“Yes, it is. In marriage one has got to have—well—friendships with other people. This suspicious attitude is all wrong. I—I can’t speak to a pretty woman without your jumping to the conclusion that I’m in love with her—”

He stopped. He shrugged his shoulders.

Christine Redfern said:

“You are in love with her….”

“Oh, don’t be a fool, Christine! I’ve—I’ve barely spoken to her.”

“That’s not true.”

“Don’t for goodness” sake get into the habit of being jealous of every pretty woman we come across.”

Christine Redfern said:

“She’s not just any pretty woman! She’s—she’s different! She’s a bad lot! Yes, she is. She’ll do you harm, Patrick, please, give it up. Let’s go away from here.”

Patrick Redfern stuck out his chin mutinously. He looked, somehow, very young as he said defiantly:

“Don’t be ridiculous, Christine. And—and don’t let’s quarrel about it.”

“I don’t want to quarrel.”

“Then behave like a reasonable human being. Come on, let’s go back to the hotel.”

He got up. There was a pause, then Christine Redfern got up too.

She said:

“Very well….”

In the recess adjoining, on the seat there, Hercule Poirot sat and shook his head sorrowfully.

Some people might have scrupulously removed themselves from earshot of a private conversation. But not Hercule Poirot. He had no scruples of that kind.

“Besides,” as he explained to his friend Hastings at a later date, “it was a question of murder.”

Hastings said, staring:

“But the murder hadn’t happened, then.”

Hercule Poirot sighed. He said:

“But already, mon cher, it was very clearly indicated.”

“Then why didn’t you stop it?”

And Hercule Poirot, with a sigh, said as he had said once before in Egypt, that if a person is determined to commit murder it is not easy to prevent them. He does not blame himself for what happened. It was, according to him, inevitable.

Three

Rosamund Darnley and Kenneth Marshall sat on the short springy turf of the cliff overlooking Gull Cove. This was on the east side of the island. People came here in the morning sometimes to bathe when they wanted to be peaceful.

Rosamund said:

“It’s nice to get away from people.”

Marshall murmured inaudibly:

“M—m, yes.”

He rolled over, sniffing at the short turf.

“Smells good. Remember the downs at Shipley?”

“Rather.”

“Pretty good, those days.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve not changed much, Rosamund.”

“Yes, I have. I’ve changed enormously.”

“You’ve been very successful and you’re rich and all that, but you’re the same old Rosamund.”

Rosamund murmured:

“I wish I were.”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. It’s a pity, isn’t it, Kenneth, that we can’t keep the nice natures and high ideals that we had when we were young?”

“I don’t know that your nature was ever particularly nice, my child. You used to get into the most frightful rages. You half-choked me once when you flew at me in a temper.”

Rosamund laughed. She said:

“Do you remember the day that we took Toby down to get water rats?”

They spent some minutes in recalling old adventures.