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Poirot directed a sharp glance from one to the other.

"How is Lady Clarke?" he demanded.

I was admiring the faint colour in Thora Grey's cheeks and almost missed Clarke's reply.

"Pretty bad. By the way, M.Poirot, I wonder if you could see your way to running down to Devon and paying her a visit? She expressed a desire to see you before I left. Of course, she often can't see people for a couple of days at a time, but if you would risk that-at my expense, of course."

"Certainly, Mr Clarke. Shall we say the day after tomorrow?"

"Good. I'll let nurse know and she'll arrange the dope accordingly."

"For you, my child," said Poirot, turning to Mary, "I think you might perhaps do good work in Andover. Try the children."

"The children?"

"Yes. Children will not chat readily to outsiders. But you are known in the street where your aunt lived. There were a good many children playing about. They may have notived who went in and out of your aunt's shop."

"What about Miss Grey and myself?" asked Clarke. "That is, if I'm not to go to Bexhill."

"M.Poirot," said Thora Grey,"what was the postmark on the third letter?"

"Putney, mademoiselle."

She said thoughtfully:"SW15, Putney, that is right, is it not?"

"For a wonder, the newspapers printed it correctly."

"That seems to point to A B C being a Londoner."

"On the face of it, yes."

"One ought to be able to draw him," said Clarke. "M.Poirot, how would it be if I inserted an advertisement-something after these lines: A B C. Urgent, H.P. close on your track. A hundred for my silence. X.Y.Z. Nothing quite so crude as that-but you see the idea. It might draw him."

"It is a possibility-yes."

"Might induce him to try and have a shot at me."

"I think it's very dangerous and silly," said Thora Grey sharply.

"What about it, M.Poirot?"

"It can do no harm to try. I think myself that A B C will be too cunning to reply." Poirot smiled a little. "I see, Mr Clarke, that you are-if I may say so without being offensive-still a boy at heart."

Franklin Clarke looked a little abashed.

"Well," he said, consulting his notebook. "We're making a start.

A- Miss Barnard and Milly Higley

B- Mr Fraser and Miss Higley

C- Children in Andover

D- Advertisement

I don't feel any of it is much good, but it will be something to do whilst waiting."

He got up and a few minutes later the meeting had dispersed.

Chapter Nineteen By Way of Sweden

Poirot returned to his seat and sat humming a little tune to himself.

"Unfortunate that she is so intelligent," he murmured.

"Who?"

"Megan Barnard. Mademoiselle Megan. "Words," she snaps out. At once she perceives that what I am saying means nothing at all. Everybody else was taken in."

"I thought it sounded very plausible."

"Plausible, yes. It was just that she perceived.

"Didn't you mean what you said, then?"

"What I said could have been comprised into one short sentence. Instead I repeated myself ad lib without anyone but Mademoiselle Megan being aware of the fact."

"But why?"

"Eh bien-to get things going! To imbue everyove with the impression that there was work to be done! To start-shall we say-the conversations!"

"Don't you think any of these lines will lead to anything?"

"Oh, it is always possible."

He chuckled.

"In the midst of tragedy we start the comedy. It is so, is it not?"

"What do you mean?"

"The human drama, Hastings! Reflect a little minute. Here are three sets of human beings brought together by a common tragedy. Immediately a second drama commences-tout a fait a part. Do you remember my first case in England? Oh, so many years ago now. I brought together two people who loved one another-by the simple method of having one of them arrested for murder! Nothing less would have done it! In the midst of death we are in life, Hastings...Murder, I have often noticed, is a great matchmaker."

"Really, Poirot," I cried scandalized. "I'm sure none of those people was thingking of anything but-"

"Oh! my dear friend. And what about yourself?"

"I?"

"Mais oui, as they departed, did you not come back from the door humming a tune?"

"One may do that without being callous."

"Certainly, but that tune told me your thoughts."

"Indeed?"

"Yes. To hum a tune is extremely dangerous. It reveals the subconscious mind. The tune you hummed dates, I think, from the days of the war. Comme ca," Poirot sang in an abominable falsetto voice:

"Some of the time I love a brunette, Some of the tim I love a blonde (who comes from Eden by way of Sweden).

"What could be more revealing? Mais je crois que la blonde l'emporte sur la brunette!"

"Really, Poirot," I cried, blushing slightly.

"C'est tout naturel. Did you observe how Franklin Clarke was suddenly at one and in sympathy with Mademoiselle Megan? How he learned forward and looked at her? And did you also notice how very much annoyed Mademoiselle Thora Grey was about it? And Mr Donald Fraser, he-"

"Poirot," I said. "Your mind is incurably sentimental."

"That is the last thing my mind is. You are the sentimental one, Hastings."

I was about to argue the point hotly, but at that moment the door opened.

To my astonishment it was Thora Grey who entered.

"Forgive me for coming back," she said composedly. "But there was something that I think I would like to tell you, M.Poirot."

"Certainly, mademoiselle. Sit down, will you not?"

She took a seat and hesitated for just a minute as though choosing her words.

"It is just this, M.Poirot. Mr Clarke very generously gave you to understand just now that I had left Combeside by my own wish. He is a very kind and loyal person. But as a matter of fact, it is not quite like that. I was quite prepared to stay on-there is any amount of work to be done in connection with the collections. It was Lady Clarke who wished me to leave! I can make allowances. She is a very ill woman, and her brain is somewhat muddled with the drugs they give her. It makes her suspicious and fanciful. She took an unreasoning dislike to me and insisted that I should leave the house."

I could not but admire the girl's courage. She did not attempt to gloss over facts, as so many might have been tempted to do, but went straight to the point with an admirable candour. My heart went out to her in admiration and sympathy.

"I call it splendid of you to come and tell us this," I said.

"It's always better to have the truth," she said with a little smile. "I don't want to shelter behind Mr Clarke's chivalry. He is a very chivalrous man."

There was a warm glow in her words. She evidently admired Franklin Clarke enormously.

"You have been very honest, mademoiselle," said Poirot.

"It is rather a blow to me," said Thora ruefully. "I had no idea Lady Clarke disliked me so much. In fact, I always thought she was rather fond of me." She made a wry face. "One lives and learns."

She rose.

"That is all I came to say. Goodbye."

I accompanied her downstairs.

"I call that very sporting of her," I said as I returned to the room.

"She has courage, that girl."

"And calculation."

"What do you mean-calculation?"

"I mean that she has the power of looking ahead."

I looked at him doubtfully.

"She really is a lovely girl," I said.

"And wears very lovely clothes. That crepe marocain and the silver fox collar-dernier cri."

"You're a man milliner, Poirot. I never notice what people have on."

"You should join a nudist colony."

As I was about to make an indignant rejoinder, he said, with a sudden change of subject:

"Do you know, Hastings, I cannot rid my mind of the impression that already, in our conversations this afternoon, something was said that was significant. It is odd- I cannot pin down exactly what it was...Just an impression that passed through my mind...That reminds me of something I have already heard or seen or noted..."

"Something at Churston?"

"No-not at Chruston...Before that...No matter, presently it will come to me..."

He looked at me (perhaps I had not been attending very closely), laughed and began once more to hum.

"She is an angel, is she not? From Eden, by way of Sweden..."

"Poirot," I said, "Go to the devil."

Chapter Twenty Lady Clarke

There was an air of deep and settled melancholy over Combeside when we saw it again for the second time. This may, perhaps, have been partly due to the weather-it was a moist September day with a hint of autumn in the air, and partly, no doubt, it was the semi-shut-up state of the house. The downstairs rooms were closed and shuttered, and the small room into which we were shown smelt damp and airless.

A capable-looking hospital nurse came to us there pulling down her starched cuffs.

"M.Poirot?" she said briskly. "I am Nurse Capstick. I got Mr Clarke's letter saying you were coming."

Poirot inquired after Lady Clarke's health.

"Not at all bad really, all things considered."

"All things considered," I presumed, meant considering she was under sentence of death.

"One can't hope for much improvement, of course, but some new treatment has made things a little easier for her. Dr Logan is quite pleased with her condition."

"But it is true, is it not, that she can never recover?"

"Oh, we never actually say that," said Nurse Capstick, a little shocked by this plain speaking.

"I suppose her husband's death was a terrible shock to her?"

"Well, M.Poirot, if you understand what I mean, it wasn't as much of a shock as it would have been to anyone in full possession of her health and faculties. Things are dimmed for Lady Clarke in her condition."

"Pardon my asking, but was she deeply attached to her husband and he to her?"

"Oh, yes, they were a very happy couple. He was very worried and upset about her, poor man. It's always worse for a doctor, you know. They can't buoy themselves up with false hopes. I'm afraid it preyed on his mind very much to begin with."

"To begin with? Not so much afterwards?"

"One gets used to everything, doesn't one? And then Sir Carmichael had his collection. A hobby is a great consolation to a man. He used to run up to sales occasionally, and then he and Miss Grey were busy recataloguing and rearranging the museum on a new system."

"Oh, yes-Miss Grey. She has left, has she not?"

"Yes-I'm very sorry about it-but ladies do take these fancies sometimes when they're not well. And there's no arguing with them. It's better to give in. Miss Grey was very sensible about it."

"Had Lady Clarke always disliked her?"

"No-that is to say, not disliked. As a matter of fact, I think she rather liked her to begin with. But there, I mustn't keep you gossiping. My patient will be wondering what has become of us."

She led us upstairs to a room on the first floor. What had at one time been a bedroom had been turned into a cheerful-looking sitting-room.

Lady Clarke was sitting in a big armchair near the window. She was painfully thin, and her face had the grey, haggard look of one who suffers much pain. She had a slightly faraway, dreamy look, and I noticed that the pupils of her eyes were mere pin-points.

"This is M.Poirot whom you wanted to see," said Nurse Capstick in her high, cheerful voice.

"Oh, yes, M.Poirot," said Lady Clarke vaguely.

She extended her hand.

"My friend Captain Hastings, Lady Clarke."

"How do you do? So good of you both to come."

We sat down as her vague gesture directed. There was a silence. Lady Clarke seemed to have lapsed into a dream.

Presently with a slight effort she roused herself.

"It was about Car, wasn't it? About Car's death. Oh, yes."

She signed, but still in a faraway manner, shaking her head.

"We never thought it would be that way round...I was so sure I should be the first to go..." She mused a minute or two. "Car was very strong-wonderful for his age. He was never ill. He was nearly sixty-but he seemed more like fifty...Yes, very strong..."

She relapsed again into her dream. Poirot, who was well acquainted with the effects of certain drugs and of how they give their taker the impression of endless time, said nothing.

Lady Clarke said suddenly:

"Yes-it was good of you to come. I told Franklin. He said he wouldn't forget to tell you. I hope Franklin isn't going to be foolish...he's so easily taken in, in spite of having knocked about the world so much. Men are like that...They remain boys...Franklin, in particular."

"He has an impulsive nature," said Poirot.

"Yes-yes...And very chivalrous. Men are so foolish that way. Even Car-"

Her voice tailed off.

She shook her head with a febrile impatience.

"Everything's so dim...One's body is a nuisance, M.Poirot, especially when it gets the upper hand. One is conscious of nothing else-whether the pain will hold off or not-nothing else seems to matter."

"I know, Lady Clarke. It is one of the stragedies of this life."

"It makes me so stupid. I cannot even remember what it was I wanted to say to you."

"Was it something about your husband's death?"

"Car's death? Yes, perhaps...Mad, poor creature-the murderer, I mean. It's all the noise and the speed nowadays-people can't stand it. I've always been sorry for mad people-their heads must feel so queer. And then, being shut up-it must be so terrible. But what else can one do? If they kill people..." She shook her head-gently pained. "You haven't caught him yet?" she asked.