‘He does not say so,’ said Mrs Folliat. ‘Of course I have not seen him lately. He has been mostly in London.’

‘And the murdered girl? There have been no developments there?’

‘Not that I know of.’ She added. ‘It seems a senseless crime – absolutely pointless. Poor child –’

‘It still upsets you, I see, to think of her, Madame.’

Mrs Folliat did not reply for a moment or two. Then she said:

‘I think when one is old, the death of anyone who is young upsets one out of due proportion. We old folks expect to die, but that child had her life before her.’

‘It might not have been a very interesting life.’

‘Not from our point of view, perhaps, but it might have been interesting to her.’

‘And although, as you say, we old folk must expect to die,’ said Poirot, ‘we do not really want to. At least I do not want to. I find life very interesting still.’

‘I don’t think that I do.’

She spoke more to herself than him, her shoulders drooped still more.

‘I am very tired, M. Poirot. I shall be not only ready, but thankful, when my time comes.’

He shot a quick glance at her. He wondered, as he had wondered before, whether it was a sick woman who sat talking to him, a woman who had perhaps the knowledge or even the certainty of approaching death. He could not otherwise account for the intense weariness and lassitude of her manner. That lassitude, he felt, was not really characteristic of the woman. Amy Folliat, he felt, was a woman of character, energy and determination. She had lived through many troubles, loss of her home, loss of wealth, the deaths of her sons. All these, he felt, she had survived. She had cut away the ‘dead wood,’ as she herself had expressed it. But there was something now in her life that she could not cut away, that no one could cut away for her. If it was not physical illness he did not see what it could be. She gave a sudden little smile as though she were reading his thoughts.

‘Really, you know, I have not very much to live for, M. Poirot,’ she said. ‘I have many friends but no near relations, no family.’

‘You have your home,’ said Poirot on an impulse.

‘You mean Nasse? Yes –’

‘It is your home, isn’t it, although technically it is the property of Sir George Stubbs? Now Sir George Stubbs has gone to London you rule in his stead.’

Again he saw the sharp look of fear in her eyes. When she spoke her voice held an icy edge to it.

‘I don’t quite know what you mean, M. Poirot. I am grateful to Sir George for renting me this lodge, but I do rent it. I pay him a yearly sum for it with the right to walk in the grounds.’

Poirot spread out his hands.