"What I mean is, you'd got a perfectly good reason for looking through the keyhole - the key might have stuck and you just looked to see if it was clear - or - or some quite good reason - and you never for one minute expected to see what you did see ..."

For a moment or two I lost the thread of his stumbling sentences, for enlightenment had come to me. I remembered a day on a grassy knoll and Norton swinging up his glasses to see a speckled woodpecker. I remembered his immediate distress and embarrassment, his endeavours to prevent me from looking through the glasses in my turn. At the moment I had leaped to the conclusion that what he had seen was something to do with me - in fact that it was Allerton and Judith. But supposing that that was not the case? That he had seen something quite different? I had assumed that it was something to do with Allerton and Judith because I was so obsessed by them at that time that I could think of nothing else. I said abruptly:

"Was it something you saw through those glasses of yours?" Norton was both startled and relieved.

"I say, Hastings, how did you guess?"

"It was that day when you and I and Elizabeth Cole were up on that knoll, wasn't it?"

"Yes, that's right."

"And you didn't want me to see?"

"No. It wasn't - well, I mean it wasn't meant for any of us to see."

"What was it?"

Norton frowned again.

"That's just it. Ought I to say? I mean it was - well, it was spying. I saw something I wasn't meant to see. I wasn't looking for it - there really was a speckled wood-pecker - a lovely fellow, and then I saw the other thing." He stopped. I was curious, intensely curious, yet I respected his scruples. I asked:

"Was it - something that mattered?"

He said slowly:

"It might matter. That's just it. I don't know." I asked then:

"Has it something to do with Mrs. Franklin's death?" He started.

"It's queer you should say that."

"Then it has?"

"No - no, not directly. But it might have." He said slowly: "It would throw a different light on certain things. It would mean that - Oh, damn it all, I don't know what to do!"

I was in a dilemma. I was agog with curiosity, yet I felt that Norton was very reluctant to say what he had seen. I could understand that. I should have felt the same myself. It is always unpleasant to come into possession of a piece of information that has been acquired in what the outside world would consider a dubious manner.

Then an idea struck me.

"Why not consult Poirot?"

"Poirot?" Norton seemed a little doubtful.

"Yes, ask his advice."

"Well," said Norton slowly, "it's an idea. Only, of course, he's a foreigner - " He stopped, rather embarrassed.