Christine paused.

“I’d turned back and a minute after Arlena Marshall rushed past me. She looked—well, frightfully upset.”

Weston said:

“And the man? Do you know who he was?”

Christine Redfern shook her head.

She said:

“He was keeping his voice low. I barely heard what he said.”

“It didn’t suggest the voice to you of anyone you knew?”

She thought again, but once more shook her head. She said:

“No, I don’t know. It was gruff and low. It—oh, it might have been anybody’s.”

Colonel Weston said:

“Thank you, Mrs. Redfern.”

II

When the door had closed behind Christine Redfern Inspector Colgate said:

“Now we are getting somewhere!”

Weston said:

“You think so, eh?”

“Well, it’s suggestive, sir, you can’t get away from it. Somebody in this hotel was blackmailing the lady.”

Poirot murmured:

“But it is not the wicked blackmailer who lies dead. It is the victim.”

“That’s a bit of a setback, I agree,” said the Inspector. “Blackmailers aren’t in the habit of bumping off their victims. But what it does give us is this, it suggests a reason for Mrs. Marshall’s curious behaviour this morning. She’d got a rendezvous with this fellow who was blackmailing her, and she didn’t want either her husband or Redfern to know about it.”

“It certainly explains that point,” agreed Poirot.

Inspector Colgate went on:

“And think of the place chosen. The very spot for the purpose. The lady goes off in her float. That’s natural enough. It’s what she does every day. She goes round to Pixy Cove where no one ever goes in the morning and which will be a nice quiet place for an interview.”

Poirot said:

“But yes, I too was struck by that point. It is as you say, an ideal spot for a rendezvous. It is deserted, it is only accessible from the land side by descending a vertical steel ladder which is not everybody’s money, bien entendu. Moreover most of the beach is invisible from above because of the overhanging cliff. And it has another advantage. Mr. Redfern told me of that one day. There is a cave on it, the entrance to which is not easy to find but where anyone could wait unseen.”

Weston said:

“Of course, the Pixy’s Cave—remember hearing about it.”

Inspector Colgate said:

“Haven’t heard it spoken of for years, though. We’d better have a look inside it. Never know, we might find a pointer of some kind.”

Weston said:

“Yes, you’re right, Colgate, we’ve got the solution to part one of the puzzle. Why did Mrs. Marshall go to Pixy’s Cove? We want the other half of that solution, though. Who did she go there to meet? Presumably someone staying in this hotel. None of them fitted as a lover—but a blackmailer’s a different proposition.”

He drew the register towards him.

“Excluding the waiters, boots, etc., whom I don’t think likely, we’ve got the following. The American—Gardener, Major Barry, Mr. Horace Blatt, and the Reverend Stephen Lane.”

Inspector Colgate said: