‘We’ve a heavy evening ahead of us,’ he warned them. ‘No bridge tonight. All hands to the pumps. There are any amount of notices to print, and the big card for the Fortune Telling. What name shall we have? Madame Zuleika? Esmeralda? Or Romany Leigh, the Gipsy Queen?’

‘The Eastern touch,’ said Sally. ‘Everyone in agricultural districts hates gipsies. Zuleika sounds all right. I brought my paint box over and I thought Michael could do us a curling snake to ornament the notice.’

‘Cleopatra rather than Zuleika, then?’

Henden appeared at the door.

‘Dinner is served, my lady.’

They went in. There were candles on the long table. The room was full of shadows.

Warburton and Alec Legge sat on either side of their hostess. Poirot was between Mrs Oliver and Miss Brewis. The latter was engaged in brisk general conversation about further details of preparation for tomorrow.

Mrs Oliver sat in brooding abstraction and hardly spoke.

When she did at last break her silence, it was with a somewhat contradictory explanation.

‘Don’t bother about me,’ she said to Poirot. ‘I’m just remembering if there’s anything I’ve forgotten.’

Sir George laughed heartily.

‘The fatal flaw, eh?’ he remarked.

‘That’s just it,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘There always is one. Sometimes one doesn’t realize it until a book’s actually in print. And then it’s agony!’ Her face reflected this emotion. She sighed. ‘The curious thing is that most people never notice it. I say to myself, “But of course the cook would have been bound to notice that two cutlets hadn’t been eaten.” But nobody else thinks of it at all.’

‘You fascinate me.’ Michael Weyman leant across the table. ‘The Mystery of the Second Cutlet. Please, please never explain. I shall wonder about it in my bath.’

Mrs Oliver gave him an abstracted smile and relapsed into her preoccupations.

Lady Stubbs was also silent. Now and again she yawned. Warburton, Alec Legge and Miss Brewis talked across her.

As they came out of the dining-room, Lady Stubbs stopped by the stairs.

‘I’m going to bed,’ she announced. ‘I’m very sleepy.’

‘Oh, Lady Stubbs,’ exclaimed Miss Brewis, ‘there’s so much to be done. We’ve been counting on you to help us.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Lady Stubbs. ‘But I’m going to bed.’

She spoke with the satisfaction of a small child.

She turned her head as Sir George came out of the dining-room.

‘I’m tired, George. I’m going to bed. You don’t mind?’

He came up to her and patted her on the shoulder affectionately.

‘You go and get your beauty sleep, Hattie. Be fresh for tomorrow.’

He kissed her lightly and she went up the stairs, waving her hand and calling out:

‘Goodnight, all.’

Sir George smiled up at her. Miss Brewis drew in her breath sharply and turned brusquely away.