‘Thank you very much, madam,’ he said briskly. ‘If you’ll ask M. Poirot to come and speak to me here I shall be very much obliged to you.’

Mrs Oliver left the room. P.C. Hoskins inquired with interest:

‘Who’s this Monsieur Poirot, sir?’

‘You’d describe him probably as a scream,’ said Inspector Bland. ‘Kind of music hall parody of a Frenchman, but actually he’s a Belgian. But in spite of his absurdities, he’s got brains. He must be a fair age now.’

‘What about this De Sousa?’ asked the constable. ‘Think there’s anything in that, sir?’

Inspector Bland did not hear the question. He was struck by a fact which, though he had been told it several times, was only now beginning to register.

First it had been Sir George, irritated and alarmed. ‘My wife seems to have disappeared. I can’t think where she has got to.’ Then Miss Brewis, contemptuous: ‘Lady Stubbs was not to be found. She’d got bored with the show.’ And now Mrs Oliver with her theory that Lady Stubbs was hiding.

‘Eh? What?’ he asked absently.

Constable Hoskins cleared his throat.

‘I was asking you, sir, if you thought there was anything in this business of De Sousa – whoever he is.’

Constable Hoskins was clearly delighted at having a specific foreigner rather than foreigners in the mass introduced into the case. But Inspector Bland’s mind was running on a different course.

‘I want Lady Stubbs,’ he said curtly. ‘Get hold of her for me. If she isn’t about, look for her.’

Hoskins looked slightly puzzled but he left the room obediently. In the doorway he paused and fell back a little to allow Hercule Poirot to enter. He looked back over his shoulder with some interest before closing the door behind him.

‘I don’t suppose,’ said Bland, rising and holding out his hand, ‘that you remember me, M. Poirot.’

‘But assuredly,’ said Poirot. ‘It is – now give me a moment, just a little moment. It is the young sergeant – yes, Sergeant Bland whom I met fourteen – no, fifteen years ago.’

‘Quite right. What a memory!’

‘Not at all. Since you remember me, why should I not remember you?’

It would be difficult, Bland thought, to forget Hercule Poirot, and this not entirely for complimentary reasons.

‘So here you are, M. Poirot,’ he said. ‘Assisting at a murder once again.’

‘You are right,’ said Poirot. ‘I was called down here to assist.’

‘Called down to assist?’ Bland looked puzzled. Poirot said quickly:

‘I mean, I was asked down here to give away the prizes of this murder hunt.’

‘So Mrs Oliver told me.’

‘She told you nothing else?’ Poirot said it with apparent carelessness. He was anxious to discover whether Mrs Oliver had given the inspector any hint of the real motives which had led her to insist on Poirot’s journey to Devon.