‘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 19

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 everyone 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 à fait à 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.’