"And does it not intrigue you, my friend, to see the address from which I write? It recalls old memories, does it not? Yes, I am here, at Styles. Figure to yourself, it is now what they call a guest house. Run by one of your so British old colonels - very

'old school tie' and 'Poona.' It is his wife, bien entendu, who makes it pay. She is a good manager, that one, but the tongue like vinegar, and the poor Colonel, he suffers much from it. If it were me, I would take a hatchet to her!

"I saw their advertisement in the paper, and the fancy took me to go once again to the place which first was my home in this country. At my age one enjoys reliving the past.

"Then, figure to yourself, I find here a gentleman, a baronet who is a friend of the employer of your daughter. (That phrase, it sounds a little like the French exercise, does it not?)

"Immediately I conceive a plan. He wishes to induce the Franklins to come here for the summer. I in my turn will persuade you, and we shall be all together, enfamille. It will be most agreeable. Therefore, mon cher Hastings, dépêchez vous, arrive with the utmost celerity. I have commanded for you a room with bath (it is modernized now, you comprehend, the dear old 'Styles') and disputed the price with Mrs. Colonel Luttrell until I have made an arrangement très bon marché.

"The Franklins and your charming Judith have been here for some days. It is all arranged, so make no histories. A bientôt. Yours always, Hercule Poirot." The prospect was alluring, and I fell in with my old friend's wishes without demur. I had no ties and no settled home. Of my children, one boy was in the Navy, the other married and running the ranch in the Argentine. My daughter Grace was married to a soldier and was at present in India. My remaining child, Judith, was the one whom secretly I had always loved best, although I had never for one moment understood her. A queer, dark, secretive child, with a passion for keeping her own counsel, which had sometimes affronted and distressed me. My wife had been more understanding. It was, she assured me, no lack of trust or confidence on Judith's part, but a kind of fierce compulsion. But she, like myself, was sometimes worried about the child. Judith's feelings, she said, were too intense, too concentrated, and her instinctive reserve deprived her of any safety valve. She had queer fits of brooding silence and a fierce, almost bitter power of partisanship. Her brains were the best of the family and we gladly fell in with her wish for a university education. She had taken her B.Sc. about a year ago, and had then taken the post of secretary to a doctor who was engaged in research work connected with tropical disease. His wife was somewhat of an invalid. I had occasionally had qualms as to whether Judith's absorption in her work and devotion to her employer were not signs that she might be losing her heart, but the businesslike footing of their relationship assured me.