"But why cannot you remember - because something else put it out of your head - something more important?"

"Yes - yes - I think you're right there. It was the mention of murder, I suppose. That swept away everything else."

"It was, perhaps, the reaction of some particular person to the word

'murder'?"

"Perhaps... But I don't remember looking at anyone in particular. We were all staring at Cora."

"It may have been something you heard - something dropped perhaps... or broken..."

Helen frowned in an effort of remembrance.

"No... I don't think so..."

"Ah well, someday it will come back. And it may be of no consequence. Now tell me, Madame, of those here, who knew Cora best?"

Helen considered.

"Lanscombe, I suppose. He remembers her from a child. The housemaid, Janet, only came after she had married and gone away."

"And next to Lanscombe?"

Helen said thoughtfully: "I suppose - I did. Maude hardly knew her at all."

"Then, taking you as the person who knew her best, why do you think she asked that question as she did?"

Helen smiled.

"It was very characteristic of Cora!"

"What I mean is, was it a bêtise pure and simple? Did she just blurt out what was in her mind without thinking? Or was she being malicious - amusing herself by upsetting everyone?"

Helen reflected.

"You can't ever be quite sure about a person, can you? I never have known whether she was just ingenuous - or whether she counted, childishly, on making an effect. That's what you mean, isn't it?"

"Yes. I was thinking: Suppose this Mrs Cora says to herself 'What fun it would be to ask if Richard was murdered and see how they all look!'

That would be like her, yes?"

Helen looked doubtful.

"It might be. She certainly had an impish sense of humour as a child. But what difference does it make?"

"It would underline the point that it is unwise to make jokes about murder," said Poirot dryly.

Helen shivered. "Poor Cora."

Poirot changed the subject.

"Mrs Timothy Abernethie stayed the night after the funeral?"

"Yes."

"Did she talk to you at all about what Cora had said?"

"Yes, she said it was outrageous and just like Cora!"

"She didn't take it seriously?"

"Oh, no. No, I'm sure she didn't."

The second "no," Poirot thought, had sounded suddenly doubtful. But was not that almost always the case when you went back over something in your mind?

"And you, Madame, did you take it seriously?"

Helen Abernethie, her eyes looking very blue and strangely young under the sideways sweep of crisp grey hair, said thoughtfully:

"Yes, M. Poirot, I think I did."

"Because of your feeling that something was wrong?"

"Perhaps."

He waited - but as she said nothing more, he went on:

"There had been an estrangement, lasting many years, between Mrs Lansquenet and her family?"

"Yes. None of us liked her husband and she was offended about it, and so the estrangement grew."