‘Oh, a few old people, yes. Nobody to speak to. Goodness, how I wanted that tea! That was four o’clock, as I say. I got back to the fortune-telling tent at half-past four and went on with my job. And goodness knows what I was promising the women in the end. Millionaire husbands, film stardom in Hollywood – heaven knows what. Mere journeys across the sea and suspicious dark women seemed too tame.’

‘What happened during the half-hour when you were absent – I mean, supposing people wanted to have their fortunes told?’

‘Oh, I hung a card up outside the tent. “Back at four-thirty.”’

The inspector made a note in his pad.

‘When did you last see Lady Stubbs?’

‘Hattie? I don’t really know. She was quite near at hand when I came out of the fortune-telling tent to go to tea, but I didn’t speak to her. I don’t remember seeing her afterwards. Somebody told me just now that she’s missing. Is that true?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘Oh, well,’ said Sally Legge cheerfully, ‘she’s a bit queer in the top storey, you know. I dare say having a murder here has frightened her.’

‘Well, thank you, Mrs Legge.’

Mrs Legge accepted the dismissal with promptitude. She went out, passing Hercule Poirot in the doorway.

III

Looking at the ceiling, the inspector spoke.

‘Mrs Legge says she was in the tea tent between four and four-thirty. Mrs Folliat says she was helping in the tea tent from four o’clock on but that Mrs Legge was not among those present.’ He paused and then went on, ‘Miss Brewis says that Lady Stubbs asked her to take a tray of cakes and fruit juice to Marlene Tucker. Michael Weyman says that it’s quite impossible Lady Stubbs should have done any such thing – it would be most uncharacteristic of her.’

‘Ah,’ said Poirot, ‘the conflicting statements! Yes, one always has them.’

‘And what a nuisance they are to clear up, too,’ said the inspector. ‘Sometimes they matter but in nine times out of ten they don’t. Well, we’ve got to do a lot of spade work, that’s clear.’

‘And what do you think now, mon cher? What are the latest ideas?’

‘I think,’ said the inspector gravely, ‘that Marlene Tucker saw something she was not meant to see. I think that it was because of what Marlene Tucker saw that she had to be killed.’

‘I will not contradict you,’ said Poirot. ‘The point is what did she see?’

‘She might have seen a murder,’ said the inspector. ‘Or she might have seen the person who did the murder.’

‘Murder?’ said Poirot. ‘The murder of whom?’

‘What do you think, Poirot? Is Lady Stubbs alive or dead?’

Poirot took a moment or two before he replied. Then he said: