‘And so the final drama was staged. Just before four o’clock Lady Stubbs told Miss Brewis to take a tea-tray down to Marlene. That was because she was afraid such an idea might occur to Miss Brewis independently, and it would be fatal if Miss Brewis should inconveniently appear at the wrong moment. Perhaps, too, she had a malicious pleasure in arranging for Miss Brewis to be at the scene of the crime at approximately the time it was committed. Then, choosing her moment, she slipped into the empty fortune-telling tent, out through the back and into the summer-house in the shrubbery where she kept her hiker’s rucksack with its change of costume. She slipped through the woods, called to Marlene to let her in, and strangled the unsuspecting girl then and there. The big coolie hat she threw into the river, then she changed into her hiker dress and make-up, packaged up her cyclamen georgette dress and high-heeled shoes in the rucksack – and presently an Italian student from the youth hostel joined her Dutch acquaintance at the shows on the lawn, and left with her by the local bus as planned. Where she is now I do not know. I suspect in Soho where she doubtless has underworld affiliations of her own nationality who can provide her with the necessary papers. In any case, it is not for an Italian girl that the police are looking, it is for Hattie Stubbs, simple, subnormal, exotic.

‘But poor Hattie Stubbs is dead, as you yourself, Madame, know only too well. You revealed that knowledge when I spoke to you in the drawing-room on the day of the fête. The death of Marlene had been a bad shock to you – you had not had the least idea of what was planned; but you revealed very clearly, though I was dense enough not to see it at the time, that when you talked of “Hattie,” you were talking of two different people – one a woman you disliked who would be “better dead,” and against whom you warned me “not to believe a word she said” – the other a girl of whom you spoke in the past tense, and whom you defended with a warm affection. I think, Madame, that you were very fond of poor Hattie Stubbs…’

There was a long pause.

Mrs Folliat sat quite still in her chair. At last she roused herself and spoke. Her voice had the coldness of ice.

‘Your whole story is quite fantastic, M. Poirot. I really think you must be mad…All this is entirely in your head, you have no evidence whatsoever.’

Poirot went across to one of the windows and opened it. ‘Listen, Madame. What do you hear?’

‘I am a little deaf…What should I hear?’