"a face." "Ah, the poor girl! She's cooped up in that studio place down at the bottom of the garden. Dr. Franklin rents it from me and he's had it all fitted up. Hutches of guinea pigs he's got there, the poor creatures, and mice and rabbits. I'm not sure that I like all this science, Captain Hastings. Ah, here's my husband." Colonel Luttrell had just come round the corner of the house. He was a very tall, attenuated old man with a cadaverous face, mild blue eyes and a habit of irresolutely tugging at his little white moustache. He had a vague, rather nervous manner. "Ah, George, here's Captain Hastings arrived." Colonel Luttrell shook hands. "You came by the five - er - forty, eh?"

"What else should he have come by?" said Mrs. Luttrell sharply. "And what does it matter anyway? Take him up and show him his room, George. And then maybe he'd like to go straight to M. Poirot - or would you rather have tea first?" I assured her that I did not want tea and would prefer to go and greet my friend. Colonel Luttrell said, "Right. Come along. I expect - er - they'll have taken your things up already - eh, Daisy?"

Mrs. Luttrell said tartly, "That's your business, George. I've been gardening. I can't see to everything."

"No, no, of course not. I - I'll see to it, my dear." I followed him up the front steps. In the doorway we encountered a grey-haired man, slightly built, who was hurrying out with a pair of field glasses. He limped, and had a boyish, eager face. He said, stammering slightly, "There's a pair of nnesting birds down by the sycamore." As we went into the hall, Luttrell said, "That's Stephen Norton. Nice fellow. Crazy about birds."

In the hall itself, a very big man was standing by the table. He had obviously just finished telephoning. Looking up, he said, "I'd like to hang, draw and quarter all contractors and builders. Never get anything done right, curse 'em." His wrath was so comical and so rueful that we both laughed. I felt attracted at once towards the man. He was very good-looking, though a man well over fifty, with a deeply tanned face. He looked as though he had led an out-of-door life, and he looked, too, the type of man that is becoming more and more rare - an Englishman of the old school, straightforward, fond of out-of-door life, and the kind of man who can command.

I was hardly surprised when Colonel Luttrell introduced him as Sir William Boyd Carrington. He had been, I knew, governor of a province in India, where he had been a signal success. He was also renowned as a first-class shot and big game hunter. The sort of man, I reflected sadly, that we no longer seemed to breed in these degenerate days.

"Aha," he said. "I'm glad to meet in the flesh that famous personage mon ami Hastings." He laughed. "The dear old Belgian fellow talks about you a lot, you know. And then, of course, we've got your daughter here. She's a fine girl."