‘Mon ami, it was the glove and the cigarette case—the double clue, shall we say—that worried me. Bernard Parker might easily have dropped one or the other—but hardly both. Ah, no, that would have been too careless! In the same way, if someone else had placed them there to incriminate Parker, one would have been sufficient—the cigarette case or the glove again not both. So I was forced to the conclusion that one of the two things did not belong to Parker. I imagined at first that the case was his, and that the glove was not. But when I discovered the fellow to the glove, I saw that it was the other way about. Whose, then, was the cigarette case? Clearly, it could not belong to Lady Runcorn. The initials were wrong. Mr Johnston? Only if he were here under a false name. I interviewed his secretary, and it was apparent at once that everything was clear and above board. There was no reticence about Mr Johnston’s past. The Countess, then? She was supposed to have brought jewels with her from Russia; she had only to take the stones from their settings, and it was extremely doubtful if they could ever be identified. What could be easier for her than to pick up one of Parker’s gloves from the hall that day and thrust it into the safe? But, bien sûr, she did not intend to drop her own cigarette case.’

‘But if the case was hers, why did it have “B.P.” on it? The Countess’s initials are V.R.’

Poirot smiled gently upon me.

‘Exactly, mon ami; but in the Russian alphabet, B is V and P is R.’

‘Well, you couldn’t expect me to guess that. I don’t know Russian.’

‘Neither do I, Hastings. That is why I bought my little book—and urged it on your attention.’

He sighed.

‘A remarkable woman. I have a feeling, my friend—a very decided feeling—I shall meet her again. Where, I wonder?’

Death on the Nile

Lady Grayle was nervous. From the moment of coming on board the S.S. Fayoum she complained of everything. She did not like her cabin. She could bear the morning sun, but not the afternoon sun. Pamela Grayle, her niece, obligingly gave up her cabin on the other side. Lady Grayle accepted it grudgingly.

She snapped at Miss MacNaughton, her nurse, for having given her the wrong scarf and for having packed her little pillow instead of leaving it out. She snapped at her husband, Sir George, for having just bought her the wrong string of beads. It was lapis she wanted, not carnelian. George was a fool!

Sir George said anxiously, ‘Sorry, me dear, sorry. I’ll go back and change ’em. Plenty of time.’

She did not snap at Basil West, her husband’s private secretary, because nobody ever snapped at Basil. His smile disarmed you before you began.