‘Can I do it for you?’

‘Oh, thank you—’ It was the sweet, empty drawl again.

‘You are kind. I’m such a fool at undoing things—I always seem to screw them the wrong way. Oh! you’ve done it! Thank you ever so much—’

Hercule Poirot smiled to himself.

He got up and wandered along the beach in the opposite direction. He did not go very far but his progress was leisurely. As he was on his way back, Mrs Gold came out of the sea and joined him. She had been swimming. Her face, under a singularly unbecoming bathing cap, was radiant.

She said breathlessly, ‘I do love the sea. And it’s so warm and lovely here.’

She was, he perceived, an enthusiastic bather.

She said, ‘Douglas and I are simply mad on bathing. He can stay in for hours.’

And at that Hercule Poirot’s eyes slid over her shoulder to the spot on the beach where that enthusiastic bather, Mr Douglas Gold, was sitting talking to Valentine Chantry.

His wife said:

‘I can’t think why he doesn’t come…’

Her voice held a kind of childish bewilderment.

Poirot’s eyes rested thoughtfully on Valentine Chantry. He thought that other women in their time had made that same remark.

Beside him, he heard Mrs Gold draw in her breath sharply.

She said—and her voice was cold:

‘She’s supposed to be very attractive, I believe. But Douglas doesn’t like that type of woman.’

Hercule Poirot did not reply.

Mrs Gold plunged into the sea again.

She swam away from the shore with slow, steady strokes. You could see that she loved the water.

Poirot retraced his steps to the group on the beach.

It had been augmented by the arrival of old General Barnes, a veteran who was usually in the company of the young. He was sitting now between Pamela and Sarah, and he and Pamela were engaged in dishing up various scandals with appropriate embellishments.

Commander Chantry had returned from his errand. He and Douglas Gold were sitting on either side of Valentine.

Valentine was sitting up very straight between the two men and talking. She talked easily and lightly in her sweet, drawling voice, turning her head to take first one man and then the other in the conversation.

She was just finishing an anecdote.

‘—and what do you think the foolish man said? “It may have been only a minute, but I’d remember you anywhere, Mum!” Didn’t he, Tony? And you know, I thought it was so sweet of him. I do think it’s such a kind world—I mean, everybody is so frightfully kind to me always—I don’t know why—they just are. But I said to Tony—d’you remember, darling—“Tony, if you want to be a teeny-weeny bit jealous, you can be jealous of that commissionaire.” Because he really was too adorable…’

There was a pause and Douglas Gold said:

‘Good fellows—some of these commissionaires.’

‘Oh, yes—but he took such trouble—really an immense amount of trouble—and seemed just pleased to be able to help me.’