Hattie Stubbs shook her head.

‘Oh, no, I think it is all very boring – very stupid. There are servants and gardeners. Why should not they make the preparations?’

‘Oh, my dear.’ It was Mrs Folliat who spoke. She had come to sit on the sofa nearby. ‘Those are the ideas you were brought up with on your island estates. But life isn’t like that in England these days. I wish it were.’ She sighed. ‘Nowadays one has to do nearly everything oneself.’

Lady Stubbs shrugged her shoulders.

‘I think it is stupid. What is the good of being rich if one has to do everything oneself ?’

‘Some people find it fun,’ said Mrs Folliat, smiling at her. ‘I do really. Not all things, but some. I like gardening myself and I like preparing for a festivity like this one tomorrow.’

‘It will be like a party?’ asked Lady Stubbs hopefully.

‘Just like a party – with lots and lots of people.’

‘Will it be like Ascot? With big hats and everyone very chic?’

‘Well, not quite like Ascot,’ said Mrs Folliat. She added gently, ‘But you must try and enjoy country things, Hattie. You should have helped us this morning, instead of staying in bed and not getting up until teatime.’

‘I had a headache,’ said Hattie sulkily. Then her mood changed and she smiled affectionately at Mrs Folliat.

‘But I will be good tomorrow. I will do everything you tell me.’

‘That’s very sweet of you, dear.’

‘I’ve got a new dress to wear. It came this morning. Come upstairs with me and look at it.’

Mrs Folliat hesitated. Lady Stubbs rose to her feet and said insistently:

‘You must come. Please. It is a lovely dress. Come now!’

‘Oh, very well.’ Mrs Folliat gave a half-laugh and rose.

As she went out of the room, her small figure following Hattie’s tall one, Poirot saw her face and was quite startled at the weariness on it which had replaced her smiling composure. It was as though, relaxed and off her guard for a moment, she no longer bothered to keep up the social mask. And yet – it seemed more than that. Perhaps she was suffering from some disease about which, like many women, she never spoke. She was not a person, he thought, who would care to invite pity or sympathy.

Captain Warburton dropped down in the chair Hattie Stubbs had just vacated. He, too, looked at the door through which the two women had just passed, but it was not of the older woman that he spoke. Instead he drawled, with a slight grin: