‘Bon Dieu, Hastings—do you not realise? Today is the 30th.’

His eloquent hand pointed to the calendar on the wall. I caught up the daily paper to confirm it.

‘But why—how—’ I stammered.

Poirot caught up the torn envelope from the floor. Something unusual about the address had registered itself vaguely in my brain, but I had been too anxious to get at the contents of the letter to pay more than fleeting attention to it.

Poirot was at the time living in Whitehaven Mansions. The address ran: M. Hercule Poirot, Whitehorse Mansions, across the corner was scrawled: ‘Not known at Whitehorse Mansions, EC1, nor at Whitehorse Court—try Whitehaven Mansions.’

‘Mon Dieu!’ murmured Poirot. ‘Does even chance aid this madman? Vite—vite—we must get on to Scotland Yard.’

A minute or two later we were speaking to Crome over the wire. For once the self-controlled inspector did not reply ‘Oh, yes?’ Instead a quickly stifled curse came to his lips. He heard what we had to say, then rang off in order to get a trunk connection to Churston as rapidly as possible.

‘C’est trop tard,’ murmured Poirot.

‘You can’t be sure of that,’ I argued, though without any great hope.

He glanced at the clock.

‘Twenty minutes past ten? An hour and forty minutes to go. Is it likely that A B C will have held his hand so long?’

I opened the railway guide I had previously taken from its shelf.

‘Churston, Devon,’ I read, ‘from Paddington 204 3/4 miles. Population 656. It sounds a fairly small place. Surely our man will be bound to be noticed there.’

‘Even so, another life will have been taken,’ murmured Poirot. ‘What are the trains? I imagine train will be quicker than car.’

‘There’s a midnight train—sleeping car to Newton Abbot—gets there 6.8 am, and then Churston at 7.15.’

‘That is from Paddington?’

‘Paddington, yes.’

‘We will take that, Hastings.’

‘You’ll hardly have time to get news before we start.’

‘If we receive bad news tonight or tomorrow morning does it matter which?’

‘There’s something in that.’

I put a few things together in a suitcase while Poirot once more rang up Scotland Yard.

A few minutes later he came into the bedroom and demanded:

‘Mais qu’est ce que vous faites là?’

‘I was packing for you. I thought it would save time.’

‘Vous éprouvez trop d’émotion, Hastings. It affects your hands and your wits. Is that a way to fold a coat? And regard what you have done to my pyjamas. If the hairwash breaks what will befall them?’

‘Good heavens, Poirot,’ I cried, ‘this is a matter of life and death. What does it matter what happens to our clothes?’

‘You have no sense of proportion, Hastings. We cannot catch a train earlier than the time that it leaves, and to ruin one’s clothes will not be the least helpful in preventing a murder.’

Taking his suitcase from me firmly, he took the packing into his own hands.

He explained that we were to take the letter and envelope to Paddington with us. Someone from Scotland Yard would meet us there.