‘I’ve no patience with the lot of you,’ said Lady Clarke feebly.

‘Well, she’s gone now, my dear. Gone right away.’

Lady Clarke shook her head with feeble impatience but she did not answer.

Poirot said:

‘Why did you say that Miss Grey was a liar?’

‘Because she is. She told you no strangers came to the house, didn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

‘Very well, then. I saw her—with my own eyes—out of this window—talking to a perfectly strange man on the front doorstep.’

‘When was this?’

‘In the morning of the day Car died—about eleven o’clock.’

‘What did this man look like?’

‘An ordinary sort of man. Nothing special.’

‘A gentleman—or a tradesman?’

‘Not a tradesman. A shabby sort of person. I can’t remember.’

A sudden quiver of pain shot across her face.

‘Please—you must go now—I’m a little tired—Nurse.’

We obeyed the cue and took our departure.

‘That’s an extraordinary story,’ I said to Poirot as we journeyed back to London. ‘About Miss Grey and a strange man.’

‘You see, Hastings? It is, as I tell you: there is always something to be found out.’

‘Why did the girl lie about it and say she had seen no one?’

‘I can think of seven separate reasons—one of them an extremely simple one.’

‘Is that a snub?’ I asked.

‘It is, perhaps, an invitation to use your ingenuity. But there is no need for us to perturb ourselves. The easiest way to answer the question is to ask her.’

‘And suppose she tells us another lie.’

‘That would indeed be interesting—and highly suggestive.’

‘It is monstrous to suppose that a girl like that could be in league with a madman.’

‘Precisely—so I do not suppose it.’

I thought for some minutes longer.

‘A good-looking girl has a hard time of it,’ I said at last with a sigh.

‘Du tout. Disabuse your mind of that idea.’

‘It’s true,’ I insisted, ‘everyone’s hand is against her simply because she is good-looking.’

‘You speak the bêtises, my friend. Whose hand was against her at Combeside? Sir Carmichael’s? Franklin’s? Nurse Capstick’s?’

‘Lady Clarke was down on her, all right.’

‘Mon ami, you are full of charitable feeling towards beautiful young girls. Me, I feel charitable to sick old ladies. It may be that Lady Clarke was the clear-sighted one—and that her husband, Mr Franklin Clarke and Nurse Capstick were all as blind as bats—and Captain Hastings.’

‘You’ve got a grudge against that girl, Poirot.’

To my surprise his eyes twinkled suddenly.

‘Perhaps it is that I like to mount you on your romantic high horse, Hastings. You are always the true knight—ready to come to the rescue of damsels in distress—good-looking damsels, bien entendu.’

‘How ridiculous you are, Poirot,’ I said, unable to keep from laughing.

‘Ah, well, one cannot be tragic all the time. More and more I interest myself in the human developments that arise out of this tragedy. It is three dramas of family life that we have there. First there is Andover—the whole tragic life of Mrs Ascher, her struggles, her support of her German husband, the devotion of her niece. That alone would make a novel. Then you have Bexhill—the happy, easy-going father and mother, the two daughters so widely differing from each other—the pretty fluffy fool, and the intense, strong-willed Megan with her clear intelligence and her ruthless passion for truth. And the other figure— the self-controlled young Scotsman with his passionate jealousy and his worship of the dead girl. Finally you have the Churston household—the dying wife, and the husband absorbed in his collections, but with a growing tenderness and sympathy for the beautiful girl who helps him so sympathetically, and then the younger brother, vigorous, attractive, interesting, with a romantic glamour about him from his long travels.