‘I don’t know what you are getting at, all the same,’ I confessed. ‘You don’t suspect the manservant, do you? He might have been in with the gang, and put some dope in the coffee. I suppose they’ll test his alibi?’

‘Without doubt, my friend; but it is the alibi of Signor Ascanio that interests me.’

‘You think he has an alibi?’

‘That is just what worries me. I have no doubt that we shall soon be enlightened on that point.’

The Daily Newsmonger enabled us to become conversant with succeeding events.

Signor Ascanio was arrested and charged with the murder of Count Foscatini. When arrested, he denied knowing the Count, and declared he had never been near Regent’s Court either on the evening of the crime or on the previous morning. The younger man had disappeared entirely. Signor Ascanio had arrived alone at the Grosvenor Hotel from the Continent two days before the murder. All efforts to trace the second man failed.

Ascanio, however, was not sent for trial. No less a personage than the Italian Ambassador himself came forward and testified at the police-court proceedings that Ascanio had been with him at the Embassy from eight till nine that evening. The prisoner was discharged. Naturally, a lot of people thought that the crime was a political one, and was being deliberately hushed up.

Poirot had taken a keen interest in all these points. Nevertheless, I was somewhat surprised when he suddenly informed me one morning that he was expecting a visitor at eleven o’clock, and that the visitor was none other than Ascanio himself.

‘He wishes to consult you?’

‘Du tout, Hastings, I wish to consult him.’

‘What about?’

‘The Regent’s Court murder.’

‘You are going to prove that he did it?’

‘A man cannot be tried twice for murder, Hastings. Endeavour to have the common sense. Ah, that is our friend’s ring.’

A few minutes later Signor Ascanio was ushered in—a small, thin man with a secretive and furtive glance in his eyes. He remained standing, darting suspicious glances from one to the other of us.

‘Monsieur Poirot?’

My little friend tapped himself gently on the chest.

‘Be seated, signor. You received my note. I am determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. In some small measure you can aid me. Let us commence. You—in company with a friend—visited the late Count Foscatini on the morning of Tuesday the 9th—’

The Italian made an angry gesture.

‘I did nothing of the sort. I have sworn in court—’

‘Précisément—and I have a little idea that you have sworn falsely.’

‘You threaten me? Bah! I have nothing to fear from you. I have been acquitted.’