‘You’ll want to make your own inquiries, Crome,’ said the superintendent. ‘So I’ll just give you the main heads of the matter and then you can get busy right away.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Crome.

‘We’ve broken the news to her father and mother,’ said the superintendent. ‘Terrible shock to them, of course. I left them to recover a bit before questioning them, so you can start from the beginning there.’

‘There are other members of the family—yes?’ asked Poirot.

‘There’s a sister—a typist in London. She’s been communicated with. And there’s a young man—in fact, the girl was supposed to be out with him last night, I gather.’

‘Any help from the A B C guide?’ asked Crome.

‘It’s there,’ the superintendent nodded towards the table. ‘No fingerprints. Open at the page for Bexhill. A new copy, I should say—doesn’t seem to have been opened much. Not bought anywhere round here. I’ve tried all the likely stationers.’

‘Who discovered the body, sir?’

‘One of these fresh-air, early-morning colonels. Colonel Jerome. He was out with his dog about 6 am. Went along the front in the direction of Cooden, and down on to the beach. Dog went off and sniffed at something. Colonel called it. Dog didn’t come. Colonel had a look and thought something queer was up. Went over and looked. Behaved very properly. Didn’t touch her at all and rang us up immediately.’

‘And the time of death was round about midnight last night?’

‘Between midnight and 1 am—that’s pretty certain. Our homicidal joker is a man of his word. If he says the 25th, it is the 25th—though it may have been only by a few minutes.’

Crome nodded.

‘Yes, that’s his mentality all right. There’s nothing else? Nobody saw anything helpful?’

‘Not as far as we know. But it’s early yet. Everyone who saw a girl in white walking with a man last night will be along to tell us about it soon, and as I imagine there were about four or five hundred girls in white walking with young men last night, it ought to be a nice business.’

‘Well, sir, I’d better get down to it,’ said Crome. ‘There’s the café and there’s the girl’s home. I’d better go to both of them. Kelsey can come with me.’

‘And Mr Poirot?’ asked the superintendent.

‘I will accompany you,’ said Poirot to Crome with a little bow.

Crome, I thought, looked slightly annoyed. Kelsey, who had not seen Poirot before, grinned broadly.

It was an unfortunate circumstance that the first time people saw my friend they were always disposed to consider him as a joke of the first water.

‘What about this belt she was strangled with?’ asked Crome. ‘Mr Poirot is inclined to think it’s a valuable clue. I expect he’d like to see it.’

‘Du tout,’ said Poirot quickly. ‘You misunderstood me.’

‘You’ll get nothing from that,’ said Carter. ‘It wasn’t a leather belt—might have got fingerprints if it had been. Just a thick sort of knitted silk—ideal for the purpose.’