective-Inspector Miller was not particularly fond of M. Hercule Poirot. He did not belong to that small band of inspectors at the Yard who welcomed the little Belgian's cooperation. He was wont to say that Hercule Poirot was much over-rated. In this case he felt pretty sure of himself, and greeted Poirot with high good humour in consequence.

‘Acting for Lady Astwell, are you? Well, you have taken up a mare's nest in that case.’

‘There is, then, no possible doubt about the matter?’

Miller winked. ‘Never was a clearer case, short of catching a murderer absolutely red-handed.’

‘M. Leverson has made a statement, I understand?’

‘He had better have kept his mouth shut,’ said the detective. ‘He repeats over and over again that he went straight up to his room and never went near his uncle. That's a fool story on the face of it.’

‘It is certainly against the weight of evidence,’ murmured Poirot. ‘How does he strike you, this young M. Leverson?’

‘Darned young fool.’

‘A weak character, eh?’

The inspector nodded.

‘One would hardly think a young man of that type would have the — how do you say it — the bowels to commit such a crime.’

‘On the face of it, no,’ agreed the inspector. ‘But, bless you, I have come across the same thing many times. Get a weak, dissipated young man into a corner, fill him up with a drop too much to drink, and for a limited amount of time you can turn him into a fire-eater. A weak man in a corner is more dangerous than a strong man.’

‘That is true, yes; that is true what you say.’

Miller unbent a little further.

‘Of course, it is all right for you, M. Poirot,’ he said. ‘You get your fees just the same, and naturally you have to make a pretence of examining the evidence to satisfy her ladyship. I can understand all that.’

‘You understand such interesting things,’ murmured Poirot, and took his leave.

His next call was upon the solicitor representing Charles Leverson. Mr Mayhew was a thin, dry, cautious gentleman. He received Poirot with reserve. Poirot, however, had his own ways of inducing confidence. In ten minutes' time the two were talking together amicably.

‘You will understand,’ said Poirot, ‘I am acting in this case solely on behalf of Mr Leverson. That is Lady Astwell's wish. She is convinced that he is not guilty.’

‘Yes, yes, quite so,’ said Mr Mayhew without enthusiasm.

Poirot's eyes twinkled. ‘You do not perhaps attach much importance to the opinions of Lady Astwell?’ he suggested.

‘She might be just as sure of his guilt tomorrow,’ said the lawyer dryly.

‘Her intuitions are not evidence certainly,’ agreed Poirot, ‘and on the face of it the case looks very black against this poor young man.’

‘It is a pity he said what he did to the police,’ said the lawyer; ‘it will be no good his sticking to that story.’

‘Has he stuck to it with you?’ inquired Poirot.

Mayhew nodded. ‘It never varies an iota. He repeats it like a parrot.’

‘And that is what destroys your faith in him,’ mused the other. ‘Ah, don't deny it,’ he added quickly, holding up an arresting hand. ‘I see it only too plainly. In your heart you believe him guilty. But listen now to me, to me, Hercule Poirot. I present to you a case.

‘This young man comes home, he has drunk the cocktail, the cocktail, and again the cocktail, also without doubt the English whisky and soda many times. He is full of, what you call it? the courage Dutch, and in that mood he let himself into the house with his latch-key, and he goes with unsteady steps up to the Tower room. He looks in at the door and sees in the dim light his uncle, apparently bending over the desk.

‘M. Leverson is full, as we have said, of the courage Dutch. He lets himself go, he tells his uncle just what he thinks of him. He defies him, he insults him, and the more his uncle does not answer back, the more he is encouraged to go on, to repeat himself, to say the same thing over and over again, and each time more loudly. But at last the continued silence of his uncle awakens an apprehension. He goes nearer to him, he lays his hand on his uncle's shoulder, and his uncle's figure crumples under his touch and sinks in a heap to the ground.

‘He is sobered then, this M. Leverson. The chair falls with a crash, and he bends over Sir Reuben. He realizes what has happened, he looks at his hand covered with something warm and red. He is in a panic then, he would give anything on earth to recall the cry which has just sprung from his lips, echoing through the house. Mechanically he picks up the chair, then he hastens out through the door and listens. He fancies he hears a sound, and immediately, automatically, he pretends to be speaking to his uncle through the open door.

‘The sound is not repeated. He is convinced he has been mistaken in thinking he heard one. Now all is silence, he creeps up to his room, and at once it occurs to him how much better it will be if he pretends never to have been near his uncle that night. So he tells his story. Parsons at that time, remember, has said nothing of what he heard. When he does do so, it is too late for M. Leverson to change. He is stupid, and he is obstinate, he sticks to his story. Tell me, Monsieur, is that not possible?’

‘Yes,’ said the lawyer, ‘I suppose in the way you put it that it is possible.’

Poirot rose to his feet.

‘You have the privilege of seeing M. Leverson,’ he said. ‘Put to him the story I have told you, and ask him if it is not true.’

Outside the lawyer's office, Poirot hailed a taxi.

‘Three-four-eight Harley Street,’ he murmured to the driver.

Poirot's departure for London had taken Lady Astwell by surprise, for the little man had not made any mention of what he proposed doing. On his return, after an absence of twenty-four hours, he was informed by Parsons that Lady Astwell would like to see him as soon as possible. Poirot found the lady in her own boudoir. She was lying down on the divan, her head propped up by cushions, and she looked startlingly ill and haggard; far more so than she had done on the day Poirot arrived.

‘So you have come back, M. Poirot?’

‘I have returned, Madame.’

‘You went to London?’

Poirot nodded.

‘You didn't tell me you were going,’ said Lady Astwell sharply.

‘A thousand apologies, Madame, I am in error, I should have done so. La prochaine fois —’

‘You will do exactly the same,’ interrupted Lady Astwell with a shrewd touch of humour. ‘Do things first and tell people afterwards, that is your motto right enough.’

‘Perhaps it has also been Madame's motto?’ His eyes twinkled.

‘Now and then, perhaps,’ admitted the other. ‘What did you go up to London for, M. Poirot? You can tell me now, I suppose?’

‘I had an interview with the good Inspector Miller, and also with the excellent Mr Mayhew.’

Lady Astwell's eyes searched his face.

‘And you think, now —?’ she said slowly.

Poirot's eyes were fixed on her steadily.

‘That there is a possibility of Charles Leverson's innocence,’ he said gravely.

‘Ah!’ Lady Astwell moved suddenly, sending two cushions rolling to the ground. ‘I was right, then, I was right!’

‘I said a possibility, Madame, that is all.’

Something in his tone seemed to strike her. She raised herself on one elbow and regarded him piercingly.

‘Can I do anything?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he nodded his head, ‘you can tell me, Lady Astwell, why you suspect Owen Trefusis.’

‘I have told you I know — that's all.’

‘Unfortunately, that is not enough,’ said Poirot dryly. ‘Cast your mind back to the fatal evening, Madame. Remember each detail, each tiny happening. What did you notice or observe about the secretary? I, Hercule Poirot, tell you there must have been something.’

Lady Astwell shook her head.

‘I hardly noticed him at all that evening,’ she said, ‘and I certainly was not thinking of him.’

‘Your mind was taken up by something else?’

‘Yes.’

‘With your husband's animus against Miss Lily Margrave?’

‘That's right,’ said Lady Astwell, nodding her head; ‘you seem to know all about it, M. Poirot.’

‘Me, I know everything,’ declared the little man with an absurdly grandiose air.

‘I am fond of Lily, M. Poirot; you have seen that for yourself. Reuben began kicking up a rumpus about some reference or other of hers. Mind you, I don't say she hadn't cheated about it. She had. But, bless you, I have done many worse things than that in the old days. You have got to be up to all sorts of tricks to get around theatrical managers. There is nothing I wouldn't have written, or said, or done, in my time.

‘Lily wanted this job, and she put in a lot of slick work that was not quite — well, quite the thing, you know. Men are so stupid about that sort of thing; Lily really might have been a bank clerk absconding with millions for the fuss he made about it. I was terribly worried all the evening, because, although I could usually get round Reuben in the end, he was terribly pigheaded at times, poor darling. So of course I hadn't time to go noticing secretaries, not that one does notice Mr Trefusis much, anyway. He is just there and that's all there is to it.’

‘I have noticed that fact about M. Trefusis,’ said Poirot. ‘His is not a personality that stands forth, that shines, that hits you cr-r-rack.’

‘No,’ said Lady Astwell, ‘he is not like Victor.’

‘M. Victor Astwell is, I should say, explosive.’

‘That is a splendid word for him,’ said Lady Astwell. ‘He explodes all over the house, like one of those thingimyjig firework things.’

‘A somewhat quick temper, I should imagine?’ suggested Poirot.

‘Oh, he's a perfect devil when roused,’ said Lady Astwell, ‘but bless you, I'm not afraid of him. All bark and no bite to Victor.’

Poirot looked at the ceiling.

‘And you can tell me nothing about the secretary that evening?’ he murmured gently.

‘I tell you, M. Poirot, I know. It's intuition. A woman's intuition —’

‘Will not hang a man,’ said Poirot, ‘and what is more to the point, it will not save a man from being hanged. Lady Astwell, if you sincerely believe that M. Leverson is innocent, and that your suspicions of the secretary are well-founded, will you consent to a little experiment?’

‘What kind of an experiment?’ demanded Lady Astwell suspiciously.

‘Will you permit yourself to be put into a condition of hypnosis?’

‘Whatever for?’

Poirot leaned forward.

‘If I were to tell you, Madame, that your intuition is based on certain facts recorded subconsciously, you would probably be sceptical. I will only say, then, that this experiment I propose may be of great importance to that unfortunate young man, Charles Leverson. You will not refuse?’

‘Who is going to put me into a trance?’ demanded Lady Astwell suspiciously. ‘You?’

‘A friend of mine, Lady Astwell, arrives, if I mistake not, at this very minute. I hear the wheels of the car outside.’

‘Who is he?’

‘A Doctor Cazalet of Harley Street.’

‘Is he — all right?’ asked Lady Astwell apprehensively.

‘He is not a quack, Madame, if that is what you mean. You can trust yourself in his hands quite safely.’

‘Well,’ said Lady Astwell with a sigh, ‘I think it is all bunkum, but you can try if you like. Nobody is going to say that I stood in your way.’

‘A thousand thanks, Madame.’

Poirot hurried from the room. In a few minutes he returned ushering in a cheerful, round-faced little man, with spectacles, who was very upsetting to Lady Astwell's conception of what a hypnotist should look like. Poirot introduced them.

‘Well,’ said Lady Astwell good-humouredly, ‘how do we start this tomfoolery?’

‘Quite simple, Lady Astwell, quite simple,’ said the little doctor. ‘Just lean back, so — that's right, that's right. No need to be uneasy.’

‘I am not in the least uneasy,’ said Lady Astwell. ‘I should like to see anyone hypnotizing me against my will.’

Doctor Cazalet smiled broadly.

‘Yes, but if you consent, it won't be against your will, will it?’ he said cheerfully. ‘That's right. Turn off that other light, will you, M. Poirot? Just let yourself go to sleep, Lady Astwell.’

He shifted his position a little.

‘It's getting late. You are sleepy — very sleepy. Your eyelids are heavy, they are closing — closing — closing. Soon you will be asleep…’

His voice droned on, low, soothing, and monotonous. Presently he leaned forward and gently lifted Lady Astwell's right eyelid. Then he turned to Poirot, nodding in a satisfied manner.

‘That's all right,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Shall I go ahead?’

‘If you please.’

The doctor spoke out sharply and authoritatively: ‘You are asleep, Lady Astwell, but you hear me, and you can answer my questions.’

Without stirring or raising an eyelid, the motionless figure on the sofa replied in a low, monotonous voice:

‘I hear you. I can answer your questions.’

‘Lady Astwell, I want you to go back to the evening on which your husband was murdered. You remember that evening?’

‘Yes.’

‘You are at the dinner table. Describe to me what you saw and felt.’

The prone figure stirred a little restlessly.

‘I am in great distress. I am worried about Lily.’

‘We know that; tell us what you saw.’

‘Victor is eating all the salted almonds; he is greedy. Tomorrow I shall tell Parsons not to put the dish on that side of the table.’

‘Go on. Lady Astwell.’

‘Reuben is in a bad humour tonight. I don't think it is altogether about Lily. It is something to do with business. Victor looks at him in a queer way.’

‘Tell us about Mr Trefusis, Lady Astwell.’

‘His left shirt cuff is frayed. He puts a lot of grease on his hair. I wish men didn't, it ruins the covers in the drawing-room.’

Cazalet looked at Poirot; the other made a motion with his head.

‘It is after dinner, Lady Astwell, you are having coffee. Describe the scene to me.’

‘The coffee is good tonight. It varies. Cook is very unreliable over her coffee. Lily keeps looking out of the window, I don't know why. Now Reuben comes into the room; he is in one of his worst moods tonight, and bursts out with a perfect flood of abuse to poor Mr Trefusis. Mr Trefusis has his hand round the paper-knife, the big one with the sharp blade like a knife. How hard he is grasping it; his knuckles are quite white. Look, he has dug it so hard in the table that the point snaps. He holds it just as you would hold a dagger you were going to stick into someone. There, they have gone out together now. Lily has got her green evening dress on; she looks so pretty in green, just like a lily. I must have the covers cleaned next week.’

‘Just a minute, Lady Astwell.’

The doctor leaned across to Poirot.

‘We have got it, I think,’ he murmured; ‘that action with the paper-knife, that's what convinced her that the secretary did the thing.’

‘Let us go on to the Tower room now.’

The doctor nodded, and began once more to question Lady Astwell in his high, decisive voice.

‘It is later in the evening; you are in the Tower room with your husband. You and he have had a terrible scene together, have you not?’

Again the figure stirred uneasily.

‘Yes — terrible — terrible. We said dreadful things — both of us.’

‘Never mind that now. You can see the room clearly, the curtains were drawn, the lights were on.’

‘Not the middle light, only the desk light.’

‘You are leaving your husband now, you are saying good night to him.’

‘No, I was too angry.’

‘It is the last time you will see him; very soon he will be murdered. Do you know who murdered him, Lady Astwell?’

‘Yes. Mr Trefusis.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because of the bulge — the bulge in the curtain.’

‘There was a bulge in the curtain?’

‘Yes.’

‘You saw it?’

‘Yes. I almost touched it.’

‘Was there a man concealed there — Mr Trefusis?’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you know?’

For the first time the monotonous answering voice hesitated and lost confidence.

‘I — I — because of the paper-knife.’

Poirot and the doctor again interchanged swift glances.

‘I don't understand you, Lady Astwell. There was a bulge in the curtain, you say? Someone concealed there? You didn't see that person?’

‘No.’

‘You thought it was Mr Trefusis because of the way he held the paper-knife earlier?’

‘Yes.’

‘But Mr Trefusis had gone to bed, had he not?’

‘Yes — yes, that's right, he had gone away to his room.’

‘So he couldn't have been behind the curtain in the window?’

‘No — no, of course not, he wasn't there.’

‘He had said good night to your husband some time before, hadn't he?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you didn't see him again?’

‘No.’

She was stirring now, throwing herself about, moaning faintly.

‘She is coming out,’ said the doctor. ‘Well, I think we have got all we can, eh?’

Poirot nodded. The doctor leaned over Lady Astwell.

‘You are waking,’ he murmured softly. ‘You are waking now. In another minute you will open your eyes.’

The two men waited, and presently Lady Astwell sat upright and stared at them both.

‘Have I been having a nap?’

‘That's it, Lady Astwell, just a little sleep,’ said the doctor.

She looked at him.

‘Some of your hocus-pocus, eh?’

‘You don't feel any the worse, I hope,’ he asked.

Lady Astwell yawned.

‘I feel rather tired and done up.’

The doctor rose.

‘I will ask them to send you up some coffee,’ he said, ‘and we will leave you for the present.’

‘Did I — say anything?’ Lady Astwell called after them as they reached the door.

Poirot smiled back at her.

‘Nothing of great importance, Madame. You informed us that the drawing-room covers needed cleaning.’

‘So they do,’ said Lady Astwell. ‘You needn't have put me into a trance to get me to tell you that.’ She laughed good-humouredly. ‘Anything more?’

‘Do you remember M. Trefusis picking up a paper-knife in the drawing-room that night?’ asked Poirot.

‘I don't know, I'm sure,’ said Lady Astwell. ‘He may have done so.’

‘Does a bulge in the curtain convey anything to you?’

Lady Astwell frowned.

‘I seem to remember,’ she said slowly. ‘No — it's gone, and yet —’

‘Do not distress yourself, Lady Astwell,’ said Poirot quickly, ‘it is of no importance — of no importance whatever.’

The doctor went with Poirot to the latter's room.

‘Well,’ said Cazalet, ‘I think this explains things pretty clearly. No doubt when Sir Reuben was dressing down the secretary, the latter grabbed tight hold on a paper-knife, and had to exercise a good deal of self-control to prevent himself answering back. Lady Astwell's conscious mind was wholly taken up with the problem of Lily Margrave, but her subconscious mind noticed and misconstrued the action.

‘It implanted in her the firm conviction that Trefusis murdered Sir Reuben. Now we come to the bulge in the curtain. That is interesting. I take it from what you have told me of the Tower room that the desk was right in the window. There are curtains across that window, of course?’

‘Yes, mon ami, black velvet curtains.’

‘And there is room in the embrasure of the window for anyone to remain concealed behind them?’

‘There would be just room, I think.’

‘Then there seems at least a possibility,’ said the doctor slowly, ‘that someone was concealed in the room, but if so it could not be the secretary, since they both saw him leave the room. It could not be Victor Astwell, for Trefusis met him going out, and it could not be Lily Margrave. Whoever it was must have been concealed there before Sir Reuben entered the room that evening. You have told me pretty well how the land lies. Now what about Captain Naylor? Could it have been he who was concealed there?’

‘It is always possible,’ admitted Poirot. ‘He certainly dined at the hotel, but how soon he went out afterwards is difficult to fix exactly. He returned about half-past twelve.’

‘Then it might have been he,’ said the doctor, ‘and if so, he committed the crime. He had the motive, and there was a weapon near at hand. You don't seem satisfied with the idea, though?’

‘Me, I have other ideas,’ confessed Poirot. ‘Tell me now, M. le Docteur, supposing for one minute that Lady Astwell herself had committed this crime, would she necessarily betray the fact in the hypnotic state?’

The doctor whistled.

‘So that's what you are getting at? Lady Astwell is the criminal, eh? Of course — it is possible; I never thought of it till this minute. She was the last to be with him, and no one saw him alive afterwards. As to your question, I should be inclined to say — no. Lady Astwell would go into the hypnotic state with a strong mental reservation to say nothing of her own part in the crime. She would answer my questions truthfully, but she would be dumb on that one point. Yet I should hardly have expected her to be so insistent on Mr Trefusis's guilt.’

‘I comprehend,’ said Poirot. ‘But I have not said that I believe Lady Astwell to be the criminal. It is a suggestion, that is all.’

‘It is an interesting case,’ said the doctor after a minute or two. ‘Granting Charles Leverson is innocent, there are so many possibilities, Humphrey Naylor, Lady Astwell, and even Lily Margrave.’

‘There is another you have not mentioned,’ said Poirot quietly, ‘Victor Astwell. According to his own story, he sat in his room with the door open waiting for Charles Leverson's return, but we have only his own word for it, you comprehend?’

‘He is the bad-tempered fellow, isn't he?’ asked the doctor. ‘The one you told me about?’

‘That is so,’ agreed Poirot.

The doctor rose to his feet.

‘Well, I must be getting back to town. You will let me know how things shape, won't you?’

After the doctor had left, Poirot pulled the bell for George.

‘A cup of tisane, George. My nerves are much disturbed.’

‘Certainly, sir,’ said George. ‘I will prepare it immediately.’

Ten minutes later he brought a steaming cup to his master. Poirot inhaled the noxious fumes with pleasure. As he sipped it, he soliloquized aloud.

‘The chase is different all over the world. To catch the fox you ride hard with the dogs. You shout, you run, it is a matter of speed. I have not shot the stag myself, but I understand that to do so you crawl for many long, long hours upon your stomach. My friend Hastings has recounted the affair to me. Our method here, my good George, must be neither of these. Let us reflect upon the household cat. For many long, weary hours, he watches the mouse hole, he makes no movement, he betrays no energy, but — he does not go away.’

He sighed and put the empty cup down on its saucer.

‘I told you to pack for a few days. Tomorrow, my good George, you will go to London and bring down what is necessary for a fortnight.’

‘Very good, sir,’ said George. As usual he displayed no emotion.

The apparently permanent presence of Hercule Poirot at Mon Repos was disquieting to many people. Victor Astwell remonstrated with his sister-in-law about it.

‘It's all very well, Nancy. You don't know what fellows of that kind are like. He has found jolly comfortable quarters here, and he is evidently going to settle down comfortably for about a month, charging you several guineas a day all the while.’

Lady Astwell's reply was to the effect that she could manage her own affairs without interference.

Lily Margrave tried earnestly to conceal her perturbation. At the time, she had felt sure that Poirot believed her story. Now she was not so certain.

Poirot did not play an entirely quiescent game. On the fifth day of his sojourn he brought down a small thumbograph album to dinner. As a method of getting the thumbprints of the household, it seemed a rather clumsy device, yet not perhaps so clumsy as it seemed, since no one could afford to refuse his thumbprints. Only after the little man had retired to bed did Victor Astwell state his views.

‘You see what it means, Nancy. He is out after one of us.’

‘Don't be absurd, Victor.’

‘Well, what other meaning could that blinking little book of his have?’

‘M. Poirot knows what he is doing,’ said Lady Astwell complacently, and looked with some meaning at Owen Trefusis.

On another occasion, Poirot introduced the game of tracing footprints on a sheet of paper. The following morning, going with his soft cat-like tread into the library, the detective startled Owen Trefusis, who leaped from his chair as though he had been shot.

‘You must really excuse me, M. Poirot,’ he said primly, ‘but you have us on the jump.’

‘Indeed, how is that?’ demanded the little man innocently.

‘I will admit,’ said the secretary, ‘that I thought the case against Charles Leverson utterly overwhelming, You apparently do not find it so.’

Poirot was standing looking out of the window. He turned suddenly to the other.

‘I shall tell you something, M. Trefusis — in confidence.’

‘Yes?’

Poirot seemed in no hurry to begin. He waited a minute, hesitating. When he did speak, his opening words were coincident with the opening and shutting of the front door. For a man saying something in confidence, he spoke rather loudly, his voice drowning the sound of a footstep in the hall outside.

‘I shall tell you this in confidence, Mr Trefusis. There is new evidence. It goes to prove that when Charles Leverson entered the Tower room that night, Sir Reuben was already dead.’

The secretary stared at him.

‘But what evidence? Why have we not heard of it?’

‘You will hear,’ said the little man mysteriously. ‘In the meantime, you and I alone know the secret.’

He skipped nimbly out of the room, and almost collided with Victor Astwell in the hall outside.

‘You have just come in, eh, Monsieur?’

Astwell nodded.

‘Beastly day outside,’ he said, breathing hard, ‘cold and blowy.’

‘Ah,’ said Poirot, ‘I shall not promenade myself today — me, I am like a cat, I sit by the fire and keep myself warm.’

‘Ça marche, George,’ he said that evening to the faithful valet, rubbing his hands as he spoke, ‘they are on the tenterhooks — the jump! It is hard, George, to play the game of the cat, the waiting game, but it answers, yes, it answers wonderfully. Tomorrow we make a further effect.’

On the following day, Trefusis was obliged to go up to town. He went up by the same train as Victor Astwell. No sooner had they left the house than Poirot was galvanized into a fever of activity.

‘Come, George, let us hurry to work. If the housemaid should approach these rooms, you must delay her. Speak to her sweet nothings, George, and keep her in the corridor.’

He went first to the secretary's room, and began a thorough search. Not a drawer or a shelf was left uninspected. Then he replaced everything hurriedly, and declared his quest finished. George, on guard in the doorway, gave way to a deferential cough.

‘If you will excuse me, sir?’

‘Yes, my good George?’

‘The shoes, sir. The two pairs of brown shoes were on the second shelf, and the patent leather ones were on the shelf underneath. In replacing them you have reversed the order.’

‘Marvellous!’ cried Poirot, holding up his hands. ‘But let us not distress ourselves over that. It is of no importance, I assure you, George. Never will M. Trefusis notice such a trifling matter.’

‘As you think, sir,’ said George.

‘It is your business to notice such things,’ said Poirot encouragingly as he clapped the other on the shoulder. ‘It reflects credit upon you.’

The valet did not reply, and when, later in the day, the proceeding was repeated in the room of Victor Astwell, he made no comment on the fact that Mr Astwell's underclothing was not returned to its drawers strictly according to plan. Yet, in the second case at least, events proved the valet to be right and Poirot wrong. Victor Astwell came storming into the drawing-room that evening.

‘Now, look here, you blasted little Belgian jackanapes, what do you mean by searching my room? What the devil do you think you are going to find there? That's what comes of having a ferreting little spy in the house.’

Poirot's hands spread themselves out eloquently as his words tumbled one over the other. He offered a hundred apologies, a thousand, a million. He had been maladroit, officious, he was confused. He had taken an unwarranted liberty. In the end the infuriated gentleman was forced to subside, still growling.

And again that evening, sipping his tisane, Poirot murmured to George: ‘It marches, my good George, yes — it marches.’

‘Friday,’ observed Hercule Poirot thoughtfully, ‘is my lucky day.’

‘Indeed, sir.’

‘You are not superstitious, perhaps, my good George?’

‘I prefer not to sit down thirteen at table, sir, and I am adverse to passing under ladders. I have no superstitions about a Friday, sir.’

‘That is well,’ said Poirot, ‘for, see you, today we make our Waterloo.’

‘Really, sir.’

‘You have such enthusiasm, my good George, you do not even ask what I propose to do.’

‘And what is that, sir?’

‘Today, George, I make a final thorough search of the Tower room.’

True enough, after breakfast, Poirot, with the permission of Lady Astwell, went to the scene of the crime. There, at various times of the morning, members of the household saw him crawling about on all fours, examining minutely the black velvet curtains and standing on high chairs to examine the picture frames on the wall. Lady Astwell for the first time displayed uneasiness.

‘I have to admit it,’ she said. ‘He is getting on my nerves at last. He has something up his sleeve, and I don't know what it is. And the way he is crawling about on the floor up there like a dog makes me downright shivery. What is he looking for, I'd like to know? Lily, my dear, I wish you would go up and see what he is up to now. No, on the whole, I'd rather you stayed with me.’

‘Shall I go, Lady Astwell?’ asked the secretary, rising from the desk.

‘If you would, Mr Trefusis.’

Owen Trefusis left the room and mounted the stairs to the Tower room. At first glance, he thought the room was empty, there was certainly no sign of Hercule Poirot there. He was just turning to go down again when a sound caught his ears; he then saw the little man halfway down the spiral staircase that led to the bedroom above.

He was on his hands and knees; in his left hand was a little pocket lens, and through this he was examining minutely something on the woodwork beside the stair carpet.

As the secretary watched him, he uttered a sudden grunt, and slipped the lens into his pocket. He then rose to his feet, holding something between his finger and thumb. At that moment he became aware of the secretary's presence.

‘Ah, hah! M. Trefusis, I didn't hear you enter.’

He was in that moment a different man. Triumph and exultation beamed all over his face. Trefusis stared at him in surprise.

‘What is the matter, M. Poirot? You look very pleased.’

The little man puffed out his chest.

‘Yes, indeed. See you I have at last found that which I have been looking for from the beginning. I have here between my finger and thumb the one thing necessary to convict the criminal.’

‘Then,’ the secretary raised his eyebrows, ‘it was not Charles Leverson?’

‘It was not Charles Leverson,’ said Poirot. ‘Until this moment, though I know the criminal, I am not sure of his name but at last all is clear.’

He stepped down the stairs and tapped the secretary on the shoulder.

‘I am obliged to go to London immediately. Speak to Lady Astwell for me. Will you request of her that everyone should be assembled in the Tower room this evening at nine o'clock? I shall be there then, and I shall reveal the truth. Ah, me, but I am well content.’

And breaking into a fantastic little dance, he skipped from the Tower room. Trefusis was left staring after him.

A few minutes later Poirot appeared in the library, demanding if anyone could supply him with a little cardboard box.

‘Unfortunately, I have not such a thing with me,’ he explained, ‘and there is something of great value that it is necessary for me to put inside.’

From one of the drawers in the desk Trefusis produced a small box, and Poirot professed himself highly delighted with it.

He hurried upstairs with his treasure-trove; meeting George on the landing, he handed the box to him.

‘There is something of great importance inside,’ he explained. ‘Place it, my good George, in the second drawer of my dressing-table, beside the jewel-case that contains my pearl studs.’

‘Very good, sir,’ said George.

‘Do not break it.’ said Poirot. ‘Be very careful. Inside that box is something that will hang a criminal.’

‘You don't say, sir,’ said George.

Poirot hurried down the stairs again and, seizing his hat, departed from the house at a brisk run.

His return was more unostentatious. The faithful George, according to orders, admitted him by the side door.

‘They are all in the Tower room?’ inquired Poirot.

‘Yes, sir.’

There was a murmured interchange of a few words, and then Poirot mounted with the triumphant step of the victor to that room where the murder had taken place less than a month ago. His eyes swept around the room. They were all there, Lady Astwell, Victor Astwell, Lily Margrave, the secretary, and Parsons, the butler. The latter was hovering by the door uncertainly.

‘George, sir, said I should be needed here,’ said Parsons as Poirot made his appearance. ‘I don't know if that is right, sir?’

‘Quite right,’ said Poirot. ‘Remain, I pray of you.’

He advanced to the middle of the room.

‘This has been a case of great interest,’ he said in a slow, reflective voice. ‘It is interesting because anyone might have murdered Sir Reuben Astwell. Who inherits his money? Charles Leverson and Lady Astwell. Who was with him last that night? Lady Astwell. Who quarrelled with him violently? Again Lady Astwell.’

‘What are you talking about?’ cried Lady Astwell. ‘I don't understand, I —’

‘But someone else quarrelled with Sir Reuben,’ continued Poirot in a pensive voice. ‘Someone else left him that night white with rage. Supposing Lady Astwell left her husband alive at a quarter to twelve that night, there would be ten minutes before Mr Charles Leverson returned, ten minutes in which it would be possible for someone from the second floor to steal down and do the deed, and then return to his room again.’

Victor Astwell sprang up with a cry.

‘What the hell —?’ He stopped, choking with rage.

‘In a rage, Mr Astwell, you once killed a man in West Africa.’

‘I don't believe it,’ cried Lily Margrave.

She came forward, her hands clenched, two bright spots of colour in her cheeks.

‘I don't believe it,’ repeated the girl. She came close to Victor Astwell's side.

‘It's true, Lily,’ said Astwell, ‘but there are things this man doesn't know. The fellow I killed was a witchdoctor who had just massacred fifteen children. I consider that I was justified.’

Lily came up to Poirot.

‘M. Poirot,’ she said earnestly, ‘you are wrong. Because a man has a sharp temper, because he breaks out and says all kinds of things, that is not any reason why he should do a murder. I know — I know, I tell you — that Mr Astwell is incapable of such a thing.’

Poirot looked at her, a very curious smile on his face. Then he took her hand in his and patted it gently.

‘You see, Mademoiselle,’ he said gently, ‘you also have your intuitions. So you believe in Mr Astwell, do you?’

Lily spoke quietly.

‘Mr Astwell is a good man,’ she said, ‘and he is honest. He had nothing to do with the inside work of the Mpala Gold Fields. He is good through and through, and — I have promised to marry him.’

Victor Astwell came to her side and took her other hand.

‘Before God, M. Poirot,’ he said, ‘I didn't kill my brother.’

‘I know you did not,’ said Poirot.

His eyes swept around the room.

‘Listen, my friends. In an hypnotic trance, Lady Astwell mentioned having seen a bulge in the curtain that night.’

Everyone's eyes swept to the window.

‘You mean there was a burglar concealed there?’ exclaimed Victor Astwell. ‘What a splendid solution!’

‘Ah!’ said Poirot gently. ‘But it was not that curtain.’

He wheeled around and pointed to the curtain that masked the little staircase.

‘Sir Reuben used the bedroom the night prior to the crime. He breakfasted in bed, and he had Mr Trefusis up there to give him instructions. I don't know what it was that Mr Trefusis left in that bedroom, but there was something. When he said good night to Sir Reuben and Lady Astwell, he remembered this thing and ran up the stairs to fetch it. I don't think either the husband or wife noticed him, for they had already begun a violent discussion. They were in the middle of this quarrel when Mr Trefusis came down the stairs again.

‘The things they were saying to each other were of so intimate and personal a nature that Mr Trefusis was placed in a very awkward position. It was clear to him that they imagined he had left the room some time ago. Fearing to arouse Sir Reuben's anger against himself, he decided to remain where he was and slip out later. He stayed there behind the curtain, and as Lady Astwell left the room she subconsciously noticed the outline of his form there.

‘When Lady Astwell had left the room, Trefusis tried to steal out unobserved, but Sir Reuben happened to turn his head, and became aware of the secretary's presence. Already in a bad temper, Sir Reuben hurled abuse at his secretary, and accused him of deliberately eavesdropping and spying.

‘Messieurs and Mesdames, I am a student of psychology. All through this case I have looked, not for the bad-tempered man or woman, for bad temper is its own safety valve. He who can bark does not bite. No, I have looked for the good-tempered man, for the man who is patient and self-controlled, for the man who for nine years has played the part of the under dog. There is no strain so great as that which has endured for years, there is no resentment like that which accumulates slowly.

‘For nine years Sir Reuben has bullied and brow-beaten his secretary, and for nine years that man has endured in silence. But there comes a day when at last the strain reaches its breaking point. Something snaps! It was so that night. Sir Reuben sat down at his desk again, but the secretary, instead of turning humbly and meekly to the door, picks up the heavy wooden club, and strikes down the man who had bullied him once too often.’

He turned to Trefusis, who was staring at him as though turned to stone.

‘It was so simple, your alibi. Mr Astwell thought you were in your room, but no one saw you go there. You were just stealing out after striking down Sir Reuben when you heard a sound, and you hastened back to cover, behind the curtain. You were behind there when Charles Leverson entered the room, you were there when Lily Margrave came. It was not till long after that that you crept up through a silent house to your bedroom. Do you deny it?’

Trefusis began to stammer.

‘I — I never —’

‘Ah! Let us finish this. For two weeks now I have played the comedy. I have showed you the net closing slowly around you. The fingerprints, footprints, the search of your room with the things artistically replaced. I have struck terror into you with all of this; you have lain awake at night fearing and wondering; did you leave a fingerprint in the room or a footprint somewhere?

‘Again and again you have gone over the events of that night wondering what you have done or left undone, and so I brought you to the state where you made a slip. I saw the fear leap into your eyes today when I picked up something from the stairs where you had stood hidden that night. Then I made a great parade, the little box, the entrusting of it to George, and I go out.’

Poirot turned towards the door.

‘George?’

‘I am here, sir.’

The valet came forward.

‘Will you tell these ladies and gentlemen what my instructions were?’

‘I was to remain concealed in the wardrobe in your room, sir, having placed the cardboard box where you told me to. At half-past three this afternoon, sir, Mr Trefusis entered the room; he went to the drawer and took out the box in question.’

‘And in that box,’ continued Poirot, ‘was a common pin. Me, I speak always the truth. I did pick up something on the stairs this morning. That is your English saying, is it not? “See a pin and pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck.” Me, I have had good luck, I have found the murderer.’

He turned to the secretary.

‘You see?’ he said gently. ‘You betrayed yourself.’

Suddenly Trefusis broke down. He sank into a chair sobbing, his face buried in his hands.

‘I was mad,’ he groaned. ‘I was mad. But, oh, my God, he badgered and bullied me beyond bearing. For years I had hated and loathed him.’

‘I knew!’ cried Lady Astwell.

She sprang forward, her face irradiated with savage triumph.

‘I knew that man had done it.’

She stood there, savage and triumphant.

‘And you were right,’ said Poirot. ‘One may call things by different names, but the fact remains. Your “intuition”, Lady Astwell, proved correct. I felicitate you.’