II

Hardcastle had arrived. We had had the introduction and the greetings.

We were now settled down in a companionable fashion, with Dick occa-sionally glancing surreptitiously at Poirot with the air of a man at the Zoostudying a new and surprising acquisition. I doubt if he had ever met any-one quite like Hercule Poirot before!

Finally, the amenities and politeness having been observed, Hardcastlecleared his throat and spoke.

“I suppose, M. Poirot,” he said cautiously, “that you’ll want to see—well,the whole setup for yourself? It won’t be exactly easy—” He hesitated.

“The chief constable told me to do everything I could for you. But youmust appreciate that there are difficulties, questions that may be asked,objections. Still, as you have come down here specially—”

Poirot interrupted him—with a touch of coldness.

“I came here,” he said, “because of the reconstruction and decoration ofmy apartment in London.”

I gave a horse laugh and Poirot shot me a look of reproach.

“M. Poirot doesn’t have to go and see things,” I said. “He has always in-sisted that you can do it all from an armchair. But that’s not quite true, isit, Poirot? Or why have you come here?”

Poirot replied with dignity.

“I said that it was not necessary to be the foxhound, the bloodhound, thetracking dog, running to and fro upon the scent. But I will admit that forthe chase a dog is necessary. A retriever, my friend. A good retriever.”

He turned towards the inspector. One hand twirled his moustache in asatisfied gesture.

“Let me tell you,” he said, “that I am not like the English, obsessed withdogs. I, personally, can live without the dog. But I accept, nevertheless,your ideal of the dog. The man loves and respects his dog. He indulgeshim, he boasts of the intelligence and sagacity of his dog to his friends.

Now figure to yourself, the opposite may also come to pass! The dog isfond of his master. He indulges that master! He, too, boasts of his master,boasts of his master’s sagacity and intelligence. And as a man will rousehimself when he does not really want to go out, and take his dog for awalk because the dog enjoys the walk so much, so will the dog endeavourto give his master what that master pines to have.

“It was so with my kind young friend Colin here. He came to see me, notto ask for help with his own problem; that he was confident that he couldsolve for himself, and has, I gather, done so. No, he felt concern that I wasunoccupied and lonely so he brought to me a problem that he felt wouldinterest me and give me something to work upon. He challenged me withit—challenged me to do what I had so often told him it was possible to do—sit still in my chair and—in due course—resolve that problem. It may be,I suspect it is, that there was a little malice, just a small harmless amount,behind that challenge. He wanted, let us say, to prove to me that it was notso easy after all. Mais oui, mon ami, it is true, that! You wanted to mockyourself at me—just a little! I do not reproach you. All I say is, you did notknow your Hercule Poirot.”

He thrust out his chest and twirled his moustaches.

I looked at him and grinned affectionately.

“All right then,” I said. “Give us the answer to the problem—if you knowit.”

“But of course I know it!”

Hardcastle stared at him incredulously.

“Are you saying you know who killed the man at 19, Wilbraham Cres-cent?”

“Certainly.”

“And also who killed Edna Brent?”

“Of course.”

“You know the identity of the dead man?”

“I know who he must be.”

Hardcastle had a very doubtful expression on his face. Mindful of thechief constable, he remained polite. But there was scepticism in his voice.

“Excuse me, M. Poirot, you claim that you know who killed three people.

And why?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got an open and shut case?”

“That, no.”

“All you mean is that you have a hunch,” I said, unkindly.

“I will not quarrel with you over a word, mon cher Colin. All I say is, Iknow!”

Hardcastle sighed.

“But you see, M. Poirot, I have to have evidence.”

“Naturally, but with the resources you have at your disposal, it will bepossible for you, I think, to get that evidence.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“Come now, Inspector. If you know—really know—is not that the firststep? Can you not, nearly always, go on from there?”

“Not always,” said Hardcastle with a sigh. “There are men walking abouttoday who ought to be in gaol. They know it and we know it.”

“But that is a very small percentage, is it not—”

I interrupted.

“All right. All right. You know … Now let us know too!”

“I perceive you are still sceptical. But first let me say this: To be suremeans that when the right solution is reached, everything falls into place.

You perceive that in no other way could things have happened.”

“For the love of Mike,” I said, “get on with it! I grant you all the pointsyou’ve made.”

Poirot arranged himself comfortably in his chair and motioned to the in-spector to replenish his glass.

“One thing, mes amis, must be clearly understood. To solve any problemone must have the facts. For that one needs the dog, the dog who is a re-triever, who brings the pieces one by one and lays them at—”

“At the feet of the master,” I said. “Admitted.”

“One cannot from one’s seat in a chair solve a case solely from readingabout it in a newspaper. For one’s facts must be accurate, and newspapersare seldom, if ever, accurate. They report something happened at fouro’clock when it was a quarter past four, they say a man had a sister calledElizabeth when actually he had a sister-in-law called Alexandra. And soon. But in Colin here, I have a dog of remarkable ability—an ability, I maysay, which has taken him far in his own career. He has always had a re-markable memory. He can repeat to you, even several days later, conver-sations that have taken place. He can repeat them accurately—that is, nottransposing them, as nearly all of us do, to what the impression made onhim was. To explain roughly—he would not say, ‘And at twenty past el-even the post came’ instead of describing what actually happened, namelya knock on the front door and someone coming into the room with lettersin their hand. All this is very important. It means that he heard what Iwould have heard if I had been there and seen what I would have seen.”

“Only the poor dog hasn’t made the necessary deductions?”

“So, as far as can be, I have the facts—I am ‘in the picture.’ It is yourwartime term, is it not? To ‘put one in the picture.’ The thing that struckme first of all, when Colin recounted the story to me, was its highly fantas-tic character. Four clocks, each roughly an hour ahead of the right time,and all introduced into the house without the knowledge of the owner, orso she said. For we must never, must we, believe what we are told, untilsuch statements have been carefully checked?”

“Your mind works the way that mine does,” said Hardcastle approv-ingly.

“On the floor lies a dead man — a respectable- looking elderly man.

Nobody knows who he is (or again so they say). In his pocket is a cardbearing the name of Mr. R. H. Curry, 7, Denvers Street. Metropolis Insur-ance Company. But there is no Metropolis Insurance Company. There isno Denvers Street and there seems to be no such person as Mr. Curry. Thatis negative evidence, but it is evidence. We now proceed further. Appar-ently at about ten minutes to two a secretarial agency is rung up, a MissMillicent Pebmarsh asks for a stenographer to be sent to 19, WilbrahamCrescent at three o’clock. It is particularly asked that a Miss Sheila Webbshould be sent. Miss Webb is sent. She arrives there at a few minutes be-fore three; goes, according to instructions, into the sitting room, finds adead man on the floor and rushes out of the house screaming. She rushesinto the arms of a young man.”

Poirot paused and looked at me. I bowed.

“Enter our young hero,” I said.

“You see,” Poirot pointed out. “Even you cannot resist a farcical melo-dramatic tone when you speak of it. The whole thing is melodramatic,fantastic and completely unreal. It is the kind of thing that could occur inthe writings of such people as Garry Gregson, for instance. I may mentionthat when my young friend arrived with this tale I was embarking on acourse of thriller writers who had plied their craft over the last sixtyyears. Most interesting. One comes almost to regard actual crimes in thelight of fiction. That is to say that if I observe that a dog has not barkedwhen he should bark, I say to myself, ‘Ha! A Sherlock Holmes crime!’ Sim-ilarly, if the corpse is found in a sealed room, naturally I say, ‘Ha! A Dick-son Carr case!’ Then there is my friend Mrs. Oliver. If I were to find—but Iwill say no more. You catch my meaning? So here is the setting of a crimein such wildly improbable circumstances that one feels at once, ‘This bookis not true to life. All this is quite unreal.’ But alas, that will not do here,for this is real. It happened. That gives one to think furiously, does it not?”

Hardcastle would not have put it like that, but he fully agreed with thesentiment, and nodded vigorously. Poirot went on:

“It is, as it were, the opposite of Chesterton’s, ‘Where would you hide aleaf? In a forest. Where would you hide a pebble? On a beach.’ Here thereis excess, fantasy, melodrama! When I say to myself in imitation ofChesterton, ‘Where does a middle-aged woman hide her fading beauty?’ Ido not reply, ‘Amongst other faded middle-aged faces.’ Not at all. She hidesit under makeup, under rouge and mascara, with handsome furs wrappedround her and with jewels round her neck and hanging in her ears. Youfollow me?”

“Well—” said the inspector, disguising the fact that he didn’t.

“Because then, you see, people will look at the furs and the jewels andthe coiffure and the haute couture, and they will not observe what the wo-man herself is like at all! So I say to myself—and I say to my friend Colin—Since this murder has so many fantastic trappings to distract one it mustreally be very simple. Did I not?”

“You did,” I said. “But I still don’t see how you can possibly be right.”

“For that you must wait. So, then, we discard the trappings of the crimeand we go to the essentials. A man has been killed. Why has he beenkilled? And who is he? The answer to the first question will obviously de-pend on the answer to the second. And until you get the right answer tothese two questions you cannot possibly proceed. He could be a black-mailer, or a confidence trickster, or somebody’s husband whose existencewas obnoxious or dangerous to his wife. He could be one of a dozenthings. The more I heard, the more everybody seems to agree that helooked a perfectly ordinary, well-to-do, reputable elderly man. And sud-denly I think to myself, ‘You say this should be a simple crime? Very well,make it so. Let this man be exactly what he seems—a well-to-do respectableelderly man.’” He looked at the inspector. “You see?”

“Well—” said the inspector again, and paused politely.

“So here is someone, an ordinary, pleasant, elderly man whose removalis necessary to someone. To whom? And here at last we can narrow thefield a little. There is local knowledge—of Miss Pebmarsh and her habits,of the Cavendish Secretarial Bureau, of a girl working there called SheilaWebb. And so I say to my friend Colin: ‘The neighbours. Converse withthem. Find out about them. Their backgrounds. But above all, engage inconversation. Because in conversation you do not get merely the answersto questions—in ordinary conversational prattle things slip out. People areon their guard when the subject may be dangerous to them, but the mo-ment ordinary talk ensues they relax, they succumb to the relief of speak-ing the truth, which is always very much easier than lying. And so they letslip one little fact which unbeknown to them makes all the difference.”

“An admirable exposition,” I said. “Unfortunately it didn’t happen inthis case.”

“But, mon cher, it did. One little sentence of inestimable importance.”

“What?” I demanded. “Who said it? When?”

“In due course, mon cher.”

“You were saying, M. Poirot?” The inspector politely drew Poirot back tothe subject.

“If you draw a circle round Number 19, anybody within it might havekilled Mr. Curry. Mrs. Hemming, the Blands, the McNaughtons, Miss Wa-terhouse. But more important still, there are those already positioned onthe spot. Miss Pebmarsh who could have killed him before she went out at1:35 or thereabouts and Miss Webb who could have arranged to meet himthere, and killed him before rushing from the house and giving thealarm.”

“Ah,” said the inspector. “You’re coming down to brass tacks now.”

“And of course,” said Poirot, wheeling round, “you, my dear Colin. Youwere also on the spot. Looking for a high number where the low numberswere.”

“Well, really,” I said indignantly. “What will you say next?”

“Me, I say anything!” declared Poirot grandly.

“And yet I am the person who comes and dumps the whole thing in yourlap!”

“Murderers are often conceited,” Poirot pointed out. “And there too, itmight have amused you—to have a joke like that at my expense.”

“If you go on, you’ll convince me,” I said.

I was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

Poirot turned back to Inspector Hardcastle.

“Here, I say to myself, must be essentially a simple crime. The presenceof irrelevant clocks, the advancing of time by an hour, the arrangementsmade so deliberately for the discovery of the body, all these must be setaside for the moment. They are, as is said in your immortal ‘Alice’ like‘shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings.’ The vital point isthat an ordinary elderly man is dead and that somebody wanted himdead. If we knew who the dead man was, it would give us a pointer to hiskiller. If he was a well-known blackmailer then we must look for a manwho could be blackmailed. If he was a detective, then we look for a manwho has a criminal secret; if he is a man of wealth, then we look amonghis heirs. But if we do not know who the man is—then we have the moredifficult task of hunting amongst those in the surrounding circle for a manwho has a reason to kill.

“Setting aside Miss Pebmarsh and Sheila Webb, who is there who mightnot be what they seem to be? The answer was disappointing. With the ex-ception of Mr. Ramsay who I understood was not what he seemed to be?”

Here Poirot looked inquiringly at me and I nodded, “everybody’s bonafides were genuine. Bland was a well-known local builder, McNaughtonhad had a Chair at Cambridge, Mrs. Hemming was the widow of a localauctioneer, the Waterhouses were respectable residents of long standing.

So we come back to Mr. Curry. Where did he come from? What broughthim to 19, Wilbraham Crescent? And here one very valuable remark wasspoken by one of the neighbours, Mrs. Hemming. When told that the deadman did not live at Number 19, she said, ‘Oh! I see. He just came there tobe killed. How odd.’ She had the gift, often possessed by those who are toooccupied with their own thoughts to pay attention to what others are say-ing, to come to the heart of the problem. She summed up the whole crime.

Mr. Curry came to 19, Wilbraham Crescent to be killed. It was as simple asthat!”

“That remark of hers struck me at the time,” I said.

Poirot took no notice of me.

“‘Dilly, dilly, dilly—come and be killed.’ Mr. Curry came—and he waskilled. But that was not all. It was important that he should not be identi-fied. He had no wallet, no papers, the tailor’s marks were removed fromhis clothes. But that would not be enough. The printed card of Curry, In-surance Agent, was only a temporary measure. If the man’s identity wasto be concealed permanently, he must be given a false identity. Sooner orlater, I was sure, somebody would turn up, recognize him positively andthat would be that. A brother, a sister, a wife. It was a wife. Mrs. Rival—and the name alone might have aroused suspicion. There is a village inSomerset—I have stayed near there with friends—the village of CurryRival—Subconsciously, without knowing why those two names suggestedthemselves, they were chosen. Mr. Curry—Mrs. Rival.

“So far—the plan is obvious, but what puzzled me was why our mur-derer took for granted that there would be no real identification. If theman had no family, there are at least landladies, servants, business associ-ates. That led me to the next assumption—this man was not known to bemissing. A further assumption was that he was not English, and was onlyvisiting this country. That would tie in with the fact that the dental workdone on his teeth did not correspond with any dental records here.

“I began to have a shadowy picture both of the victim and of the mur-derer. No more than that. The crime was well-planned and intelligentlycarried out—but now there came that one piece of sheer bad luck that nomurderer can foresee.”

“And what was that?” asked Hardcastle.

Unexpectedly, Poirot threw his head back, and recited dramatically:

“For want of a nail the shoe was lost,

For want of a shoe the horse was lost,

For want of a horse the battle was lost,

For want of a battle the Kingdom was lost,

And all for the want of a horse shoe nail.”

He leaned forward.

“A good many people could have killed Mr. Curry. But only one personcould have killed, or could have had reason to kill, the girl Edna.”

We both stared at him.

“Let us consider the Cavendish Secretarial Bureau. Eight girls workthere. On the 9th of September, four of those girls were out on assign-ments some little distance away—that is, they were provided with lunchby the clients to whom they had gone. They were the four who normallytook the first lunch period from 12:30 to 1:30. The remaining four, SheilaWebb, Edna Brent and two girls, Janet and Maureen, took the secondperiod, 1:30 to 2:30. But on that day Edna Brent had an accident quite soonafter leaving the office. She tore the heel off her shoe in the grating. Shecould not walk like that. She bought some buns and came back to the of-fice.”

Poirot shook an emphatic finger at us.

“We have been told that Edna Brent was worried about something. Shetried to see Sheila Webb out of the office, but failed. It has been assumedthat that something was connected with Sheila Webb, but there is no evid-ence of that. She might only have wanted to consult Sheila Webb aboutsomething that had puzzled her—but if so one thing was clear. She wantedto talk to Sheila Webb away from the bureau.

“Her words to the constable at the inquest are the only clue we have asto what was worrying her: She said something like: ‘I don’t see how whatshe said can have been true.’ Three women had given evidence that morn-ing. Edna could have been referring to Miss Pebmarsh. Or, as it has beengenerally assumed, she could have been referring to Sheila Webb. Butthere is a third possibility — she could have been referring to Miss Mar-tindale.”

“Miss Martindale? But her evidence only lasted a few minutes.”

“Exactly. It consisted only of the telephone call she had received pur-porting to be from Miss Pebmarsh.”

“Do you mean that Edna knew that it wasn’t from Miss Pebmarsh?”

“I think it was simpler than that. I am suggesting that there was no tele-phone call at all.”

He went on:

“The heel of Edna’s shoe came off. The grating was quite close to the of-fice. She came back to the bureau. But Miss Martindale, in her private of-fice, did not know that Edna had come back. As far as she knew there wasnobody but herself in the bureau. All she need do was to say a telephonecall had come through at 1:49. Edna does not see the significance of whatshe knows at first. Sheila is called in to Miss Martindale and told to go outon an appointment. How and when that appointment was made is notmentioned to Edna. News of the murder comes through and little by littlethe story gets more definite. Miss Pebmarsh rang up and asked for SheilaWebb to be sent. But Miss Pebmarsh says it was not she who rang up. Thecall is said to have come through at ten minutes to two. But Edna knowsthat couldn’t be true. No telephone call came through then. Miss Mar-tindale must have made a mistake—But Miss Martindale definitely doesn’tmake mistakes. The more Edna thinks about it, the more puzzling it is. Shemust ask Sheila about it. Sheila will know.

“And then comes the inquest. And the girls all go to it. Miss Martindalerepeats her story of the telephone call and Edna knows definitely now thatthe evidence Miss Martindale gives so clearly, with such precision as tothe exact time, is untrue. It was then that she asked the constable if shecould speak to the inspector. I think probably that Miss Martindale, leav-ing the Cornmarket in a crowd of people, overheard her asking that. Per-haps by then she had heard the girls chaffing Edna about her shoe acci-dent without realizing what it involved. Anyway, she followed the girl toWilbraham Crescent. Why did Edna go there, I wonder?”

“Just to stare at the place where it happened, I expect,” said Hardcastlewith a sigh. “People do.”

“Yes, that is true enough. Perhaps Miss Martindale speaks to her there,walks with her down the road and Edna plumps out her question. MissMartindale acts quickly. They are just by the telephone box. She says, ‘Thisis very important. You must ring up the police at once. The number of thepolice station is so and so. Ring up and tell them we are both coming therenow.’ It is second nature for Edna to do what she is told. She goes in, picksup the receiver and Miss Martindale comes in behind her, pulls the scarfround her neck and strangles her.”

“And nobody saw this?”

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

“They might have done, but they didn’t! It was just on one o’clock.

Lunchtime. And what people there were in the Crescent were busy staringat 19. It was a chance boldly taken by a bold and unscrupulous woman.”

Hardcastle was shaking his head doubtfully.

“Miss Martindale? I don’t see how she can possibly come into it.”

“No. One does not see at first. But since Miss Martindale undoubtedlykilled Edna—oh, yes—only she could have killed Edna, then she mustcome into it. And I begin to suspect that in Miss Martindale we have theLady Macbeth of this crime, a woman who is ruthless and unimaginative.”

“Unimaginative?” queried Hardcastle.

“Oh, yes, quite unimaginative. But very efficient. A good planner.”

“But why? Where’s the motive?”

Hercule Poirot looked at me. He wagged a finger.

“So the neighbours’ conversation was no use to you, eh? I found onemost illuminating sentence. Do you remember that after talking of livingabroad, Mrs. Bland remarked that she liked living in Crowdean becauseshe had a sister here. But Mrs. Bland was not supposed to have a sister. Shehad inherited a large fortune a year ago from a Canadian great-uncle be-cause she was the only surviving member of his family.”

Hardcastle sat up alertly.

“So you think—”

Poirot leaned back in his chair and put his fingertips together. He halfclosed his eyes and spoke dreamily.

“Say you are a man, a very ordinary and not too scrupulous man, in badfinancial difficulties. A letter comes one day from a firm of lawyers to saythat your wife has inherited a big fortune from a great-uncle in Canada.

The letter is addressed to Mrs. Bland and the only difficulty is that the Mrs.

Bland who receives it is the wrong Mrs. Bland—she is the second wife—not the first one—Imagine the chagrin! The fury! And then an idea comes.

Who is to know that it is the wrong Mrs. Bland? Nobody in Crowdeanknows that Bland was married before. His first marriage, years ago, tookplace during the war when he was overseas. Presumably his first wifedied soon afterwards, and he almost immediately remarried. He has theoriginal marriage certificate, various family papers, photographs of Cana-dian relations now dead—It will be all plain sailing. Anyway, it is worthrisking. They risk it, and it comes off. The legal formalities go through.

And there the Blands are, rich and prosperous, all their financial troublesover—

“And then—a year later—something happens. What happens? I suggestthat someone was coming over from Canada to this country—and that thissomeone had known the first Mrs. Bland well enough not to be deceivedby an impersonation. He may have been an elderly member of the familyattorneys, or a close friend of the family—but whoever he was, he willknow. Perhaps they thought of ways of avoiding a meeting. Mrs. Blandcould feign illness, she could go abroad—but anything of that kind wouldonly arouse suspicion. The visitor would insist on seeing the woman hehad come over to see—”

“And so—to murder?”

“Yes. And here, I fancy, Mrs. Bland’s sister may have been the rulingspirit. She thought up and planned the whole thing.”

“You are taking it that Miss Martindale and Mrs. Bland are sisters?”

“It is the only way things make sense.”

“Mrs. Bland did remind me of someone when I saw her,” said Hard-castle. “They’re very different in manner—but it’s true—there is a like-ness. But how could they hope to get away with it?” The man would bemissed. Inquiries would be made—”

“If this man were travelling abroad—perhaps for pleasure, not for busi-ness, his schedule would be vague. A letter from one place—a postcardfrom another—it would be a little time before people wondered why theyhad not heard from him. By that time who would connect a man identifiedand buried as Harry Castleton, with a rich Canadian visitor to the countrywho has not even been seen in this part of the world? If I had been themurderer, I would have slipped over on a day trip to France or Belgiumand discarded the dead man’s passport in a train or a tram so that the in-quiry would take place from another country.”

I moved involuntarily, and Poirot’s eyes came round to me.

“Yes?” he said.

“Bland mentioned to me that he had recently taken a day trip toBoulogne—with a blonde, I understand—”

“Which would make it quite a natural thing to do. Doubtless it is a habitof his.”

“This is still conjecture,” Hardcastle objected.

“But inquiries can be made,” said Poirot.

He took a sheet of hotel notepaper from the rack in front of him andhanded it to Hardcastle.

“If you will write to Mr. Enderby at 10, Ennismore Gardens, S.W. 7 hehas promised to make certain inquiries for me in Canada. He is a well-known international lawyer.”

“And what about the business of the clocks?”

“Oh! The clocks. Those famous clocks!” Poirot smiled. “I think you willfind that Miss Martindale was responsible for them. Since the crime, as Isaid, was a simple crime, it was disguised by making it a fantastic one.

That Rosemary clock that Sheila Webb took to be repaired. Did she lose itin the Bureau of Secretarial Studies? Did Miss Martindale take it as thefoundation of her rigmarole, and was it partly because of that clock thatshe chose Sheila as the person to discover the body—?”

Hardcastle burst out:

“And you say this woman is unimaginative? When she concocted allthis?”

“But she did not concoct it. That is what is so interesting. It was all there—waiting for her. From the very first I detected a pattern—a pattern Iknew. A pattern familiar because I had just been reading such patterns. Ihave been very fortunate. As Colin here will tell you, I attended this weeka sale of authors’ manuscripts. Among them were some of Garry Gregson’s.

I hardly dared hope. But luck was with me. Here—” Like a conjuror hewhipped from a drawer in the desk two shabby exercise books “—it is allhere! Among the many plots of books he planned to write. He did not liveto write this one—but Miss Martindale, who was his secretary, knew allabout it. She just lifted it bodily to suit her purpose.”

“But the clocks must have meant something originally — in Gregson’splot, I mean.”

“Oh, yes. His clocks were set at one minute past five, four minutes pastfive and seven minutes past five. That was the combination number of asafe, 515457. The safe was concealed behind a reproduction of the MonaLisa. Inside the safe,” continued Poirot, with distaste, “were the Crownjewels of the Russian Royal Family. Un tas de bêtises, the whole thing! Andof course there was a story of kinds—a persecuted girl. Oh, yes, it came invery handy for la Martindale. She just chose her local characters and ad-apted the story to fit in. All these flamboyant clues would lead—where?

Exactly nowhere! Ah, yes, an efficient woman. One wonders—he left her alegacy—did he not? How and of what did he die, I wonder?”

Hardcastle refused to be interested in past history. He gathered up theexercise books and took the sheet of hotel paper from my hand. For thelast two minutes I had been staring at it, fascinated. Hardcastle hadscribbled down Enderby’s address without troubling to turn the sheet theright way up. The hotel address was upside down in the left-hand bottomcorner.

Staring at the sheet of paper, I knew what a fool I had been.

“Well, thank you, M. Poirot,” said Hardcastle. “You’ve certainly given ussomething to think about. Whether anything will come of it—”

“I am most delighted if I have been of any assistance.”

Poirot was playing it modestly.

“I’ll have to check various things—”

“Naturally—naturally—”

Good-byes were said. Hardcastle took his departure.

Poirot turned his attention to me. His eyebrows rose.

“Eh bien—and what, may I ask, is biting you?—you look like a man whohas seen an apparition.”

“I’ve seen what a fool I’ve been.”

“Aha. Well, that happens to many of us.”

But presumably not to Hercule Poirot! I had to attack him.

“Just tell me one thing, Poirot. If, as you said, you could do all this sittingin your chair in London and could have got me and Dick Hardcastle tocome to you there, why—oh, why, did you come down here at all?”

“I told you, they make the reparation in my apartment.”

“They would have lent you another apartment. Or you could have goneto the Ritz, you would have been more comfortable there than in the Cur-lew Hotel.”

“Indubitably,” said Hercule Poirot. “The coffee here, mon dieu, the cof-fee!”

“Well, then, why?”

Hercule Poirot flew into a rage.

“Eh bien, since you are too stupid to guess, I will tell you. I am human,am I not? I can be the machine if it is necessary. I can lie back and think. Ican solve the problem so. But I am human, I tell you. And the problemsconcern human beings.”

“And so?”

“The explanation is as simple as the murder was simple. I came out ofhuman curiosity,” said Hercule Poirot, with an attempt at dignity.